1.4 Social variation

As for the accents, they refer to the varieties in pronunciation, which convey information about a person’s geographical origin. These varieties are partly explained by social mobility and new patterns of settlement. Distinct groups or social formation within the whole may be set off from each other in a variety of ways: by gender, by age, by class, by ethnic identity. Particular groups will tend to have characteristic ways of using the language-characteristic ways of pronouncing it, - for example - and these will help to mark off the boundaries of one group from another. They belong to different social groups and perform different social roles. A person might be identified as ‘a woman’, ‘a parent’, ‘a child’, ‘a doctor’, or in many other ways. Many people speak with an accent, which shows the influence of their place of work. Any of these identities can have consequences for the kind of language they use. Age, sex, and socio-economic class have been repeatedly shown to be of importance when it comes to explaining the way sounds, constructions, and vocabulary vary.

I think the best example to show it is the famous play “Pygmalion” by Bernard Shaw touched upon social classes, speech and social status of people using different types of accents and dialects. One of the ideas was that it is possible to tell from a person’s speech not only where he comes from but what class he belongs to. But no matter what class a person belongs to, he can easily change his pronunciation depending on what environment he finds himself in. The heroine Liza aired his views, saying: “When a child is brought to a foreign country, it picks up the language in a few weeks, and forgets its own. Well, I am a child in your country. I have forgotten my own language, and can speak nothing but yours.” /19/

So some conclusions about the kinds of social phenomena that influence change through contact with other dialects can be made:

a) dialects differ from region through the isolation of groups of speakers;

b) dialects change through contact with other dialects;

c) the upper classes reinforce Standard English and RP through education.

1.5 Spread of english

It is common knowledge that over 300 million people now speak English as first language. It is the national language of Great Britain, the USA, Australia, New Zealand and Canada (part of it).

English was originally spoken in England and south-eastern Scotland. Then it was introduced into the greater part of Scotland and southern Ireland. In the 17th and 18th centuries it was brought to North America (mainly from the West of England). The English language was also at different times enforced as a state language on the peoples who fell under British rule or USA domination in Asia, Africa, Central and South America. A flow of emigrants who went to invade, explore and inhabit those lands came mostly from the south-eastern parts of England.

English became wide-spread in Wales at about the same time. Welsh English is very similar to southern English, although the influence of Welsh has played a role in its formation./22/

The population thus imposed upon still spoke their mother tongue or had control of both languages. After World War II as a result of the national liberation movement throughout Asia and Africa many former colonies have gained independence and in some of them English as the state language has been or is being replaced by the national language of the people inhabiting these countries (by Hindi in India, Urdu in Pakistan, Burmanese in Burma, etc.), though by tradition it retains there the position of an important means of communication.

The role of the English language is often overrated, apart from other reasons, through lack of discrimination between the function of the language as a mother tongue and as a means of communication between the colonizers and the native population./12/

Then in the 20th century American English began to spread in Canada, Latin America, on the Bermudas, and in other parts of the world. Thus nowadays two main types of English are spoken in the English-speaking world: English English and American English.

According to British dialectologists (P.Trudgill, J.Hannah, A.Hughes and others the following variants of English are referred to the English-based group: English English, Welsh English, Australian English, New Zealand English; to the American-based group: United States English, Canadian English.

Scottish English and Irish English fall somewhere between the two, being somewhat by themselves./22/

CHAPTER II. TERRITORIAL VARIETIES OF ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION