The problems of phonostylistics and dialectology. 2
The Ministry of education and science of the Republic of Kazakhstan
Eurasian Humanitarian Institute
Department of foreign languages: two foreign languages
Report
Theme: the problems of phonostylistics and dialectology
Prepared by: Akhmetova Dana
Maussymbayeva Zarina
FL 3-10
Checked by: Doldinova S.A.
Astana, 2015
Content:
I. Phonostylistic
1.1 What is phonostylistics
1.2 The main types of phonostylistic processes
1.3 Phonostylistics in a Second Language
1.4 Experiments
1.5 Problems of phonostylistics
II.Dialectology
2.1 What is dialectology
2.2 Factors of dialectology
2.3 Problems of dialectology
Conclusion
References
Intoduction
Pronunciation is by no means homogeneous. It varies under the influence of numerous factors. These factors do not have linguistic meaning so it is appropriate to refer to these factors as extralinguistic. The information about stylistic variations in learning, understanding and producing language is directly useful for the design, execution and evaluation of teaching phonetics. The branch of phonetics most usually applied for such information is phonostylistics. Phonostylistics is a rapidly developing and controversial field of study though a great deal of research work has been done in it. It would not be accurate to say that phonostylistics is a new branch of phonetics. It is rather a new way of looking at phonetic phenomena. Linguists were until recently not aware of this way of analysis and awareness came only as a result of detailed analysis of spoken speech. Before describing in detail what the problems and tasks of phonostylistics are one should give some understanding of what gave a mighty impulse to this new way of looking at phonetic phenomena. The point is that during the first half of our century linguists have shown interest in written form of the language and so the emphasis in language study was laid on analysing written speech. It is only during the last thirty-five years that the situation has changed. It may be said that it was the invention of the tape-recorder and other technical aids that was the real turning point in phonetics and linguistics in general. Linguists got a good opportunity of studying the other form of language realization — spoken speech — the variety which had hitherto (up to this time) been largely or completely ignored. It is not only the absence of mechanical aids which accounts for the lack of linguistic research that has been carried out into this variety of language and the procedure difficulty of obtaining reliable data to investigate. There is, however, a further reason. Until quite recently theory and research on language was based on the assumption that it is only the written form of language realization that can serve a reliable object of investigation, while the spoken form is not worthy of scientific analysis because it produces deviations from the literary norm. Nobody would want to deny the fact that spoken speech is the primary medium of’ language expression. So when linguists became involved in investigating language in use they realized that language is not an isolated phenomenon, it is a part of society. In real life people find themselves in various and numerous situations. In these situations language is used appropriately, i.e. people select from their total linguistic repertoires those elements which match the needs of particular situations. This fact changed the whole approach to the language.
1 ABOUT PHONOSTYLISTIC
Every standard language is characterized by a range of speech styles, which encompasses not just the segmental aspects but such paralinguistic features as the pace at which speakers habitually deliver their utterances. In this respect American English is unexceptionally variegated, even though most speakers fall into fairly narrow categories when it comes to pace of delivery. Typically, the truly idiosyncratic speaking styles are those that are categorized by speech mannerisms, including dialectal peculiarities in otherwise normative speech.
The qualification «ponderous» or «portentous» applies to speech that is so painfully slow when compared to general norms as to stand out as stylistically inappropriate regardless of the speaker's predilections. Moreover, when the content is utterly trivial or plebeian, utterances delivered at a labored and gravid pace can only try an interlocutor's patience and create the impression (among others) that the speaker has nothing to say. Those who speak at the same pace regardless of what they are saying run the risk of seeming dull and colorless.
Speaking a language is like playing a musical instrument. A gavotte played at a tempo appropriate to a dirge will not set anyone to dancing.
