a.a.

2016/2017
Lingua inglese 1 (L-Z)
Module 2 - Variation in English

Introduction to Sociolinguistics
"Pledge me in a cup of wine, Sir Templar [] while I look back some
thirty years to tell you another tale. As Cedric the Saxon then was,
his plain English tale needed no garnish from French troubadours,
when it was told in the ear of beauty.
[] But our bards are no more," he said; "our deeds are lost in those
of another race--our language--our very name--is hastening to
decay, and none mourns for it save one solitary old man.
Cedric the Saxon, Ivanhoe

"By the crook of St Dunstan," said that worthy ecclesiastic, "which

hath brought more sheep within the sheepfold than the crook of e'er
another saint in Paradise, I swear that I cannot expound unto you
this jargon, which, whether it be French or Arabic, is beyond my
guess.
The Clerk of Copmanhurst, Ivanhoe
 English in XII-century England

Ivanhoe, set in the XII century

Cedric the Saxon, Ivanhoes father, is complaining

his language is dying

The Clerk of Copmanhurst (Friar Tuck) has problems

understanding some of the languages spoken in XII-
century England

What was happening to the English language?

 Video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIzFz9T5rhI
 Evolution of English

Since the fall of the Roman Empire, English has undergone

major changes

Germanic tribes (Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Frisians) invaded

Britain (IV-V century) development of Old English

Viking invasions (VIII century) influence of Old Norse

The Normans invaded England in the XII century (1066)

influence of French and Latin

Cedric the Saxon complains about the presence of the

Normans and the invasion of their language; Friar Tuck is
unable to understand what the Normans say and write
 Sociolinguistics

The video suggests that:

language evolution is influenced by the movement of
peoples
Language changes depending on the social group of
speakers

SOCIOLINGUISTICS the study of language and linguistic
behaviour as influenced by social and cultural factors

Languages = human beings they are born, they evolve,

they interact with others and they die

Each language has heterogeneous implementations owing

to geographical, historical, social, contextual factors
 Dimensions of language variation

5 dimensions of VARIATION

Diatopic variation (geographical)

Diastratic variation (social)

Diamesic variation (written or spoken)

Diachronic variation (chronological, historical)

Diaphasic or diatyipic variation (contextual-

functional)
 English

We now know that English (like all languages) is not a self-

contained monosystem, a unitary whole, but a socio-cultural
polysystem or a diasystem, i.e. a system of systems

a system which is not unitary and uniform but rather made up
of a number of sub-systems, all sharing some core
characteristics, but each characterized by some peculiar
distinctive features (Garzone 2006: 8)
 Diatopic variation

DIATOPIC VARIATION refers to geographical variation

EXAMPLE: British English vs. American English

Differences in pronunciation (water), spelling (labour/labor,
centre/center, programme/program), vocabulary (autumn/fall), etc.

Also national varieties Scottish English, Canadian

English, Australian English
 Diastratic variation

DIASTRATIC VARIATION refers to social variation

Prestige is the key factor

Variation depends on:

social group
social network
education
 Diamesic variation

DIAMESIC VARIATION is due to the medium used, i.e.

written language vs. spoken language
WRITTEN
- More impersonal expressions (e.g. use
of passive with no specification of agent)
- Less subjective, less emotional, more
precise
- Less redundant, more economical
(more varied vocabulary, less repetition,
longer words)
- Accuracy and precision in the use of
words
- Complete and carefully-constructed
sentences
SPOKEN
- More use of personal reference (esp. 1st
person pronoun)
- More subjective, more emotional, less
precise
- More redundant (more limited
vocabulary, more repetition, more
monosyllabic words)
- More generic terms (thing, do)
- Incomplete sentences with less careful
sequencing
(Bait 2010: 17-18)
 Diachronic variation

DIACHRONIC VARIATION refers to chronological,

historical variation

Language = a living creature it changes, it evolves over

time (it lives next to others, it learns from others,)

Pre-English period old E. middle E. modern E. late

modern E. contemporary English
 Diaphasic or diatypic variation

DIAPHASIC or DIATYPIC VARIATION is contextual-functional

variation

The language variety used is determined by the context and the

purpose of the message

Domain-specific languages used in specific domains of civil,

professional and institutional life and associated with specific topics
and disciplinary fields

