Variation and Change

Regional Variations
Relating Linguistic Variation to
Social Variation
SOCIOLINGUISTICS
 Presented By:

Javeria
Salva
Hamza
Hafsa
Khushi

BS-5

ASSIGNED BY:
MA’AM KOMAL
 Table of Contents

01 02
Regional dialects
Regional variation
and its types

03 04

Difference of social Social factors that

and regional influence language
variation variation
 KHUSHI

what is regional variation in language

Every language has a lot of variation, specially the way it is spoken.

If we just look at the English, we find widespread variation in the way. It is spoken in
different countries such as Australia, Britain and the U.S.A.

We can also find a range of varieties in different parts of those countries.

 Regional variation is only one of many possible types of differences among speakers
of the same language. For example, there are occupational dialects (the word bugs
means something quite different to a computer programmer and an exterminator),
sexual dialects (women are far more likely than men to call a new house adorable), and
educational dialects (the more education people have, the less likely they are to use
double negatives).
 KHUSHI

what is regional variation in language

There are dialects of age (teenagers have their own slang, and even the phonology of
older speakers is likely to differ from that of young speakers in the same geographical
region) and dialects of social context (we do not talk the same way to our intimate
friends as we do to new acquaintances, to the paperboy, or to our employer). . . .
regional dialects areonly one of many types of linguistic variation."
 HAFSA

What is a regional dialect, and its types.

Dialect is a kind of varieties which has
grammatical, and also phonological
differences from other varieties (Chambers
and Trudgill, 2004).
 They also stated that dialect is often
applied to form of language, particularly
spoken in more isolated parts of the world
and has no written form.
Regional dialect refers to linguistic
differences that accumulate in a particular
geographic region (Fromkin, Rodman &
Hyams, 2011).
 HAFSA

What is a regional dialect, and its types.

 Dialect variation in regional dialect is
also influenced by three factors completing
each others which are time, place, and
socio-culture.
These statements mean that each region
has different dialect. However, because of
the chain of mutual intelligible between
dialect, people from, different region which
are still connected can still understand
each other when they speak.
Regional dialects divided into three types:
1. International variation.
2. Intra-national.
3. cross continental variation.
 HAFSA

International Variation
A British tourist who to New Zealand decided that while
he was in Auckland, he would look up an old friend from
his war days. He found the address, walked up the path
and knocked on the door.“Gidday,” said the young man
who opened the door.
“What can I do for you?”“I’ve called to see me old mate,
Don Stone.” said the visitor.
“Oh, he’s dead now mate,” said the young man. The
visitor was about to express condolences when he was
thumped on the back by Don Stone himself. The young
man had said., “Here’s dad now mate”, as his father
came in the gate.
 HAFSA

Intra-National: It is the variety that exists

in the same language and country.

Cross continental variation: Most people

know as “dialect chains”. Dialect Chains
are very common across the whole of
Europe.
 HAMZA
HOW SOCIAL AND REGIONAL VARIATION ARE DIFFERENT FROM OTHERS.
GIVE THE EXAMPLES AND WHICH VARIATION IS MOST POPULAR IN
PAKISTAN.

•The geographical background •The change occurred slowly

and the variations in the
language are know as Regional
Variations.
•If someone is from Thar and he
speaks his dialect is different
from Hyderabad.
•People from different places
speaks variety of languages.
•The social variation means
when there is transition in the
language
and gradually in the language.
•The shift in Southern English to
Britain English is the transition
in the Variation of language.
•The popular variation is social
variation because the chance
according to social factors.
•According to Robert Hass:
"Repetition makes us feel secure
and Variation makes us feel
free."
 SALVA
Social Factors Affecting Language Variation
 Class, ethnicity, and gender are three main social factors
that play a role in language variation. This division among
groups in each factor contributes to the differences in
their use of the English language.

1. Class

 Class is the structure of relationships between groups

where people are classified based on their education,
occupation, and income.
 One example of how class affects language variation is
evident in the New York City study by American linguist
William Labov in 1966.
 He displays the social classes in four classes: the lower
working class, the upper working class, the lower middle
class, and the upper middle class.
 SALVA
Social Factors Affecting Language Variation
 He also displays the styles of speech in three
styles, which are casual, careful conversation, and
reading.

 According to the data, the upper middle class

speakers almost always use the standard -
ing variant and the lower working class speakers
almost always use the non-standard -in variant.
Each class prefers the use of one pronunciation
over the other regardless, of the style of speech.
However, the lower working class shifted from
using -in in casual speech to using -ing in the
reading style.
 SALVA
Social Factors Affecting Language Variation
Gender:
 Gender deals with the traits associated with men
and women. Gender affects language variation by
influencing the language choice between men and
women.

 A man and a woman’s speech differ from one

another in matters of degree. Men’s language can
be direct, non-standard, and aggressive.