PHONOSTYLISTICS
The term style is used in sociolinguistics
to refer to «the variation that occurs in the speech of a single speaker
in different situational contexts» (Cheshire 1992: 324). The variants
come from a single language or dialect, «though it is recognized that
the same social and psychological principles govern switching of language,
of dialect, and of style» (Cheshire 1992: 324). Situational contexts
are typically described in terms of relative formality. The factors
triggering stylistic variation have been identified as topic, setting and relation
2 WHAT IS PHONOSTYLISTICS
The term phonostylistics stands for the phonological processes conditioned by style, i.e. style-sensitive or style-dependent ones. A scale of styles may be set up in a variety of ways, still it is generally encompassed within the extremes of emphatic vs. informal, with formal in between. Emphatic style is well-exemplified by motherese and citation forms, informal styles include casual, colloquial, intimate, while a speech, a lecture, or a job interview are examples of a formal style. For the purposes of clarity, I will refer to a simplified binary distinction between formal vs. informal only.
As far as the informal style is concerned, there exists the whole array of terms in the literature used to refer to approximately the same type of speech: fast, rapid, allegro, casual, connected, informal, real, spontaneous, or conversational. With respect to the primary style-differentiating criteria, the term casual seems to be the most adequate or, indeed, the least narrow or vague. The criteria are: tempo of speech and attention paid to speech. The criteria take on different values depending on the situation in which a speech act takes place (topic, aim, relation to the interlocutor, place of a conversation) and on the individual features of the speaker. Most commonly, exactly those situations do arise which trigger casual speech, i.e. in other words, most often we speak casually. The relationship between the two criteria is inversely proportional: the higher the degree of attention the slower the tempo.
phonostylistic tempo speech attention
3 THE MAIN TYPES OF PHONOSTYLISTIC PROCESSES
The main types of phonostylistic processes are:
- assimilations, e.g. of stops and nasals, as in: that pen, good mother, could get, ten men; palatalization and coalescence, e.g. in: did you, hit you, don't you, as yet
- reductions, e.g. cluster reductions and degeminations, as in: a test drive, I asked him; smoothing, as in: hour, lawyer
- hiatus avoidance, e.g. in: law and order; situation
- assimilation + reduction, e.g. in: I can't go, don't be silly
- reduction and elision of vowels conditioned by rhythm in iso-accentual, stress-timed languages, e.g. perhaps
- consonant epenthesis, e.g. in: prin [t] ce, min [t] ce.
I propose a graphic way to represent stylistic variation (Dziubalska-Koіaczyk 1990: 20; see Figure 1 below). Underlying intention is a term compatible with the mentalistic, psychological theory of the phoneme (cf. such notions as Lautabsicht, sound image, intention, in the works of Baudouin de Courtenay, Sapir, Stampe).
For instance: underlying intention happen / / , realization in production []. Further illustrations of phonostylistic processes are quoted below:
Conversational style:
and
also
using
impedance
you
can
shielded
Reading:
and
a - (hypercorrection)
can
conductors
shielded
4 PHONOSTYLISTICS IN A SECOND LANGUAGE
According to the popular view, phonostylistic processes are automatic, phonetically conditioned, serve ease of articulation, and as such they arise automatically at a given stage of second language competence. There is a number of problems connected with this view, however. Firstly, phonostylistic processes are language-specific. The same function is served by various means across languages, but also within a language. Languages decide for some out of many ways to overcome articulatory difficulty, which is demonstrated by language-specific speaker-friendly casual speech processes. For instance, a coronal stop or fricative palatalises easily and even coalesces with the following palatal glide within words and across word boundaries in English (cf. would you, as you, immediately, etc.) whereas in Polish this never happens (kot j№ does not become koci№). Thus, the choice of a process serving ease of articulation in L2 cannot be random (and thus cannot be automatic). This means that even if the learner is successful in targeting second language underlying intentions (e.g., with the help of the methods outlined above, working against «repair»), still the second language casual speech processes will not necessarily be triggered, since there is more than one «natural pronunciation» (phonetically motivated one) resulting from those intentions.
Secondly, the problem with the acquisition of phonostylistics of a second language is that the level of attention in a SL does not drop low enough to trigger a natural application of those processes. Even in a natural setting of SLA, certain forms get fossilized before they get the chance to be productively derived. Once such fossilization happens, the subsequent drop in attention due to the natural setting conditions does not bring the expected application of the casual speech processes.
