SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES

DEPARTMENT: ENGLISH AND OTHER FOREIGN LANGUAGES

UNIT CODE: BLA 4209

UNIT TITLE: VARIETIES OF ENGLISH

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UNIT CODE: BLA 4209UNIT TITLE: VARIETIES OF ENGLISH

CONTACT HOURS: 42

Pre-requisites: NONE

Learning objectives

To examine how the notion of language variation applies to English in today’s worlds

Expected learning outcomes

By the end of the course, the student should be able to:

1.Discuss the notions underlying the term ‘variety’

2. Compare and contrast varieties of English
3. Explain English as a second, foreign and international language

Week Topic Sub-Topic Credit

hours

Week 1. Introduction to Discussion of the major components of 3

variation in English Language in terms of use

Week 2. The incidence of Differential change: systematic and incidental 3

variation in language variation

Week 3 The incidence of Lexical variation 3

variation in language

Week 4 The incidence of Phonological variation 3

variation in language

Week 5 The incidence of Grammatical variation e.g. Morphological and 3

variation in language Syntactic

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Week 6 Varieties of English The notion of standardization 3
English

Week 7 Varieties of English The notion of standardization 3

English versus Standard English

Week 8 Varieties of English Establishment of standard language 3

Week 9 Varieties according to Received upper class language (RP) 3

Language user

Week 10 A comparative North American English 3

study of the
English- English
variety and some
other English
varieties

Week 11 A comparative Kenyan English 3

study of the
English- English
variety and some
other English
varieties

Week 12 Social varieties as Class, Ethnicity or race 3

determined by:

Week 13 Social varieties as Sex 3

determined by:

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 Age

Week 14 The nascent ( East Africa ) Variety English 3

Kenyan

Teaching / Learning Methodologies

Instructional Materials and Equipment

Projector, Text books

Course Assessment

Examination - 70%; Continuous Assessments (Exercises and Tests) - 30%; Total - 100%

Pass mark: 40%

Teaching methodologies

Lectures
Group discussion presentation
Tutorials

RECOMMENDED READING

 Crystal, D. and Davy, D.( 1969 ) Investigating English Style. London

 Francis, W.N. ( 1985 ) Dialectology: An introduction. London Longman
 Freeborn et al ( 1986 ) Dialect and Language variation, New York Academic press Inc.
 Quick et al ( 1985 ) A comprehensive grammar of the Language. New York Long man
 Trudgil,P. ( 1988 ) International English: A guide to varieties of Standard English
 Victora F. et al ( 1988 ) An Introduction to language Chicago: Holt, Rinehart and Winston Inc.

Text books for further reading

Bauer, L. (2002). An introduction to International Varieties of English. Edinburgh: Edinburgh

University Press.

Bauer, L. (1994). Watching English Change. London and Newyork.Longman.

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Silver, p. (1996).A dictionary of South African English on Historical principles. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.

Major Components of Language

All normal human beings speak at least one language. How then can we define language?

Language can be defined as a system of communication, a medium for thought, a vehicle for
literary expression, a social institution, a matter for political controversy, a factor in national
building(O‟grady/Dobrovyolsky 1987). Can you imagine a world of people with no language for
communication? Let us see what makes up the language we use for communication.

Linguistists have identified five components of language.These are:

 Phonology
 Morphology
 Syntax

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  Semantics
 Pragmatics
PHOLOLOGY:
This is a branch of linguistics that deals with the study of sound structure of languages.
Phonology studies phonemes of a language. Phonemes are the meaningfully different sound units
in a particular language. Phonemes are actually the smallest units of sound. E.g sat and sad the
last phone differ.bag and bat last phoneme differ.talk,and walk the first phoneme differ.

ALLOPHONE
These are the different ways in which actual phonetic speech sounds give rise to the same word
being pronounced differently.

