VARIETIES OF ENGLISH.

BRITISH ENGLISH
Plan:
1. Variety. Definitions.
2. Documentation for varieties: emigrant letters, personal accounts, court
transcripts, dialect glossaries, literary satires, rhyming material, and prescriptive
comments.
3. Standard. Standardization.
4. Standard English.
5. British English. A detailed overview.
Variety. Definitions
Variety is a sociolinguistic term referring to language in context.
A variety is a set of linguistic forms used under specific social circumstances,
i.e with a distinctive social distribution.
Variety is a broad term which includes different accents, different linguistic
styles, different dialects, and even different languages which contrast with each other
for social reasons.
Variety has proved a very useful sociolinguistic term because it is
linguistically neutral and covers all the different realisations of the abstract concept
‘language’ in different social contexts.
Documentation for varieties
Varieties can be documented in a number of ways. For present-day varieties,
there are recordings of speakers often arranged as a structured corpus or atlas. For
historical stages of varieties, the material may be fragmentary with many gaps in
which case one speaks of ‘bad data’. Nonetheless, there are often different records
which, taken together, may allow one to make objective statements. The following
list indicates some sources of historical documentation for varieties.
Emigrant letters 
People who emigrated wrote back home maintaining contact with rela-tives
and friends. Because of this, letters from emigrants are available in archives today.
Such material is usually non-prescriptive, that is written in a colloquial style without
1
undue consideration of normative grammar. Hence it is a good source of information
on varieties and, when used judiciously, can be useful for linguistic analyses.
Personal accounts 
There are also documents in which speakers offer personal accounts of their
lives and experiences, for example accounts of life under slavery or in other adverse
conditions.
Court transcripts 
The depositions of witnesses or accused persons in court are not nor-mally
written in the vernacular, but some verbatim transcripts by court clerks do contain
dialect representations.
Dialect glossaries 
From the seventeenth century onwards, antiquarian interest in dialect
vocabulary can be observed. Collections of words from diverse regions of the British
Isles are available and are often a good source of dialect material. Such material is
almost entirely lexical, that is information about pronunciation and grammar is not normally
included.5.
Literary satires 
Already with Chaucer (in the fourteenth century) one finds dialect repre-
sentations used to characterize figures in literary works. This is true of Shakespeare
and Ben Jonson in the Elizabethan era. Many satires contain figures from the Celtic
regions, that is Irish, Scottish or Welsh characters, especially in drama from the
seventeenth century onwards. The accuracy of such portrayals is often doubtful and
there are limits on the linguistic features which can be represented using English
orthography.
Rhyming material 
End rhyme, in poetry and sometimes in drama, can be a source of information
on the pronunciation of vowels; for example, whether eat  and  great  or  past  and
waste  were pronounced similarly for a particular author could be determined via end
rhyme.
Prescriptive comments 
2
 From the eighteenth century onwards there are many works in  which authors
complain about regional pronunciation and grammar. This is connected  with the rise
of PRESCRIPTIVISM, that is strict notions of what is ‘correct’ in language and  what
variety was taken to be socially acceptable, and by implication what other forms were
not. Authors often cite supposedly ‘incorrect’ usage and thus inadvertently supply
information about regional varieties of English in their day.
Standard
A variety of a language which, due to historical circumstance, for example by
being the language of the capital or that used in literature and/or religion, has become
the lead variety in a country. As a result of this, the standard may be expanded due to
the increase in function which it experiences. Countries often have a term for their
standard. In England there are various terms such as
The Queen’s English,Oxford English, BBC English, Received Pronunciation.
Only the last of these finds favour with linguists.
Standardization
A process during which a variety becomes the standard in a country. This
generally lasts some centuries and is furthered by external developments such as the
rise in prestige of a capital city and the speech of the leading class there; this is the
process of ‘selec-tion’. Varieties typically become independent of their regional roots
on standardization as has happened with RECEIVED PRONUNCIATION and are
often fixed in orthography and grammar; this is the process of ‘codification’.
Standard English
A reference to a supranational form of written English which is normally used
in printing, in various documents of an official nature and which is taught to
foreigners. Spoken standard English is not a single form of the language but is
represented by the supra-regional varieties in different anglophone countries and
regions (Hickey 2012b [1.3]). The notion of standard English has been viewed
critically by a number of linguists who see in it a disguised form of prescriptivism
and discrimination (Milroy & Milroy 1999 [1]). Furthermore, standard English has
been viewed as an anglocentric development which led inevitably to RP. Other
3
scenarios have been presented in Watts & Trudgill (eds, 2001 [1]). The issues sur-
rounding a definition of standard English are a central theme in Bex & Watts (eds,
1999 [1.3]). The historical background to the rise of standard English in England and
the attendant increase in prescriptivism is treated in Cheshire & Stein (eds, 1997
[1.3]), Crowley (1989 [1.3], 1991 [1]), Wright (ed., 2000 [1.3]) and Mugglestone
(2007 [1995] [1]); Lippi-Green (2011 [1997] [5.1]) examines similar developments in
the American context.
British English. A detailed overview
A commonly found term for English in England and often used
indiscriminately for English spoken throughout the island of Britain. The difficulty is
that there is no common variety of English across England, Wales and Scotland,
especially because the latter shows varieties, along the continuum of Scottish
Standard English to Scots, which are very different from forms to the south in
England. The term ‘British English’ is often used in contrast to American English. In
this sense the reference is to non-vernacular, relatively ‘standard’  varieties in
southern England, especially in their written form.
The abbreviation RP (Received Pronunciation) denotes what is traditionally
considered the standard accent of people living in London and the southeast of
England and of other people elsewhere who speak in this way. RP is the only British
accent that has no specific geographical correlate: it is not possible, on hearing
someone speak RP, to know which part of the United Kingdom he or she comes
from. Though it is traditionally considered a “prestige” accent, RP is not intrinsically
superior to other varieties of English; it is itself only one particular accent that has,
through the accidents of history, achieved a higher status than others. Although
acquiring its unique standing without the aid of any established authority, it was
fostered by the public schools (Winchester, Eton, Harrow, Rugby, and so on) and the
ancient universities (Oxford and Cambridge). Other varieties of English are well
preserved in spite of the leveling influences of film, television, and radio. In several
Northern accents, RP /a:/ (the first vowel sound in father) is still pronounced /æ/ (a