L1 interference is stronger in casual speech (if a learner manages to reach casual speech level) due to the lack of or difficulty in control over articulation. A vicious circle arises: we want the learners to reach casual style (correlated with low level of attention), but at the same time we want them to apply L2 processes and not succumb to L1 interference (caused by low level of attention).
Additionally, phonostylistic processes are the most difficult to decode from the non-native language input (cf. Figure 1 above). A frequent result of this difficulty is learning lexicalized versions of utterances with processes already present in them without the learners realizing this, e.g. L2 English Would you like..., with palatalization and yod-coalescence already applied.
The primary reason, thus, for teaching phonostylistic processes is to enhance this decoding ability, i.e. to facilitate perception and enable the learner to establish an underlying representation. In this way, teaching phonostylistics creates a bridge towards learning phonology of a second language in general.
5 EXPERIMENTS
In a series of experiments, since 1984, (Dziubalska-Koіaczyk 1984, 1985, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, see Dziubalska-Koіaczyk 1990) I investigated the role of formal vs. natural setting in SLA. The experiments showed that natural setting learners (there were 21 subjects) did not differentiate among styles and used rote-learned, lexicalized versions of casual speech forms with no evidence for a productive application of casual speech processes. For instance, they produced assimilated form in Tell me what you want, but not in Has your letter come, What's your weight? Don't miss your train. Formal setting learners (20 subjects), on the other hand, demonstrated some productivity in the application of phonostylistic processes in their English, which pointed to the effectiveness of formal instruction, training and exercise.
Zborowska (1997) obtained statistically significant progress in perception and production of basic casual speech processes of English in Polish learners due to the regular explicit training in phonostylistics (she compared an experimental group with a control one whose members received a traditional instruction).
Blanco, Carrillo & Gayoso (1999) showed that phono-metaphonological training raised substantially the metaphonological awareness of Spanish school children learning English, which proved very helpful to the children in all production skills, i.e. reading, writing and pronunciation.
Dziubalska-Koіaczyk, Weckwerth and Zborowska (1999) reported that students of English found the metalinguistic knowledge they acquired in a descriptive grammar course very useful in learning practical skills, i.e. in perfecting their performance. For instance, out of 62 students, 40 acknowledged metacompetence as background for performance (cf. the quote from one of the subjects: «theoretical knowledge helps to create a mental image of how sounds are produced»), 10 confirmed that metacompetence helped them in acquiring connected speech phenomena.
Linda Shockey (1997) conducted a perception experiment of gated reduced speech by native and non-native speakers of English and showed that while native listeners unravelled the reductions to arrive at the correct input, non-native listeners practically did not. The experimental sentence was: The scree [m] play di [n] resemble the book at all. She concluded that exposure to a range of inputs which are phonetically different but phonologically the same (cf. Figure 1 again) will aid comprehension of naturally-varying native speech. I would reinforce her conclusion and add explicit training to pure exposure.
Summing up, if we take into consideration both the idea of working against «repair» by the learner and the above discussed «metacompetence» issue, we may propose a basic two-way phonostylistic distinction relevant to the learner:
- near-intentional speech = is a formal style (listener-oriented), for which the naturalness principle defines the obligatory minimum of processes (basically, language-specific allophonic processes); the learner uses L1 intentions and processes as well as «repair» at the beginning of acquisition; s / he needs to ultimately learn to hear SL intentions and to apply SL processes to derive SL productions
- average speech = is a casual style (speaker-oriented); this is a style which we use most often in every-day life; it is correlated with a low level of attention paid to the way of speaking; the learner hears the strings either as above (here «repair» may be successful if L1 and L2 happen to have the same casual speech process, e.g. nasal assimilation) or at their «face value» (since what s / he hears does not match any familiar intention either in L1 or in L2, e.g. palatalization and coalescence); it's harder to learn to hear the intention here, since it's further removed from production
«COMPETENCES» IN THE LEARNER'S MIND. A methodological remedy against the difficulties mentioned above and analogous difficulties in other areas of second language grammar is to raise language awareness of the learners, i.e. to make them aware of the «competences» they already possess. Phonostylistics is a particularly good starting point since casual speech is the most common and the most natural register speakers use, cf. average speech. It is exactly via second language casual speech processes that a learner should come to «reconstruct» the second language system, and this with the help of explicit formal instruction. If the instruction concerns formal speech only, the learner will hardly succeed with unravelling the real language input.