MORPHOLOGY
The term Morphology is derived from Greek. It is made up of morph which means shape,for, and
logywhich means the study of something.
Morphology is also defined as the scientific study of forms and structure of words in a language.
In morphology the internal structure of words is studied. The term word can also be defined as
the smallest independent units of a language. They can be separated from the other units and they
can change Example
The man changed his coat.Changed
If„d‟ is removed from the word changed, it becomes change and it is meaningful by „d‟ is not
meaningful on its own. Therefore change is a work because it is meaningful on its own while d is
not.
Words are also made up of smaller pieces in their interval structure though not all. Consider the
following:
i. Kind - consist of one morpheme
ii. Kinder – Consist of the morphemes. Kind + er
iii. Unkind – consists of the morpheme un + kind
iv. Unkindeness – Consists of three morpheme un+kind+ness.
Morphemes can therefore be defined as the smallest meaning bearing units of language
Morphemes can be categorized in the following:

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 I. Free morphemes – These are single words that consist of one morpheme
eg.go,come,to,work etc
II. Band morphemes – There are morphemes that are not meaningful on their own but must
be attached to another morpheme to be meaningful e.g
 affixes
Unkindness. Un-affix
Ness – affix
Kind – stem of the work.
Un –comes before the stem therefore it is called a prefix.
Ness that goes after the stem is called a suffix.
Other examples of affixes include those underlined below.
a. Unhappy un – prefix
b. Pre-wedding pre - prefix
c. Underground under-prefix
d. Happiness ness- suffix
e. Worthless less-suffix
f. Helpful ful- suffix

 Infixes
An infix comes in between a word. This is not very common in English but common in other
languages.Example of an Infix is Kuangukiana

CIRCUMFIXES
These are morphemes that are attached to the front and back of a word.
See the example below from the Dutch language
Gee-wandil-d means walked
Gee-studeer-d means studied
Gee–bouw –d means built.
Gee …..d (circumfixes)

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EXERCISE
How many morphemes does the word below have? .Underline them
Antidisestablishmentarianism
Answer
It has six
Anti disestablish ment arian ism

SYNTAX
This is the study of how words are combined to make meaningful sentences. Rules of grammar
need to be followed as words are combined so as to have sentences that make sense.
Syntax is all about the structure of sentences by studying syntax, we are able to come up
descriptive rules about how a particular language works

It is the rules of grammar that will make one conclude that sentence A below is correct while
sentence B is incorrect.
(a) John sat on the fence
(b) The fence sat John.
Syntax will also make one know that sentence C and D are the same in terms of meaning.

(c) John killed the antelope.

(d) The antelope was killed by John
Syntax takes into account morphology (language structure and sounds used) and the rules that
govern sentence construction.Syntax helps learn about parts of speech and how they function.

SEMANTICS

Semantics is a sub discipline of linguistics that mainly focuses on the study of meaning
What does the word „meaning‟ mean: In the past meaning was given a different definition .One
definition is connotation which means the kind of association that a word evokes. The kind of
image a word creates in our mind. E.g Summer for somebody in the west means really hot but
somebody in Africa may not have a true picture of summer so meaning may be lost.

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Another suggested meaning of the word meaning is denotation whereby it was suggested that
the meaning of a word is simply the entity of the word e.g. Nairobi city, cup etc but some words
are not oblates meaning may not actually be denotative.
Meaning = extension and intention. In semantics, meaning can be defined as being extension –
what thing the word refers to and intention – The concepts or images that the word evokes.
The study of semantics looks at how meaning works in a language.Semantics looks at how words
relate to each other.
 Words can be related semantically in different ways
i. Synonymous- different words with same meaning.e.g.big,large,gigantic
ii. Antonyms- words with opposite meaning e.g. big and small.
iii. Polsyemy- One word with 2 different meanings e.g.
Dull - not clever
Dull – not bright in colour
The two meanings are not totally different.
Iv Homophony – one word with two meanings that are totally different.eg
E.g. bat- flying mammal
Bat- equipment in cricket
Semantics also looks at how sentences relate to one another.
1. A sentence can be a paraphrase of another for example.
The children gave their parents gifts.
The parents were given gifts by their children.
Both sentences mean the same.
2. Sentences can be related to each other through entailment. Two sentences are said to be
entailed when the second sentence is true of the first but the two sentences do not mean
the same thing as in paraphrase. E.g Priests do not marry
Priests are single men
OR
Kennedy has married Grace
Kennedy is Grace‟s husband
OR
Grace is the wife of Kennedy.

