Standard Pronunciation & Dialectology

studies the functioning of the phonetic, lexical and grammatical aspects

of language in society.
Dialectology is the academic study of the phonological, morphological & lexical aspects of traditional dialect forms.
Dialect is a variety of language in which the use of grammar and vocabulary identifies the regional or social background of the user.
Language varieties whose features of pronunciation signal regional or social identity comprise the notion “accent”.

notions
1) “language” and 2) “a variety of language”:
1a) the

phenomenon of vocal and written communication among human beings
[human language];
1b) a system of communication used by the people of a particular country or area
[the English language].
2) a set of linguistic items with similar social distribution
[British English and American English].

fixity of spelling, lexicon and grammar, codified as a set

of established rules.
Non-standard language varieties are accents or dialects with little or no prestige.
A linguistic process of reducing variation motivated by particular social or political interests is standardization.
A spoken standard is based on the norms of the written model. However, pronunciation has an extremely variable and changing nature, and is more resistant to standardization.

of a variety as the basis of standard;
the chosen

variety gains prestige with the people who use it.
For political & economic reasons, around the 15th century, prestige and high status was attached to the educated speech of the capital (London) and the surrounding counties.

the chosen variety are explicitly and officially formulated in dictionaries

and grammars to minimize its variation in form;
In 1755 Samuel Johnson produced a 2-volume “A Dictionary of the English Language” which included a history of the language, a grammar, an extensive list of words of basic general vocabulary…

expanding the functions of the chosen variety: administration, education, science,

literature, economic life, etc.

acceptance of the norm by the relevant population;
the standard

must have a body of users.
During the 18th and the first half of the 19th centuries, there was a growing trend of correctness and purism determined by the increasing power and prosperity of the middle classes, whose members wished to erase all traces of the working-class origins in their speech.

dialect of E. a) used in writing,
b) spoken by

the most educated and powerful native speakers in the UK, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa; and
c) taught to non-native students of E.”.
SE is used by about 12-15% of the population of the British Isles. Further, SE speakers often speak in regional and social accents.

have a Received Pronunciation accent, or RP
– the British

English accent which has traditionally served as a prestige variety and as a pronunciation model in the teaching of EFL.
Various types of RP are not clearly distinct accents and there are no strict boundaries between them.
They are rather tendencies.

RP:
1. conservative RP, “used by the older generation and, traditionally,

by certain professions or social groups”;
2. general RP, “most commonly in use and typified by the pronunciation adopted by the BBC”;
3. advanced RP, “mainly used by young people of exclusive social groups” and “may indicate the way in which the RP system is developing and be adopted in the future as general RP”.

RP, “commonly considered to be upper-class” & associated with “upper-class

families and with professions traditionally recruited from such families” ;
3. regional RP, “the type of speech which is basically RP except for the presence of a few regional characteristics unnoticed even by other speakers of RP”.

the unmarked, neutral, modern type of RP, typically spoken by

BBC newsreaders;
2. Upper-crust RP (URP), the more conservative and old-fashioned type of RP, popularly associated with an elderly Oxbridge don, an upper-class army officer, or the older members of the royal family;
3. Near-RP, strongly modified regional accents close to Mainstream RP, but including a few regional pronunciation features;
4. Adoptive RP, “spoken by adults who did not speak RP as children”.

dialect (sociolect) is a variety of language
used by a

certain social group and having distinctive features of vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation.
The social accent comprises only pronunciation.
Sociolects help to identify the status of speakers in Great Britain, there is less regional variation in the speech of the higher than in that of the lower socioeconomic classes.

of a speech community that is closest to the standard

or has the highest prestige; RP/BBC English/Queen’s English:
“letter” – aspirated [‘lethə];
2) mesolect: a variety of language intermediate between the highest & the low with the reduced social status:
“letter” – glottal stop [‘leʔə];
3) basilect: базилект, просторечный вариант языка;
the least prestigious variety of a language most differing from the local standard; it has the lowest social status:
“letter” – intervocalic voicing [‘leɖə].

dialect is spoken by people of the area or locality.

Geographic dialects include
local and regional ones.
As a rule, differences between the neighbouring local dialects are rather small, but, in travelling farther in the same direction, differences accumulate, and
local dialects and accents comprise regional ones.

Northern English
1.3. East Midlands English
1.4. West Midlands English

1.5. East Anglian English
1.6. South East England
1.7. West Country dialects

Wales
3.1. Welsh English
3.2. North East English
3.3. Pembrokeshire

dialect

Hiberno-English
4.2. Mid Ulster English
5. Isle of Man – Manx

English
6. Channel Islands – Channel English
(Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney, Sark).