L1. Language awareness can be raised through the mediation of the first language (L1) whose positive role in SLA should be emphasized. For instance, realizing the existence of phonostylistics in the mother tongue activates self-organizing capacities of the language system.
Thus, in the case of teaching English to native speakers of a given language, the learners' L1 should constitute an important fundament of the teaching procedure. L1 corpora and descriptions as well as contrastive L1-L2 analyses are a prerequisite for the preparation of appropriate materials.
Dialects and other L2's. It is easier to raise the linguistic awareness of those learners who already possess the ability of code switching, either inter-dialectal or inter-lingual, by drawing their attention to this ability. Code switching could perpetuate to yet another code - an L2 in question, especially if the new code is typologically cognate. The importance of the learner's local dialect as a determinant of learning characteristics has been pointed out, for instance, by James and Kettemann (1983: 9). Students should be taught how to use their dialectal base in the learning of a second language. Code switching between dialect and standard should be used to their advantage rather than disturb the acquisition process. Here for instance one may think of an advantage speakers of Hawaiian Creole English have due to their ability of code-switching between American English and HCE.
Similarly, prior knowledge of other languages should be taken advantage of. Thus, the most suitable native language and prior language(s) input should be selected to serve as basis for deriving second language forms.3 Again, speakers of HCE would have an advantage for instance in learning Japanese (e.g. due to the tendency to open syllable structure in HCE, among others; cf. Odo 1977). In general, multilingualism of Hawai`i creates very favourable circumstances for language learning.
Socio-pragmatics of L2. Above sections emphasized the teaching about L2 by means of reference to L1 as well as to other languages and dialects known by the learners. Another important aspect of teaching about L2 (raising the awareness of L2) is not to isolate grammar from its actual context. Especially when teaching in the formal setting, grammatical processes should not be taught «raw», but should always be placed in their respective socio-pragmatic framework of usage.
CONCLUSION. In this paper I have claimed that speech is in the ear of the listener. Only if we properly understand mental activities of the learner confronted with SL input can we help him / her in successful acquisition of a SL. We need to understand and aid perception in order to trigger desired production.
What is a successful acquisition of a second language, however? Does the learner, for instance, lose his / her foreign accent when s / he stops to use the «engineered» intentions and starts to perceive the expected L2 ones instead? Is this a necessary prerequisite to acquire second language phonology? As a final note, let us try to specify what can actually be meant by the term native speaker of a language.
A native speaker (NS) is a person who uses a given language without hesitation: s / he possesses one stable form of pronunciation (would vary styles, or even dialects, but in each of them would always hit the target) and never ponders about quality of a sound (no self-reflection, or self-correction). S / he also never ponders about how to react in a given situation: acts spontaneously by means of a spoken language, doesn't look for words or phrases or idioms in a casual interaction. Pronunciation is thus only part of the characteristics of a native speaker.
A native speaker does not necessarily speak a version of a language identifiable as a standard or a generally identified dialect: the fact that s / he uses his / her language in the above described manner makes her / him a native speaker, and thus his / her language a version of the language in question (be it a creole, pidgin or dialect / accent); this means that anative speaker's speech may even be accented by a foreign tongue.