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Semantics also looks at ambiguity.
A sentence is said to be ambiguous if it has got two different meanings at the same time.
e.g. (i) Jennifer appealed to the Vice Chancellor .This sentence could mean that either Jennifer
was attractive to the Vice Chancellor or she could have asked for help from the Vice Chancellor.
PRAGMATICS
Pragmatics is the study of how people make use of language to achieve their goals. Pragmatics is
the study of meaning in interaction.
In pragmatics,we look at the practical aspects of people‟s actions and thoughts. Pragmatics also
looks at how linguistic signs are used in actual situations. In pragmatics, one looks beyond the
literal meaning of an utterance. One looks at the implied meaning.
Language is considered as an instrument of interaction. When people use language, what do they
actually want to communicate and what does the listener understand. E.g.look at the
conversation.
Speaker: It is cold in here.
Listener: The listener guesses that the speaker wants the windows closed or the heater turned on.
Beyond the literal meaning, there is the implication.
OR
Speaker: It is one o‟clock
Listener: The listener knows that the speaker is probably suggesting that it is lunch time.

Pragmatics also helps us to understand conversational implicature.

In situations where a sentence is ambiguous e.g. flying planes can be dangerous.
The above sentence has got two meanings;
 Planes that are flying can be dangerous.
 Flying planes from the perspective of the pilot can be dangerous.
The contest matters in that if the pilot says the sentence above then ambiguous is reduced but if it
is somebody who is not a pilot then the ambiguity is more.

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THE INCIDENCE OF VARIATION IN LANGUAGE

SYSTEMATIC AND DIFFERENTIAL CHANGE

English has gone though dramatic change in three major periods of history

Old English (450-1100)

Middle English 1100-1500)
Modern English (1500-to date)
Old English looks almost like a foreign language today‟s and may not be easy to comprehend.
Pronunciation of words may have changed a great deal e.g.

old middle current/modern word

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/ha:m/ /hↄ:m/ /howm/ home
/ba:t/ /bↄ:t/ /bowt/ boat
/sta:n/ /stↄ:n/ /stown/ stone

Sytematicity of language change

The development of modern English from old and Middle English has been as a result of a series
of regular and systematic change.The development of subject-verb order in language affected
more than a few verbsPronunciation of words also changed as shown in the above example

All languages undergo change. Language change reflects modification of grammar. Some
changes may affect rules of syntax as well as pronunciation of individual words.

Triggers of linguistic change-

Language change cannot be entirely pointed to one particular factor as these factors often
interact. Specific factors range from physiological factors, analogy, folk etymology, borrowing
and sociology factors.

Physiological factors

Articulation of sounds can be made easier by modifying a sound it is more like or unlike its
neighbours. In old English velar stop (K) was palatized before front vowels unless the influence
on their move forward place of articulation. The label below shows how palatization has led to
change in pronunciation of words

Analogy

Analogyinvolves the interference that if two are like in the respects, there they should be alike in
other aspects. In old English for examples nouns belonged to different classes and each had a
way of representing plural e.g.

Singular Plural

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Hand handa
Stan (stone) stanas
Gear (year) gear
With time /s/ and /es/ became a way of presenting plurals and it became dominant with time
/s/and es) began to be used analogously to show plural ending with the exception of a few. The
following were some of the changes that took place.

Singular Plural
hand hands
Stone stones
Yearyear

FOLK ETYMOLOGY
Change of a language may be due to misanalysis of a word by speakers of a language. The
misanalysis is as a result of confusion of forms that are phonetically and semantically similar.
Look at the following examples:

Shameful originally was shamefast the meaning bound by shame in old English.
Bridegroom from MiddleEnglish bridegrome
Muskrat from Algongulian muusquash
Borrowing
Many linguistic changes can be attributed to borrowing. This is the acquisition of words sounds
or rules from another language. There is substation influence is the effect of politically or non
dominant on a dominant language in the area.

The English language and French language have borrowed heavily from ameridian languages
especially vocabulary e.g.totem, moccasin, tomahawk, Chinook, moose, etc

Super stratum influenced is the effect of politically or culturally dominant language on another
language or languages in the area e.g. the Athabasca language loucheux (a language spoken in
Canada) has borrowed from English words such as bureaucratic, program, constituents,

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business, development etc Borrowing can also affect the phonological morphological and
syntactic components of grammar.

Sociological factors

Speakers may consciously or non consciously may alter the way they speak to appropriate what
they perceive to be more prestigious or more socially acceptable.

