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Many people are not used to thinking of themselves as speaking dialects. In fact, the typical person, when asked, ordinarily says “I speak language X” not

“I speak dialect X.” The closest we may come to using the term “dialect” is to refer to our home dialect as if it were the language. In fact, a repairman at my house asked me if it was true that “American” was the hardest language to learn. He didn’t seem to recognize that the accepted cover term for our way of speaking is English, that there are many others in the world who speak varieties similar to ours, that they are all called English. In some ways, though, he was correct, because – in a broad sense – American could be considered a dialect of English, but I don’t think that’s what he had in mind.

In its most neutral usage, speakers may employ “dialect” for an out-group – for example, to refer to how “people over there speak”. Often, dialect is a somewhat pejorative term. People may say, for example, “I speak Spanish, but I sometimes hear people on the bus who just speak dialect.” Or, some people may refer to languages spoken in the Third World as dialects, e.g. we’ve heard the question, “How many dialects are spoken in West Africa?” All of this shows that if many people use the term dialect at all, it is not something that they apply to themselves very often, but to others.

The same goes for accent. Most people do not think of themselves as speak-ing with an accent; it’s other people who may “speak with an accent”. This may be the reason that some people take offense at being told that they speak with “a heavy accent”; “heavy” isn’t good because it is interpreted to mean

“more” of an accent, with the implication that it is not the accent associated with the standard dialect of the country in question. In fact, of course, we all speak with an accent. All it means to say this is that we all have a phonolo-gical system, a way of organizing the sounds that come out when we speak.

2.7.1 Dialectal differences in identifying group memberships

We pay a lot of attention to differences in accents (pronunciation) and the reason is that they generally are the most distinguishing features of dia-lects. In fact, a pronunciation example that distinguishes dialects is famous (famous among linguists, at least!). It comes from the Bible and is the basis for our use of the word shibboleth. Today the word means “a custom or prac-tice that portrays one as an insider or an outsider”, but its original meaning was specifically “a pronunciation that identified one’s ethnic group”. The biblical story of how this worked is told in Judges 12: 4–6. The Ephraimites had lost a battle with the men of Gilead and were trying to escape across the Jordan river, but the Gileadites controlled crucial passages. In order to gain passage, when asked if they were Ephraimites, the Ephraimites said “no”. But the Gileadites asked those who were fleeing to say the word shibboleth. They knew that only true men of Gilead pronounced the [sh] sound in this word while the Ephraimites would say instead [s]. Unfortunately, the unlucky Ephraimites revealed themselves by their pronunciation, and they were killed.

However, in judging whether someone sounds “educated”, we generally pay more attention to morphological or syntactic differences. These are what we think about when we refer to the standard dialect. Why? A reason for this is that one dialect often shades into another in terms of pronunciations, so it’s hard to draw a line based on pronunciation alone – even though the biblical Gileadites did. Take, for example, the variation between pronouncing the -ing in such words as running or going as either -ing (with the “ng” pronounced as what linguists call a “voiced velar nasal”) or -in. In some social dialects – especially those associated with persons of the working class – this ending is usually pronounced as n. But then in other classes, including professional ones, some speakers also pronounce this ending as n when they are speaking casually. The result is that you can’t say that n pronunciation really distin-guishes an “educated” or standard dialect from others; you can say that the percentage of n does, but listeners don’t necessarily make this calculation (Wolfram and Schilling-Estes, 1998).

In contrast, grammatical differences tend to be more of an “either/or”

thing: Either a dialect has a certain grammatical feature or it doesn’t. For example, most middle- or upper-class English speakers speak a dialect in which when a third person singular (a noun or he, she, and it ) is the subject of a verb, and the verb is in the present tense, then speakers attach an -s to the verb (e.g.

the contrast between he like-s ice cream and they like ice cream). Many lower-class speakers don’t follow this rule, but have a rule for a “zero ending” no matter what the subject is (they say not only they like ice cream but also he like ice cream). It is the way that middle- and upper-class speakers speak that is con-sidered the standard dialect.

2.7.2 How many dialects?

Every language has at least two dialects and many languages have many dialects. But just as it’s hard to draw the line between languages according to structural criteria, it’s hard to separate one dialect from another in all ways. As just indicated, differences in phonology (how the same written word is pro-nounced across dialects) represent the biggest difference between dialects. We often think of grammatical differences as definitively separating dialects; such differences may generally separate the standard dialect from non-standard dialects. But they don’t necessarily separate one non-standard dialect from another.