Thus, to be a native speaker one needs to immerse in the target language environment in childhood, when one may become a native speaker of a number of languages as long as there is enough exposure to them from the start (including parents, caretakers); however, the exposure should be balanced and evenly distributed over all spheres of life (this is possible e.g. in countries with multiple official languages). Consequently, it is hardly possible to become a native speaker in the full sense of the term by means of a formal training, or even immersion later in life (since all learners are already native speakers of their respective tongues). It is possible, however, to achieve native-like pronunciation by means of a formal training.
In this paper I have made some suggestions concerning the usefulness of phonological knowledge in the acquisition of second language pronunciation.
6 PROBLEMS OF PHONOSTYLISTICS
The primary concern of linguistics is the study of language in use. It's particularly relevant for phonetic studies. We're interested in how the phonetic units are used in various social situation. It's the extra linguistic situation that influences our choice of language means.
There's a special branch of linguistics that studies the way language means function in different situation. It's called functional stylistics. It's primary concern is functional style - a set of language means used in a particular situation.
Phonostylistics is the study of the way phonetic units, both segmental (sounds) and suprasegmental (intonation), are used in a particular extralinguistic situation.
Extralinguistic situation consists of 3 components.
1) The purpose. It's the most important factor that guides the communication. The purpose is what you want to achieve (to get / give information, to instruct, to entertain, to chat). The aim is very important as far as pronunciation is concerned.
The subject matters less important but it stil matters.
This factor can bring numerous variations in pronunciation which are determined both by individual characteristics of the speaker and the character of their relationship.
We must consider individual and socio-cultural features: the social status, social group or class the speaker belongs to.
2) Participants. Another important aspect is the character of participant relationship which is reflected in the tenor (тональность) of discourse: formal / informal, friendly / unfriendly, SOMETHING and it effects greatly the choice of linguistic means.
The social roles of the speaker are also important. We have authority subordination relationship (teacher - pupil)
3) Scene / setting. This component has several factors:
- physical orientations of the participants (the distance between people, proximics studies it)
Setting can be also described in the following terms: public / non-public, formal / informal, monoloquing / poliloguing, dialoguing.
It also includes the cannel of communication: face to face, public presentation, telephone, mass media. (аксиальное - радиальное)
All the components of extralinguistic situation influence the choice of linguistic means.
The Classification of Phonetic Styles.
1. Gaiduchic (correlates with functional styles of language)
- solemn (торжественный);
- scientific business (научно-деловой);
- official business (официально-деловой);
- everyday (бытовой);
- amiliar (непринуждённый).
2. Dubovsky (degrees of formality):
- informal ordinary;
- formal neutral;
- formal official;
- informal familiar;
- declamatory.
3. Ours (the purpose of communication):
- informational;
- academic;
- publicistic;
- declamatory;
- conversational.
Dialectology is the study of the way sounds, words and grammatical forms vary within a language. The term is usually used to describe the study both of accents (the varying sounds used within a language) and dialects (the differing grammatical structures and words used). On the whole, dialectology has focussed on the geographical distribution of different accents and dialects, though it has begun to investigate social factors (such as age, gender and position in society) too. This article will outline and exemplify the long and diverse history of the subject right up to the present day, as well as the evolution of the methods used to carry out dialectological research. It focuses on those aspects of the subject of which all undergraduate students of dialectology should become aware.
Dialectology
The study of language in society is called sociolinguistics. The real basis for much of sociolinguistics is that the differences in language among members of a speech community or between different regions speaking different varieties of the same language are often meaningful for society. Not everyone who speaks a given language speaks it in the same way. Actually, every individual uses language in their own unique way. This is evident from an analysis of writers' vocabulary usage, for example. It is possible to prove the authorship of an anonymous work based on statistical studies of word usage. An individual's particular way of speaking is called an idiolect. Language variants spoken by entire groups of people are referred to as dialects. Some linguists use the termlect to describe any variant of a language (family lect, village lect, etc.)
