Regional and

Social
Dialects
Holmes & Wilson Chapter 6
 What do we use language for?

1. To signal membership to a community.

2. To express identity.
3. To construct social identity
 Using language for social interpretation

By listening to the way

people speak, we can make
guesses about both social and
regional origins. Accent and
exclusive forms guide our
guesses.

The sources of variation in speech are infinite, not two people speak in
the same way.
Language variation prompts both unity and
separation
● Differences can be expressed in
pronunciation, vocabulary, and
grammar.

● Although not 2 people speak the

same way, there are group-shared
variations.

● Speech shows both social and

regional affiliation.
 Regional Variation
International
https://bit.ly/2ZILaUn
Varieties Examples
AUSSIES ----- BRITS
Dad dead
Differences in Bad bed
Six sucks
accent, vocabulary Sole parents single parents
and grammar
Have you got a pen?
Do you have a pen?
 Regional Variation
Intranational
Varieties Examples

Ve’a que no, primo?

Differences in Como cre’ compare?
accent, vocabulary La soda esta bien helada.
Por ir corriendo me entellevó.
and grammar

https://youtu.be/_H8r2Izzo5k
https://youtu.be/nUljxcculPw
(a) snowblossom
(b) time for our snap
(c) mask the tea
(d) the place was all frousted
(e) clinker bells
(f) a great mawther
(g) I’m really stalled
(h) a bairn
(i) an effet
(j) I’ll fill up your piggy, it’s time for bed
 Cross Continental Variation
Miriam learnt French and Italian at university and was a fl uent speaker of both. As part
of her course she was required to study for three months in Paris and three months in
Rome. Her time in Paris went well and she decided to take a holiday on her way to Rome,
travelling across France to Italy. She was keen to hear the varieties of French and Italian
spoken in provincial towns. She stayed in cheap pensions (French ‘bed-and-breakfast’
places), and she made a special effort to talk to the local people rather than tourists. Her
Parisian accent was admired and she could understand the French of Dijon and Lyon.
But as she moved further from Paris she found the French more diffi cult to follow. Near
the border between France and Italy, in the town of Chambéry, she could not be sure
what she was hearing. Was it Italian French or French Italian? Whatever it was, it was
diffi cult for her to understand, though she had no trouble making herself understood.
Most people thought she spoke beautifully – especially for a foreigner! In Italy she found
that the Italian spoken in Turin and Milan was very different from the Italian she had
learned. As she approached Rome, however, she gradually began to comprehend more
of what she heard. And fi nally in Rome she found some kind of match between the way
she spoke and the way the Italians around her spoke.
“Languages are not purely linguistic entities. They serve social
functions. In order to define a language, it is important to look to its
social and political functions, as well as its linguistic features. So a
language can be thought of as a collection of dialects that are usually
linguistically similar, used by different social groups who choose to say
that they are speakers of one language which functions to unite and
represent them to other groups.”
 Social Dialects

Standard Caste Dialects

/Social Dialects or
English
Sociolects
 Social Class Dialects
Vocabulary
Pronunciation (Labov)
Grammatical Patterns

Stable , constant variation that separates social classes is

called sharp stratification and the unstable kind is called
fine stratification