In the history of English changes the examples of the loss of postvocalic/r/ along the east coast of
Kenya. The proununciation of words e.g. far occurred. The children of new and getting picked
up the new brought to the colony.

Secondly the speech of newly armed immigrants that inclined colonial administration and church
leaders who enjoy high social status in the colony typically ladies syllable-final /r/. As a result
this spread to other parts of the east coast.

Sound change

In language sound pattern change is quite noticeable. Some common types of change are
discussed below:

(i) Phonetically condition sound change. This happens when sound pattern changes due
to influence of particular phonetic environment.
(a) Assimilation

Some common types of sound is modified to make it look like a neighboring sound. This is to
increase efficiency of articulation by requiring fever articulator movement. Assimilation brings
about change in place of articulation, nasalization and voicing. e.g. change in Italian /k/ was
converted to /t/under the influence of a neighbour dental stop

Old Italian Italian

/okto/ /otto/ „eight‟

/nokte/ (note/ „night‟

/lakte/ latte „milk‟

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An example of nasalization appears in the hosting of Portuguese and French. The two languages
evolved from Latin. The vowels occurring before the nasal consonantsbecame deletede.g.

Voicing often occurs between voiced segments. In the example below the stem final consonant is
voiced when the plural suffix – as is present since then it appears between voiced segments

Weakening

Consonant weakening is also called lenition. This occurs when there is lessened or degree of
consonant closure due to influence of a neighbouring vowel. The consonant may end up being
shortened, a stop can be converted to a fricative and even a consonant can be weakened to the
extent that it disappears e.g.

Lenition in Portuguese

Latin Portuguese change word

Cippum cepe pp - p „stump‟

Abbatem abate bb - b „abbot‟

Apiculam abelha p-b „bee‟

fabem fave b-v „bean‟

Dissimiliation

This is the opposite of assimiliation. This is where a sound is made less like anothersound n its
environment. Such sound cases occur in situations where it would be difficult to articulate or
perceive two similar sounds in proximity.Look at the example below.

Latin Spanish prosencal

/anma/ soul /alma/ /arma/

Dissimilation can be triggered by a noun adjacent sound.

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latin spanish Italian

/arbor/ tree /arbol/ /arbore/

This change occurred to avoid two instances of /r/ in adjacent syllables.

Segment addition

This s another wide spread change called epenthesis. It involves the insertion of a consonant or a
vowel into a particular environment. Look at the example below.

Old English Modern English Change word

/timr/ /timbr/ mr-mbr „timber‟

/bremi/ / braembl/ m/ - mb/ „bramble‟

/glmsian/ /glimps/ ms – mps „glimpse‟

In some instances epenthesis breaks up a sequence of sound that may otherwisebe difficult to
pronounce and may even become inconsistent with the phonotactic pattern of the language,e.g

Epenthesis in Modern English

With Epenthesis without epenthesis

*ƋеƟƏliyt] [ƋеƟliyt] ‘athelete

[filəm] [ƒilm] ‘film’

[eləm] *εlm+ ‘elm’

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In another case of Basque, epenthetic vowels break up impermissible consonant clusters in words
borrowed from a late form ofLatin.

Late Latin Basque word

[ᶑstru] [ᶏsturu] ‘star’

[libru] [liburu] ‘book’

[fronte] [boronte] ‘front’

Segment loss

Bothe vowels and consonants are susceptible to deletion segment loss involves the deletion of a word
final vowel (apocope) or a word internal vowel (syncope). In both cases occur in unstressed syllables
that are often preceded historically by Vowel reduction. In this process a vowel is converted into the
short lax segment[2]

Apocope in English.

Old English Middle English Modern English

(vowel reduction) (apocope)

[na:ma] [na:ma] neym ‘name’

[lufu] [luvə] l^v ‘love’

Syncope can be seen in the loss of the unstressed vowel in the plural.

Old English Middle English Modern English

[ba:tas] [bƆ:təs] [bowts] ‘boats’

[hundᶏs/ [hu:ndəs] [hawndz] ‘hounds’

[sta:nas] [sta:nəs] [stownz] ‘stones’

Segment Movement

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Sound may change places in some dialects e.g. West Saxon dialect of Old English where[KS] has become
[SK].This process is known as metathesis

Before metathesis After metathesis

[aksian] [askian] ‘ask’

[d^ ks] [d ˄sk] ‘dusk’

Non phonetically conditioned sound change

Sometimes sound change can occur where there is absence of any motivation in the phonetic
environment.e.g . In Oneida(an Amerindian language spoken in Ontario) where is substitute for r.
compare Oneida and Mohawk language below.

