MODERN APPROACHES TO

DIALECT


 The Border Dialect
 The Birth of New Dialects
 Traditional Dialect in the Modern World
 The Border Dialect


Border dialect mean how one variety within a dialect continuum
shades off into another.

David Britain (1997) has studied the border dialect area known as
the Fens in England, a marshy area about 75 miles north of
London and 50 miles west of Norwich.

One of the features studied by Britain was the variation between

east and west with respect to the diphthong [ai] .The eastern Fens
have a centralised [əi], while the western Fens have [ai] .
 The Birth of New Dialects


New Towns: The Milton Keynes Study .

Dialect levelling : the speech of a group of people converges towards a

common norm, with extreme differences being ironed out .

Dialect levelling in Milton Keynes results from two different strategies

:1). linguistic features , 2). regional variants .

Diphthong [oυ] is the new dialect evolving in Milton Keynes.

 The Birth of New Dialects


Transplanted Dialectology: The Eastern Hindi Diaspora

• Focusing
• Dialect mixing
• Dialect levelling
 Traditional Dialect in the Modern
World


Study Caroline McAfee (1983) on Scots.

 Much use of the traditional vocabulary has given way to passive

knowledge.
 Knowledge of dialect forms has become more individual and
idiosyncratic.
 Many traditional dialect words survive only in metaphorical or
idiomatic uses.
 Words that were once commonplace are now regarded as
colourful or slang.
 Older speakers underestimate younger people‘s knowledge of the
traditional dialect.
The Border Dialect