Introduction

English as any other language existed only in spoken(oral) form before the appearance of written language. With the appearance of written language, the interaction between these two forms characterizes the differences between the people’s common language(standard language) and its dialects. With the lapse of time dialects became separate from the standard language, acquiring their phonetic, grammatical and lexical peculiarities.

A «standard» may be defined as «a socially accepted variety of a language established by a codified norm of correctness». A dialect is any variety of a language spoken by a specific community of people.

Language is a social phenomenon. It exists in human society, in real everyday speech of people who belong to different social, professional, territorial groups. And like any social phenomena it develops with society. And even can be influenced by different groups of people. And this can create different varieties of language.

It is quite difficult to draw a boundary between such notions as dialect and language variety.The terms variety and dialect overlap. A variety may be a form of English associated with a group of people, e.g. *Black English, with a particular region, e.g. *British English and 'American English, or with an activity or function, e.g. legal English. A dialect is a variety that is usually associated with a geographical region. Dialects have a distinctive vocabulary and grammar, and when people speak in dialect they use an associated local accent.[8;25] Also dialect is a language system, which is used as a means of communication for a group of people which leaves on a certain territory

There exists a point of view that dialects are vulgar speech which is used by uneducated strata of society. But such opinion is antihistoric because firstly literary language is formed on the base of one or several local dialects; secondly language peculiarities of any local dialect are determined not by the person’s"carelessness” of speech but historical factors.

The word variety usually arouses fewer emotions than dialect. This is because dialects are often considered inferior to standard forms of English. In Britain, people may assume that somebody speaking in dialect has a lower-class background or has had little education.

Language, and especially its oral aspect varies with respect to the social context in which it is used. The social differentiation of language is closely connected with the social differentiation of society.

Social variation .Society affects a , language, in the sense that any important aspect of social structure and function is likely to have a distinctive linguistic counterpart, people belong to different social classes, perform different social roles, and carry on different occupations. Their use of language is affected by their sex, age, ethnic group, and educational background. English is being increasingly affected by all these factors, because its developing role as a world language is bring­ing it more and more into contact with new cultures and social systems.

Personal variation. People affect a language, in the sense that an individual's conscious or uncon­scious choices and preferences can result in a distinctive or even unique style. Such variations in self-expression are most notice­able in those areas of language use where great care is being taken, such as in literature and humour. But the uniqueness of individuals, arising out of differences in their memory, personality, intelligence, social background, and personal experience, makes distinc­tiveness of style inevitable in everyone.

Temporal variation

Time affects a language, both in the long term and short term, giving rise to several highly distinctive processes and varieties.

In the long term: English has changed throughout the centuries, as can be seen from such clearly distinguishable linguistic periods as Old English, Middle English, and Elizabethan English. Language change is an inevitable and continu­ing process, whose study is chiefly carried on by philologists and historical linguists. In the short term: English changes within the history of a single person. This is most noticeable while children are acquiring their mother tongue, but it is also seen when people learn a for­eign language, develop their style as adult speakers or writers, and, sometimes, find that their linguistic abilities are lost or seriously impaired through injury or dis­ease. Psycholinguists study language learning and loss, as do several other pro­fessionals, notably speech therapists and language teachers.[9;3]

As dialects very often emerge because of language spread and subsequent isolation, they may often be described in terms of geography.    The difference between one areal dialect and another is often a gradual series of changes, not an abrupt change in any one location. Regional variation.Geography affects language, both within a country and between countries, giving rise to regional accents and dialects, and to the pidgins and creoles which emerged around the world whenever English first came into con­tact with other languages. International regional varieties have been observed within English from its earliest days, as seen in such labels as 'Northern¹, 'London', and 'Scottish'. International varieties are more recent in origin, as seen in such labels as 'American', 'Australian', and 'Indian'. Regional language variation is studied by sociolinguists, geographical linguists, dialectolo- gists, and others, the actual designation depending on the focus and emphasis of the study.

But the main problem is that Standard English or RP is spoken only by 3 percent of the British population.(Upper class society: royal family, members of Parliament; Eaton’s graduators, BBC newscasters.)[9;318].As the society is becoming more democratic and aimed at needs of common people, nowadays you can come across frequently dialectal speech on British streets , in newspapers, TV and radio programmes rather than RP. That is why the problem of dialectal research is urgent.

The object of the research paper is English dialects in major parts of England proper. The subject matter is an analysis of the lexical, phonetic, grammatical peculiarities of British English dialects. The aim of this work is to study the existing dialects of the British isles and define their present –day status.

The practical significance of this research project is that language constantly develops and the linguistic profession requires to be aware of constant changes in language. And in the paper we constantly face usage of dialectal patterns in written and spoken speech. And consequently we should be competent and know them.