Dialectology is a branch of sociolinguistics that studies the systematic variants of a language. The term dialect was first coined in 1577 from the Latindialectus, way of speaking. Dialectal variation is present in most language areas and often has important social implications. The earliest recorded instance where dialectal information played a role in history appears in the Bible, in the Book of Judges, verse 12:4-6: Then Gilead cut Ephraim off from the fords of the Jordan, and whenever an Ephraimite fugitive said 'Let me cross', the men of Gilead asked him "Are you an Ephraimite?" If he answered "No." they said "Then say shiboleth. He would say Sibboleth, since he could not pronounce the word correctly. Thereupon they seized and slaughtered him by the fords of the Jordan. Because of these lines, the word shibboleth, which in ancient Hebrew meant either ear of grain or flowing stream, has come to mean a distinguishing mark or criterion.
To study dialects we must first decide how to determine when two similar forms of a language are merely dialects of the same language and when are they separate languages. The difference between dialect and language is not clear-cut, but rather depends on at least three factors, which often contradict one another.
1) The first criterion is purely linguistic, mutual intelligibility. Can the speakers of two different language forms readily understand one another? If they cannot, then the two forms would normally be considered separate languages--at least by linguists. Such is the case with Dutch, German and English, which are not mutually intelligible, or are mutually intelligible only to a small degree. There are at least 5000 forms of speech across the world that are as different from one another as German is from English. These would normally be considered separate languages. If language differences cause only minimal problems in communication, there is a tendency to call the variants dialects of a single language: such is the case with British, Australian, American English and the English of India--all dialects of English.
2) The second criterion is cultural, and takes into account the opinion of the speakers: do the speakers themselves think of their form of language as a variety of a more standard form of speech? Is there a neutral or standarized form of the language that speakers look to as the norm. This is certainly true of the varieties of English spoken in the United States. Most anyone speaking Southern English or Brooklynese would consider their language forms to be local variants of American English; they would also recognize certain newscasters as speaking English "without an accent." In fact, some people use the word dialect to mean "an accent," although an accent is only the phonological aspect of a dialect; dialects also differ in grammar and vocabulary. Most speakers of American English would also consider American English and the English spoken in Britain--which subcribes to a slightly different standard--to be variants of a single language. (There are differences in vocabulary, pronunciation, punctuation, etc. between standard American English and British English.) On the other hand, the Germanic languages of Scandinavia show a high degree of mutual intelligibility, but few if any Danes or Norwegians would claim that their language is a substandard dialect of Swedish. Each language--Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Icelandic--has its own, separate literary standard, even though the language forms themselves show a fairly high degree of mutually intelligible.
Most language forms that share a single literary standard are mutually intelligible. A few are not. The several main dialects of Chinese are not at all mutually intelligible in their spoken form. The best known, Mandarin Chinese and Cantonese are more different from one another than German is from English. Yet all of them use a single standard written form. This is possible because Chinese characters are based only very loosely on sound. Therefore, many Chinese speakers consider their very divergent spoken forms to be variants of a single standard language, unified by the use of written characters with shared meanings. In terms of spoken form, the so-called "dialects" of Chinese could easily be considered separate languages; in the speakers' view, they are dialects of the same language--at least as far as the written language is concerned.
3) A final criterion in differentiating language from dialect involves a language's political status, a factor that is external to the form of the language and sometimes even at variance with the culture of the speakers. Do the political authorities in a country consider two language forms to be separate languages or dialects of a single language? Extremely different, non-mutually intelligible language forms may be called dialects simply because they are spoken within a single political entity and it behooves the rulers of that entity to consider them as such: this was the case with Ukrainian and Russian in the days of the Russian Empire, where Ukrainian (called Little Russian) was considered a substandard variety of Russian (called Great Russian). This could also be said to be the case with the so-called dialects of Chinese in the People's Republic of China.
On the other hand, language forms that are quite mutually intelligible can be considered separate languages also for purely political reasons. Such is the case with Serbian and Croatian in the former Yugoslavia. Linguistically, these two language forms are more similar than the English spoken in Texas and New York; linguists, in fact, usually called them both by the name Serbo-Croatian. However, for entirely political reasons the Serbs and the Croats have deliberately invented separate literary standards to render their language more divergent than it really is. Furthermore, the Croats, being Catholics, use the Latin alphabet, while the Orthodox Serbs use a version of Cyrillic. A similar situation pertains is other cases, notably Hindi/Urdu, and Bengali/Assamese.
