ENGLISH 3271 Lecture Notes - Lecture 18: Speech Community

• School: Ohio State University
• Department: English
• Course: ENGLISH 3271
• Professor: Lauren Squires

Document Summary

English is a collection of dialects of english: all languages have multiple dialects, all languages are constantly changing. A dialect is: a variety of a language spoken by a group of people that is systematically different from other varieties of the language in terms of structural or lexical features. All dialects are linguistically equivalent: all dialects are systematic and can be described via rules, all dialects are able to fully express what their speakers need them to. Speakers acquire the language variety that is spoken in the speech community they grow up in. Regional variation: regional variation reflects historical patterns of migration, divergence in geography leads to divergence of language; contact leads to convergence (sometimes)