Several non-standard dialects may have the same non-standard grammat-ical feature, yet we often think of them as separate dialects. For example, those African-Americans who are speakers of African American Vernacular English frequently use double negatives in a sentence (and be careful: Don’t assume all Americans are speakers of this dialect just because they’re African-American – it’s a socially based dialect, not an ethnically based dialect, and many African-Americans are speakers of the standard dialect). These nega-tives especially occur on the verb and any following indefinite elements that can be negated (e.g. They don’t know nothing). But speakers of other non-standard dialects also use double negatives! For example, they are especially prevalent in the speech of other Americans from a wide range of social classes, particularly when they’re speaking in a casual way. That is, even someone who normally uses standard dialect features may use a non-standard form at times – just for a special effect. For example, using a double negative obvi-ously adds emphasis of the negative meaning being expressed.

Some of us may be bi-dialectal; that is, we know and use two different dialects. But a problem is that it’s not easy to say what constitutes “enough”

to distinguish one dialect from another – because of the structural overlap between dialects as discussed above. Some dialects do have rather distinctive features, though, and if speakers use a cluster of such features part of the time and not at other times, they may be said to be bi-dialectal. Even so, the line is hard to draw.

2.7.3 Personal dialect continua

Rather than commanding more than one dialect, most of us have access to a range of styles in our dialect. Some writers prefer register as a cover term for linguistic varieties below the level of dialect, but we prefer to reserve register for the specialized lexicon that is used by persons in a certain profession or aficionados or fans of a certain sport or activity.

Styles/registers are sub-categories under dialect. That is, just as our lan-guage is, our dialect is also something of an abstraction that is realized by the

styles we use. Just as languages and dialects are characterized by having the three systems of phonology, morphosyntax, and lexicon, so are styles/

registers. You know that related dialects show a good deal of overlap; well, as you would expect, so do styles/registers. And, not surprisingly, they show even more overlap, so that often the difference between one style and another depends on only a few structural differences.

Earlier, we talked about dialect continua across national boundaries. We can also use the term stylistic continuum to refer to the stylistic scale along which each person moves, depending on situational factors and the persona she or he wishes to project. As we move along the continuum, we are calling into use the styles (or registers) that make up the configuration that is our dialect, our version of “the language”. For example, consider the differences between the form of two directives, Kindly finish that memorandum by Tuesday, please and Hey buddy, get that stuff to me by Tuesday, okay? Also, the difference between pronouncing the sentence Do you want to go? as [dja wannego] and [du yu wan tu go] is a matter of casual versus a more formal style.

What determines where we place ourselves on our continuum? First, we have to consider who we are, in the sense that not everyone is able to speak the same way. That is, not everyone is going to have the same styles in her or his linguistic repertoire. This depends on who we are, our social identity features (age, gender, education, ethnic group, etc.), and our life experiences.

Whether someone is highly educated or not, everyone has her or his own dialect continuum in having at least both a formal and informal style. But not everyone who speaks a dialect of a given language has the same variety as her or his formal variety. And not everyone has the same informal variety, either. You slide along a continuum from further from to closer to the version of the standard dialect that’s associated with serious writing – and generally you are further from it since written language is almost always more formal than speech.

You may have been taught somewhere along the line to think that you should speak something toward the formal (written) end of the standard dialect continuum all the time if you want to speak correctly. Well, that’s not true. If you speak even your own formal variety to your garage mechanic you won’t win any medals from him and he may not give you good service because he thinks you are a stuffed shirt. If you spoke that way with your fishing buddies, you would be laughed off the boat.

We hope you can see by now that choices of style depend on the situation and your goals, and, as a communicatively competent speaker, you have internalized notions about what is unmarked or appropriate for a range of interactions. (We’ll give a fuller discussion of “unmarked” versus “marked”

in chapter 6.) Communicative competence has come to be used for an ability to recognize what your community views as the unmarked (appropriate) way(s) of speaking in a given type of interaction. Bell (1984) refers to our sense of audience design; the basic idea is that we vary our way of speaking

depending on who we are talking to, or who our audience is (actually present or via radio or TV).

Just as important is that we vary our speech depending on our own indi-vidual goals and desires. That is, we are concerned about our self-presentation and how others view us, as we are with meeting the expectations of others in terms of what’s appropriate for the situation. The French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (1982, 1991) popularized the notion of thinking of the linguistic vari-eties we command as symbolic capital. This idea applies not just to dialects, but also to the different languages in a bilingual’s repertoire. Bourdieu’s idea is that even fields that are not economic in the narrow sense are still economic in a broader sense in that the way we speak is oriented towards “profit” of some kind. That is, there is a link between interests and actions, and speaking is such an action. Bourdieu’s ideas come up again in chapter 4. A rational choice model (cf. Elster, 1989) also makes such a link, and Myers-Scotton and Bolonyai (2001) have shown how such a model can be applied to linguistic choices. The basic idea is that speakers are selecting their choices rationally if they make choices based on weighing costs and rewards of competing choices.

However, to say that choices are “rationally based” does not mean that choices are the best in any objective sense, but rather that speakers are making cog-nitive calculations about their choices and making choices that subjectively they judge to be the best for them. The notion of rational choices comes up in chapter 6 when the Markedness Model is discussed.