A somewhat different example of political language-making is to be found in the case of Romanian. When the USSR took over the eastern province of Romania in 1945 at the close of WW2, they declared that the local Moldavian dialect was a separate language. Although Moldavian and other regional dialects of Romanian actually differ very little, the Soviets forced the Moldavians to adopt the Cyrillic alphabet and add many Russian words to the vocabulary. When Moldavia became independent in 1992, the Russians living there have started a civil war to gain their own mini-state inside Moldavia; they justified their apprehension by saying that Moldavians speak Romanian and sooner or later will rejoin Romania. So the definition of dialect vs. language, unfortunately, can also vary for purely political considerations.
The best we can do in defining a dialect as something different from a language is to say the following: If two language variants are mutually intelligible and subscribe to the same literary standard, they are dialects of the same language rather than separate languages--provided, of course, that there is no overriding political reason to think otherwise. And, if two language variants are not mutually intelligible, they are different languages-- unless there is some overriding political or cultural reason to consider them the same language. One exasperated linguist said that a language is simply a dialect with an army and navy. Thus, the difference between dialect and language is partly linguistic and partly a matter of opinion based on extra-linguistic considerations.
It could be argued that most languages spoken today were once simply dialects of another language. When a single people migrates in separate directions and the resulting groups no longer maintain close communication with one another, then dialects emerge and in time can evolve into separate languages (cf. Indo-European). The same effect can be produced as a result of political disintegration (cf. Latin after the fall of the Roman Empire).
When people are cut off from each other--either by geography, by ethnic separatism, or by political separation-- which group tends to change the least and retain the older forms of a language? It turns out that the language spoken by the group that is most isolated from the mainstream tends to change the least (Appalachian English is most like 17th cent. English. Portuguese of Brasil. Yiddish like 15th century German). A striking example among Indo-European languages is Lithuanian and Latvian. Often, languages that are on the periphery of a language area tend to retain old forms the longest. (Spanish and Rumanian are more conservative than French and Italian).
What factors speed up or hinder the formation of dialects? Since language naturally changes all the time, a language spread out over a large territory or over a geographically diverse territory such as a series of mountain valleys is prone to differentiate into dialects. Language unity can still be maintained by a unified system of education, by the influence of the mass media, by the social mixing that occurs within a highly mobile population. Common culture and political institutions also tend to resist the emergence of new dialects.
Some languages are very homogenous, showing little dialectal variation. Political unity over a wide area for a long period of time tends to minimize the formation of dialects. Russian is a good example: there are only three dialectal areas over a vast territory. Other languages have very many dialects, some of which are not mutually intelligible. These dialects are the result of speech communities being isolated from one another over long periods of time. As a rule, the less groups communicate, the more their language forms will diverge. A good example of this is the Basques, who inhabit a tiny territory of northeast Spain. Since villages and regions are separated by mountains, the Basques speak at least half a dozen very different dialects. In ancient Greece each city state had its own dialect. German has so many dialects today because of centuries of political disunity, during which time each province or town developed its own way of speaking; the main division today is between High and Low German.
Because dialects very often emerge because of language spread and subsequent isolation, they may often be described in terms of geography. In such cases linguists usually find a dialect continuum. The difference between one areal dialect and another is often a gradual series of changes, not an abrupt change in any one location. Cf. the gradual transition from High to Low German. Instead of marking the boundaries of dialects on maps, linguists often mark the distribution of various features with bars called isoglosses (Cf. the pronounciation of greasy [s] vs. [z] south of Pennsylvania.) Main dialects tend to be separated by isogloss bundles, or coincidences of isoglosses. (e.g., New York and New England vs. the rest of the country; or the South vs. the rest of the country.)