4
sound like the a in fat) in words such as laugh, fast, and path; this pronunciation has
been carried across the Atlantic into American English.
In the words run, rung, and tongue, the RP pronunciation of the vowel is like
the u in but; in some Northern accents it is pronounced like the oo in book. In the
words bind, find, and grind, the RP pronunciation of the vowel sound is /ai/, like that
in “bide”; in some Northern accents, it is /i/, like the sound in feet. The vowel sound
in the words go, home, and know in some Northern accents is /ɔ:/, approximately the
sound in law in some American English accents. In parts of Northumberland, RP it is
still pronounced “hit,” as in Old English. In various Northern accents the definite
article the is heard as t, th, or d. In those accents in which it becomes both t and th, t
is used before consonants and th before vowels. Thus, one hears t’book but th’apple.
When, however, the definite article is reduced to t and the following word begins
with t or d, as in t’tail or t’dog, it is replaced by a slight pause as in the RP
articulation of the first t in hat trick. The RP /t∫/, the sound of the ch in church, can
become k, as in thack (“thatch, roof”) and kirk (“church”). In some Northern dialects
strong verbs retain the old past-tense singular forms band, brak, fand, spak for
standard English forms bound, broke, found, and spoke. Strong verbs also retain the
past participle inflection -en as in comen, shutten, sitten, and getten or gotten for
standard English come, shut, sat, and got.
In some Midland accents the diphthongs in throat and stone have been kept
apart, whereas in RP they have fallen together. In Cheshire, Derby, Stafford, and
Warwick, RP singing is pronounced with a g sounded after the velar nasal sound (as
in RP finger). In Norfolk one hears skellington and solintary for skeleton and
solitary, showing an intrusive n just as does messenger in RP from French messager,
passenger from French passager, and nightingale from Old English nihtegala. Other
East Anglian words show consonantal metathesis (switch position), as in singify for
signify, and substitution of one liquid or nasal for another, as in chimbly for chimney
and synnable for syllable. Hantle for handful shows syncope (disappearance) of an
unstressed vowel, partial assimilation of d to t before voiceless f, and subsequent loss
of f in a triple consonant group.

5
 In some South Western accents, initial f and s are often voiced, becoming v and
z. Two words with initial v have found their way into RP: vat from fat and vixen from
fixen (female fox). Another South Western feature is the development of a d between
l or n and r, as in parlder for parlour and carnder for corner. The bilabial semivowel
w has developed before o in wold for old, and in wom for home, illustrating a similar
development in RP by which Old English ān has become one, and Old English hāl
has come to be spelled whole, as compared with Northern hale. In some South
Western accents yat comes from the old singular geat, whereas RP gate comes from
the plural gatu. Likewise, clee comes from the old nominative clea, whereas RP claw
comes from the oblique cases. The verbs keel and kemb have developed regularly
from Old English cēlan “to make cool” and kemban “to use a comb,” whereas the
corresponding RP verbs cool and comb come from the adjective and the noun,
respectively.
In Wales, people often speak a clear and measured form of English with rising
intonations inherited from ancestral Celtic. They tend to aspirate both plosives (stops)
and fricative consonants very forcibly; thus, two is pronounced with an audible puff
of breath after the initial t, and while may be heard with a voiceless /w/.
Scots, or Lowland Scottish, was once a part of Northern English, but the two
dialects began to diverge in the 14th century. Today speakers of Scots trill their r’s,
shorten vowels, and simplify diphthongs. A few Scots words, such as bairn, brae,
canny, dour, and pawky, have made their way into RP. Scots is not to be confused
with Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic language still spoken by about 60,000 people (almost
all bilingual) mostly in the Highlands and the Western Isles. Thanks to such writers
as Robert Burns and Sir Walter Scott, many Scottish Gaelic words have been
preserved in English literature.
Northern Ireland has dialects related in part to Scots and in part to the southern
Irish dialect of English. The influence of the Irish language on the speech of Dublin is
most evident in the syntax of drama and in the survival of such picturesque
expressions as We are after finishing, It’s sorry you will be, and James do be cutting
corn every day.