The theoretical basis of this work is based upon careful study of both Russian scholars’ works such as I.V. Arnold “Stylistics. Modern English Language”, A.Rastorgueva “A history of English”, Galperin “Stylistics”, Y.M.Screbnev “The basis of English language stylistic”, and of foreign scholars: D.Crystal “The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language”, B.A. Fannel “A history of English. A sociolinguistic approach”. Oxford guide to British and American culture, Longman dictionary of Contemporary English was used.

In this study the comparative-historic method, contrastive and statistical methods, methods of external and internal interpretation were applied.

The comparative –historic method makes it possible to reveal and compare given dialects’ levels of development and the changed they have undergone and to determine the trends of their development

Contrastive analysis is a systematic study of a pair of dialects with a view to identifying their structural differences and similarities. The comparative-historic method helps to identify the origin of dialects. It consists of four basic research techniques: external reconstruction, internal reconstruction. External reconstruction—the comparative-historical method in the narrow sense—consists in identifying genetically identical morphemes and words in related dialects, demonstrating in these morphemes and words the results of regular sound changes, and constructing a hypothetical model of the parent language, or protolanguage, and the rules for deriving the actual morphemes of the daughter languages from this

model. Internal reconstruction consists of identifying phenomena and relationships within an individual language system that unambiguously attest to the existence of certain elements at earlier stages in the system’s history. The reconstructions obtained involve all aspects of the language system: phonology, morphophonemics, morphology, lexicon, and, in part, syntax.

Chapter 1. The socio-historical factors in the development of English and its varieties

The first chapter is devoted to the general observation of the main stages of development of the English language and the varieties that has developed on one of dialect.

English originates from the language of ancient Germanic tribes (Jutes, Angles and Saxons). These tribes resettled from the European continent V—VI centuries in Britain, which then was inhabited by Celts. Their interaction had lead to formation of territorial dialects. Those dialects developed, mixed and in the course of time turned in modern English dialects.

Nowadays English is the mother tongue for 410 millions of people, it is spoken no less than one milliard of people. It is a state language for Great Britain, the USA, Australia, New Zealand, Canada (alongside with French), Ireland (along with Irish), Malta (along with Maltese). One of the official languages in India (temporarily) and in 15 states in Africa (South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania and others).

British English- is the term used to distinguish the forms of the English language used in the United Kingdom from the forms used in other English –speaking countries . The Oxford English Dictionary applies the term to English "as spoken or written in the British Isles.

In order to understand the nature and origin of conditions prevailing in dialects today we must learn to understand the circumstances which fostered them. And first of all it is necessary to start from history of the English language.

The historical development of a language is a continuous unin­terrupted process without sudden breaks or rapid transformations, There­fore any periodisation imposed on language history by linguists, with precise dates, might appear artificial, if not arbitrary. Yet in ail lan­guage histories divisions into periods and cross-sections of a certain length, are used for teaching and research purposes. The commonly ac­cepted, traditional periodisation divides English history into three pe­riods: Old English (OE), Middle English (ME) and New English (NE), with boundaries attached to definite dates and historical events affect­ing the language. OE begins with the Germanic settlement of Britain (5th c.) or with the beginning of writing (7th c.) and ends with the Nor­man Conquest (1066); ME begins with the Norman Conquest and ends the introduction of printing (1475), which is the start of the Modern or New English period (Mod E or NE); the New period lasts to the pres­ent day.

The amendments proposed to the traditional periodisation shift the boundary lines or envisage other subdivisions within the main periods: it has been suggested that ME really began at a later date, c. 1150(A. Baugh), for the effect of the Norman Conquest on the language could not have been immediate; another suggestion was that we should single out periods of transition and subdivide the three main periods into early, classical, and late (H. Sweet). Some authors prefer a division of history by centuries (M. Schlauch) or a division into periods of two hundred years (B. Strang).It has been noticed that although language history is a slow uninter­rupted chain of events, the changes are not evenly distributed in time: periods of intensive and vast changes at one or many levels may be fol­lowed by periods' of relative stability. It seems quite probable that the differences in the rate of changes are largely conditioned by the linguistic situation, which also accounts for many other features of language evo­lution. Therefore division into chronological periods should take into account both aspects: external and internal (extra- and intralinguistic). The following periodisation of English history is partly based on the conventional three periods; it subdivides the history of the English language into seven periods differing in linguistic situation and the na­ture of linguistic changes.

According to T.A Rastorgueva the history of English can be divided in 6 periods.

The first — pre-written or pre-historical — period, which may be termed Early Old English, lasts from the West Germanic invasion of Britain till the beginning of writing, that is from the 5th to the close of the 7th c. It is the stage of tribal dialects of the West Germanic invaders (Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Frisians), which were gradually losing contacts with the related continental tongues. The tribal dialects were used for oral communication, there being no written form of English.

The second historical period extends from the 8th c. till the end of the 11th. The English language of that time is referred to as Old English or Anglo-Saxon-. The tribal dialects gradually changed into local or regional dialects. Towards the end of the period the differences between the dialects grew and their relative position altered. West Saxon, had gained supremacy over the other dialects (Kentish, Mercian and Northum­brian).