 Women’s language can be less harsh, emotional,

and standard.
 SALVA
Social Factors Affecting Language Variation
Gender:
 Crossover Between Class and Gender
Peter Trudgill breaks down his data on -ing by gender as shown in the
following table:
MALE FEMALE

Middle middle class 4 0

Lower middle class 27 3

Upper working class 81 68

Middle working class 91 81

Lower working class 100 97

 SALVA
Social Factors Affecting Language Variation

 In each class, women lead the men in their use of the

standard form [ŋ] by an amount which varies from 3 to 24
percentage points. This pattern is one of the most robust
findings of sociolinguistic studies of this kind: where there
is an obviously standard form set against a nonstandard
one, women use the standard more often than the men. A
number of explanations have been suggested for this.
 SALVA
Social Factors Affecting Language Variation
 One is the notion that women are more
oriented towards high-prestige and
supposedly ‘correct’ linguistic forms –
another instance is the use of /h/ in words
spelt with ‘h’. However, this is not an
explanation, but a mere observation.

 Trudgill himself suggests that working-class

speech is tied in with a maleoriented
working-class culture, whereas others have
pointed to differences in upbringing and in
gender roles in both the family and in the
workplace.
 JAVERIA

Ethnicity
Ethnicity refers to a group of people that share cultural
characteristics.

Ethnic groups affect language variation, because they usually

have to learn the language that is prominent in an area.
Although they view language as a part of their identity, they
have to compromise their languages and substitute it with
another, or combine both languages.

Ethnic groups learn the dominant language in an area when

the majority of the people speak that language. Their variety of
the dominant language is called the "substrate," because it
shows the differences between it and their language.
 JAVERIA

Ethnicity
Immigrants that arrive in a new location quickly learn the dominant
language.

Their language is called the "adstrate," and it affects the way they speak
the dominant language.

The adstrate and substrate could create a variety of the dominant

language, and would differ from the normal version of the language.

Pronunciations, words, and constructions are influenced by ethnicity.

Influences how a group speaks the standard language variety.

It may be to associate or distance. Not predestined but determined.
 JAVERIA

Ethnicity
EXAMPLE:

Social Correlates of Postvocalic /r/ in the American South:

Acoording to Kurath and McDavid (1961, 19-21), postvocalic /r/ in the South
is regularly realized in the following ways:

1. It is replaced by an unconstricted unsyllabic [] in words like hear, bear,

sure, or horse.
2. 2. It is replaced by an unconstricted syllabic [] after diphthongs in words
like wire or hour.
3. 3. It is lost after the vowels in words like car or corn.
4. 4. It appears as the unconstricted stressed vowel [´] in words like church
or first.
 JAVERIA
Education and occupation
 A personal dialect is idiolect: an individual way of speaking.

However, we generally tend to sound like others with whom we

share similar educational backgrounds and/or occupations.

Among those who leave the educational system at an early age,

there is a general pattern of using certain forms that are relatively
infrequent in the speech of those who go on to complete college.

Those who spend more time in the educational system tend to

have more features in their spoken language that derive from a lot
of time spent with the written language.
 JAVERIA
Education and occupation
 The observation that some teacher “talks like a book” is
possibly a reflection of an extreme form of this influence
from the written language after years in the educational
system.

As adults, the outcome of our time in the educational

system is usually reflected in our occupation and socio-
economic status.

The way bank executives, as opposed to window cleaners,

talk to each other usually provides linguistic evidence for the
significance of these social variables.
 JAVERIA
Education and occupation
 Example:

Sociolinguistic studies in Southern states have shown similar

results. A sophisticated quantitative study of 270 white
speakers in a small Southern community by Levine and
Crockett (1966) revealed the following results:
Women, young people, the newer residents, and higher status
persons take the national r-norm as their speech model.
 JAVERIA
Education and occupation
 Example:

Anshen's (1969) study of the speech of 87 black informants in

the same community showed that women, younger speakers,
high-school graduates, and people with nonmanual jobs and
a high occupational prestige were more r-ful in all speech
styles than other groups.
A comparison of black and white speakers in the same study
found whites more r-ful.
 JAVERIA

Social markers
 Certain speech sounds that define the social
group the speaker belongs to.

 Examples of social markers:

1. Postvocalic /r/.
2. Pronunciation of –ing [n] (lower class) or [ng].
3. [h] dropping, associated with lower class and less
education.
Example: Head as /ed/.
 JAVERIA

 Speech style:
A social feature of language use.

1. Formal: careful style

2. Informal use: casual style

 We do not talk in one style all the time. We

change our speech styles according to the social
factors.
 JAVERIA

Style-shifting:
A change from one style to another by an
individual.

 Labov also studied style-shifting: After getting

an answer ‘fourth floor’, he would ask ‘excuse me?’
so that they would repeat the answer, which was
pronounced with more attention to being clear.
 .

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