LSPs (Languages for Specific Purposes) defined with
reference to the professional, disciplinary or technical field to which
they pertain (e.g. the language of the law, of medicine, of
economics)
 Englishes

There are many Englishes

Study of English = study of VARIATION

Questions arise:
What has happened to the English language since the Norman
invasion?
What type of English do we speak today?
Which varieties of English are you able to speak/understand?
What type of English did you learn at school?
What type of English do you learn at university?
 Standard English

The English you studied at school, the English you usually read,
is STANDARD ENGLISH (Trudgill & Hannah 2013: 1-4)

Books, newspapers, magazines and nearly everything else that

appears in print in the English-speaking world are written in
Standard English SOCIAL CONVENTION (diastratic variation)

Called standard because it has undergone standardization

Selected
Codified
Stabilized
 Standard English

From the very beginning, it was an upper social class dialect (not
associated with the common workers and peasants)

Because of its history and special status, Standard English has

some grammatical peculiarities yet, it has nothing to do with
style, technical vocabulary or pronunciation

Native dialect of approximately 15% of the population of England

and this 15% is concentrated towards the top end of the social
scale Standard English is still a social dialect (associated with
power, status and prestige)

Native English-speakers learn to read and write in Standard

English however, even today, most people do not speak it
 Varieties of English

In your university career, as in your life, you will be confronted

with other varieties than Standard English

During this course, we will analyse a number of varieties of

English, focusing on vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation

Main focus: diatopic and diastratic variation (with references to

diachronic variation)

Now, a little bit of history

 The Spread of English (1)

English developed out of Germanic dialects (see video and

Trudgill & Hannah 2013: 8)

By medieval times, this Germanic language had replaced the

original Celtic language of Britain in nearly all of England, as well
as in southern and eastern Scotland

Until the 1600s English spoken by a small number of people

and geographically confined to the island of Britain

The original Celtic language initially survived in Wales, Cornwall,

the Highlands and islands of Scotland (where Gaelic had been
brought across from Ireland in pre-medieval times)
 The Spread of English (2)

1600s English began the geographical and demographic

expansion which has led to the situation in which it finds itself
today (with more non-native speakers than any other language in
the world)

Arrival of English-speakers in the Americas - North America,

Bermuda, the Bahamas and the Caribbean

Importation of English, from Scotland, into the northern areas of

Ireland

1700s English in southern Ireland, the few Celtic languages

remained start to disappear
 The Spread of English (3)

1800s English in Wales and the Highlands and islands of

Scotland (today, Gaelic only has 60,000 native speakers)

Development of Southern Hemisphere varieties of English began

Large-scale colonisation

The Spread of English (4) - Trudgill & Hannah 2013: 12
 The Spread of English (5)

These patterns of expansion, settlement and colonisation have

had an effect on the relationships, similarities and differences
between the varieties of English which have grown up in different
parts of the world. For example:
Scottish English similar to northern Irish English
Varieties of the Southern Hemisphere (Australia, New Zealand,
South Africa, Falklands) similar to each other
Welsh English structurally similar to English English (Trudgill &
Hannah 2013: 9), but evident influence of Welsh in its formation
 Englishes differences and similarities

These differences and similarities are most obvious at the level of

pronunciation

Varieties of English around the world differ relatively little in their
consonant systems most differences can be observed at the
level of vowel systems (even here, differences are not enormous)

Lexically and grammatically, the split between the English and

American varieties is neater yet, each variety has its
individual lexical and grammatical characteristics
 The Sociolinguistics of English

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_q9b9YqGRY
 References

Bait, Miriam (2010). Workplace Communication in

Global Contexts. Linguistic and Cultural Perspectives.
Milano: Arcipelago.

Garzone, Giuliana (2006). Perspectives on ESP and

Popularization. Milano: CUEM.

Trudgill, Peter & Hannah, Jean (2013). International

English. A Guide to the Varieties of Standard English.
London/New York: Routledge.