In addition to geography, other factors may lead to dialectal change. One is ethnicity, the cultural, religious and racial differences that separate groups of people. The dialect of an ethnic group within a larger speech community is often marked by certain unique features. Often these features derive from the influence of an earlier language spoken by the given ethnic group. Cf., the example of minorities in the former USSR who speak Russian.) Sometimes ethnic groups seek to assimilate into the mainstream and an ethnic dialect disappears in a few generations (Lithuanian speakers of Russian, who usually achieve near perfect Russian). Sometimes speakers deliberately try to maintain themselves apart from the majority (Georgians and Estonians, who deliberately speak Russian with as much accent as possible as a statement of their nationalism) This process also is apparent among various ethnic groups in the United States today. The lingo of American teenagers is another example of intentional and deliberate language divergence.
Conclusion
Summarizing, one may say that phonostylistics studies the way phonetic means are used in this or that particular situation which exercises the conditioning influence of a set of factors which are referred to as extralinguistic. The aim of phonostylistics is to analyse all possible kinds of spoken utterances with the main purpose of identifying the phonetic features, both segmental and suprasegmental, which are restricted to certain kinds of contexts, to explain why such features have been used and to classify them into categories based upon a view of their function. Before describing phonetic style-forming factors it is obviously necessary to try to explain what is meant by extralinguistic situation. It should be noted that if a systematic exhaustive and ultimately realistic view of phonostylistic differentiation of oral speech is to be attained an orderly analysis of the communicative extralinguistic situation appears to be obligatory. The analysis shows that it can be defined by three components that are purpose, participants, setting. These components distinguish situation as the context within which interaction (communication) occurs.
Thus a speech situation can be defined by the co occurrence of two or more interlocutors related to each other in a particular way, having a particular aim of communicating, communicating about a particular topic in a particular setting.
1) The first criterion is purely linguistic, mutual intelligibility. Can the speakers of two different language forms readily understand one another? If they cannot, then the two forms would normally be considered separate languages--at least by linguists. Such is the case with Dutch, German and English, which are not mutually intelligible, or are mutually intelligible only to a small degree.
2) The second criterion is cultural, and takes into account the opinion of the speakers: do the speakers themselves think of their form of language as a variety of a more standard form of speech? Is there a neutral or standarized form of the language that speakers look to as the norm.
3) A final criterion in differentiating language from dialect involves a language's political status, a factor that is external to the form of the language and sometimes even at variance with the culture of the speakers. Do the political authorities in a country consider two language forms to be separate languages or dialects of a single language? Extremely different, non-mutually intelligible language forms may be called dialects simply because they are spoken within a single political entity and it behooves the rulers of that entity to consider them as such: this was the case with Ukrainian and Russian in the days of the Russian Empire, where Ukrainian (called Little Russian) was considered a substandard variety of Russian (called Great Russian). This could also be said to be the case with the so-called dialects of Chinese in the People's Republic of China.
References:
1. Baudouin de Courtenay, Jan. 1895. Versuch einer Theorie phonetischer Alternationen.
2. Strassburg-Cracow. An abridged translation An Attempt at a Theory of Phonetic Alternations in Edward Stankiewicz (ed.) 1972.
3. A Baudouin de Courtenay Anthology. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 144-212.
4. Blanco, Mercedes, Marisol Carrillo & Encarna Gayoso. 1999. Primary school learning of EFL through phono-metaphonological training. PTLC99 (Phonetics Teaching and Learning Conference) UCL, London, 14-15 April 1999.
5. B.Ilyish. The Structure of Modern
English.
6. M.Blokh. A Course in Theoretical
Grammar.
7. Shorrocks, Graham (1998). A Grammar of the Dialect of the Bolton Area. Pt. 1: Introduction; phonology. Bamberger Beiträge zur englischen Sprachwissenschaft; Bd. 41. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. pp. 41–46. ISBN 3-631-33066-9. Jump up
8. Chambers, J.K., and Trudgill, Peter. 1998. Dialectology.
2nd ed. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge.
9. E.Morokhovskaya. Fundamentals
of Theoretical Grammar.
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