2.7.4 The bilingual’s dialectal and stylistic repertoire

Of special relevance to this book are the dialects and range of styles a bilingual controls. Certainly, if we are referring to a bilingual’s repertoire within a second language, that person probably does not speak a dialect that is exactly like any of the dialects of native speakers. It is true that some bilinguals speaking second languages do come very close to native speaker dialects. But many bilinguals fossilize in producing pronunciations or grammatical structures that are not like native forms in the language they are trying to speak. For example, native speakers of a language that doesn’t have articles used before nouns as English does, or doesn’t have the same usage patterns for articles as English does, may well not use articles in an English-like fashion much of the time. A Chinese speaker whom we know comes very close to speaking the standard dialect of American English, but he regularly leaves out articles in such sentences as I’m going to (the) library now. That is, his understanding of how to use articles in English has fossilized in a non-native form regarding this particular use of English the.

Or, you may know bilinguals whose grammatical production of your lan-guage is very native-like, but whose pronunciation is decidedly non-native, especially of certain words. For a variety of reasons, including the age at

which they acquired your language, these bilinguals haven’t mastered the range of sounds in your language or how they are organized in those words.

Also, while most bilinguals certainly have more than one style in their repertoire of a second language they know well, it’s unlikely that they have the same wide range of styles in their repertoire as native speakers of that language. This is an important consideration for both the bilingual and the person who speaks her or his language as a native speaker to keep in mind.

Most bilinguals can’t match exactly the native speaker’s repertoire or, just as important, the native speaker’s notions about what style is appropriate for a given situation.

2.7.5 Regional and social dialects

Sociolinguists often write confidently of two different types of dialects, re-gional and social dialects. As you would expect, rere-gional dialects are those that are identified with a particular geographic region. Social dialects are identified with a social group, with “social group” defined very broadly. Thus, we talk about the dialect of different socio-economic classes, but we also can talk about the social dialects of ethnic groups, of women versus men, and of speakers according to their age groups or educational level, as in the case of the young, more educated speakers at the German-Dutch border compared with their less educated elders. But while it’s easy enough to think that we are differentiating regional from social dialects and then making distinctions among types of social dialects, think about it more carefully. Isn’t the problem that we all live somewhere, so how can we avoid to some extent speaking like people from our region? But then, does this mean that we only speak a regional dialect and not a social one? And then, aren’t we all simultaneously members of different social groups? For example, can’t you be a male aged 35 of Jamaican descent, but have been raised in London, England since age ten, and also now be a dental surgeon? So when it comes to classifying the dialect you speak, what do we say? The question isn’t easily answered, is it?

For this reason, we don’t say that everyone in the same region speaks the same dialect. They may; that is, geographical boundaries can make a differ-ence (e.g. rivers or mountains). But dialect boundaries are just as often social boundaries. Still, if asked, the average person probably would identify the way someone speaks more in terms of region than social group. But the social basis of dialectal differences (and ultimately, language differences) is more profound and ultimately affects our evaluations of others more. Again, we evaluate how good or bad a linguistic variety is according to who speaks it, and, in any one region, everyone doesn’t have the same social identities.

At the same time, it is hard to disentangle region and social group in the identification and valuing of dialects. What happens when subjects in a study are asked to identify the region where the “best” speech is spoken? At least

in the United States, Hartley and Preston (1999) found that “best” can apply along two different dimensions. The dimension of “most correct” is related to how closely the relevant regional dialect matches the criteria we’ve outlined for the standard dialect. Judging a dialect “most correct” is a socially based judgment that has become tied to region in the minds of speakers. People who live in the areas where the speech is perceived to be more standard-like (the Midwest and Upper Midwest) ranked their areas highest in terms of “correct”.

At the same time, others (e.g. Southerners) also identified these as the areas of most “correct” speech. But what is interesting is that on another dimension, Southerners are very positive about their own dialect area, identifying the speech there as most “pleasant”. Hartley and Preston refer to this feature of

“pleasantness” as homestyle. Not just “correct” but also “pleasant” emerges as a measure of the prestige accorded to group membership and, in this case, positively identifying the local community.

2.7.6 Dialects and geographical barriers

Once you get to larger groups – ethnic groups, geographical regions, and nations – you find even bigger differences in the way different groups speak.

Two sets of factors have promoted linguistic divisions. First, natural geographic features, such as the Appalachian Mountains in the southeast US that have helped preserve distinctive features in the dialects spoken there, have served as boundaries separating mountaineers both physically and symbolically (through the dialects) from other groups. And in Valle d’Aosta, an area in the

Two sets of factors have promoted linguistic divisions. First, natural geographic features, such as the Appalachian Mountains in the southeast US that have helped preserve distinctive features in the dialects spoken there, have served as boundaries separating mountaineers both physically and symbolically (through the dialects) from other groups. And in Valle d’Aosta, an area in the