The third period, known as Early Middle English, covers the 12th, 13th and half of the 14th c. It was the stage of the greatest dialectal divergence caused by the feudal system and by foreign influences — Scandinavian and French. The dialectal division of present-day English owes its origin to this period of history.

Under Norman rule the official language in England was French, or rather its variety called Anglo-French or Anglo-Norman; it was also the dominant language of literature. The local dialects were mainly used for oral communication and were but little employed in writing. Towards the end of the period their literary prestige grew, as English began to displace French in the sphere of writing, as well as in many other spheres.

The fourth period — from the later 14th c. till the end of the 15th .It was the time of the restoration of English to the position of the state and literary language and the time of literary flourishing. The main dialect used in writing and literature was the mixed dialect of London. (TheLondon dialect was originally derived from the Southern dialectal group, but during the 14th c. the southern traits were largely replaced by East Midland traits.) The literary authority of other dialects was gradually overshadowed by the prestige of the Lon­don written language.

The fifth period — Early New English — lasted from the in­troduction of printing to the age of Shakespeare, that is from 1475 to c. 1660.

It was a time of great historical consequence: under the growing capitalist system the country became economically and politically uni­fied; the changes in the political and social structure, the progress of culture, education, and literature favoured linguistic unity. The growth of the English nation was accompanied by the formation of the national English language.

The London dialect had risen to prominence as a compromise between the various types of speech prevailing in the coun­try and formed the basis of the growing national literary language.

The sixth period extends from the mid-17th c. to the close of the 18th c. This age witnessed the establishment of "norms", which can be defined as received standards recognized as correct at the given period. The norms were fixed as rules and prescriptions of correct usage in the numerous dictionaries and grammar-books published at the time and were spread through education and writing.

It is also important to note that during this period the English language extended its area far beyond the borders of the British Isles, first of all to North America.

Unlike the age of Shakespeare, the neo-classical period dis­couraged variety and free choice in pronunciation, vocabulary and gram­mar.

The English language of the 19th and 20th c. represents the seventh period in the history of English — Late New English or Modern. English. By the 19th c. English had achieved the relative stability typi­cal of an age of literary florescence and had acquired all the properties of a national language, with its functional stratification and recognized standards (though, like any living language, English continued to grow and change). The classical language of literature was strictly distinguished from the local dialects and the dialects of lower social ranks. The dialects were used in oral communication and, as a rule, had no literary tradition; dialect writing was limited to conversations interpolated in books composed in Standard English or to recording folklore.

The 20th c. witnessed considerable intermixture of dialects. The local dialects are now retreating, being displaced by Standard English. The "best" form of English, the Received Standard, and also the regional modified standards are being spread through new channels: the press, radio, cinema and television.

Nevertheless the two dimensions of synchronic functional stratifi­cation of English are as important as before; the horizontal stratifica­tion in Britain applies to modified regional standards and local dialects, while the vertical dimension reflects the social structure of the English- speaking communities.

The expansion of English overseas proceeded together with the growth of the British Empire in the 19th c. and with the increased weight of the United States (after the War of Independence and the Civil War). English has spread to all the inhabited continents. Some geographical varieties of English are now recognized as independent variants of the language.

It is apparent that an English speaker of the 1950s or 1980s uses a form of language different from that used by the characters of Dickens or Thackeray one hundred and fifty years ago. Therefore we may be fully justified in treating the 19th and 20th c. as one historical period in a general survey of the history of English. But in order to describe the kind of English used today and to determine the tendencies at work now, the span of the last thirty or forty years can be singled out as the final stage of development, or as a cross-section representing Present- day English.[3; 49]

As we can see that even Standard English has developed from dialect of London. So then the question arises: What is dialect?

The Greek word dialektos was first applied in ancient Greece to each member of a group of languages, all originally derived from a common Greek language. Each represented the speech of a major city, and had a specialized literary function. In other words, 'the language called Greek was therefore a group of distinct, but related written norms known as dialects ... [which] were ultimately based on spoken dialects of the regions whose names they bore' .

Over time and in translation between languages the meaning has changed further. In addition, it has acquired multiple meanings in English, being used in different senses by different groups of people; it is therefore necessary to start by defining what we mean by dialect.

According to Arnold dialeсts are varieties of the English language peculiar to some districts and having no normalised literary form.

O'Grady defines dialect as, "A regional or social variety of a language characterized by its own phonological, syntactic, and lexical properties."

Longman dictionary defines dialect as a form of a language which is spoken only in one area, with words or grammar that are slightly different from other forms of the same language.

A dialect is a variety that is usually associated with a geographical region.(Oxford Guide to British and American culture)

So here we can notice one common feature in all these definitions: dialect is a language spoken in some area. The most widespread type of dialectal differentiation is geographic. As a rule, the speech of one locality differs from that of any other place. Differences between neighboring local dialects are usually small, but, in traveling farther in the same direction, differences accumulate.