Mohawk Cayuga Oneida

Yoy’anere? Oy’ainre? Yoy’anle? ‘good’

Otskeri? Otskra? Otskla? ‘spit’

Oner’ahta onr’ahta? Onlahlt ‘leaf’

Phonetic Vs. phonological change

Different types of sound change can affect the overall sound pattern of a language in different ways. A
sound change can lead to the creation of new allophone.e.g.

European French Canadian French

{ekut} {erᶷt} lister

{pus} {pᶷs} thumb

Sometimes sound change can affect a language’s phonological sound system by adding, eliminating or
rearranging phonemes. This is known as phonological sound change and it can involve splits, merges and
shifts.

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Splits: allophones of the same phoneme come to contrast with each other, creating one or more new
phonemes. The phoneme ŋ was created as a result of a phonological split.

*Ŋ+ was the allophone of (n) which appeared as a velar consonant. During the Middle East [g] was lost
leaving [ŋ+ as the final sound.

Examples

The evolution of [ŋ+

Original phonemic form [sing]

Original phonetic form [siŋg+
Following loss of *g+ *sin ŋ+

[n]
[n]
[n]
[n]
[n]
Phonological merger
Two or more phonemes collapse into a single contrastive unit which leads to reduction of phonemes in a
language.

*Ɵ+

[f]
[F]
Phonological shift - This is a series of phonemes that are systematically modified such that their
organization becomes altered e.g. the Great Vowel Shift.

The Great Vowel shift

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 I:
Aw u

E ag
ɛ o:

Ɔ
ᶑ

The change was gradual but not known how it took place i.e. is it he lower vowels that pushed the upper
vowels up or was it the high vowels that changed first and then the mid and low vowels were raised.

Morphological change

Morphological changes occur when there is loss and addition of affixes.

Addition and loss

Some of the widely used affixes in English have been borrowed from French for example
-ment
Accomplishment} French
Commencement}
-ment was now being used with other sterns that were not originally French e.g. acknowledgement,
moment etc.
Suffixes can also be lost
N + bαere – Adj(lustbαere from lust ‘pleasure’)
N + bora - N (Mundora from mund protection).

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The loss of case
Nouns were divided into three classes masculine,feminine and neuter. Gender was not based on
sex(natural gender)e.g. Stone was considered masculine while sun was considered feminine. Each
gender class was associated with a different set of case endings.
e.g. the old English paradigm for hand
Case Singular Plural
nominiative hand handa
Accussative hand handa
Genitive handa handa
Dative handa hundum

VARIATION IN LANGUAGE
If a group of people are gathered together e.g. UK,US Australia etc and they all speak English,
there would be a clear difference in their style of speech.
Varieties of language studies the different accents and dialects different communities of people
use and how these linguistic varieties differ in terms of
 Vocabulary
 Grammar
 Pronunciation
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  Speaker‟s attitude towards variation.
Definition of terms
Accent:
An accent refers to a speaker‟s pronunciation of words.
Dialect:
This is a way of speaking that differs from other ways of speaking in the syntax.
Speech community:
These are groups who share the same norms and ideas about a language and how it should be
spoken.
Speakers of English speak and understand one another yet there cannot be two speakers that
speak the same way. The reason for such differences can be due to
 Age
 Sex
 Social situation
 Where the language was learned
The difference are reflected in
 Choice of words
 Pronunciation of words
 Grammatical rules
Each speaker speaks in a unique way and this is referred to as idiolect. There are thus as many
idiolects as the number of speakers.
Just like individuals, different groups who speak the same language speak it differently. For
example in the USA. We can talk of Bostonians, Newyolkers,Texans,Blacks in Chicago etc. all
speak English but speak it differently. (There is variation).
When we have systematic differences in the way groups of people speak the same language, we
say that each group speaks a dialect of that language.
Dialects are mutually intelligible forms of a language that differ in systematic ways. Every
speaker of English therefore has their own idiolect as well as dialect of language.
Question: What is the difference between a language and a dialect?
Answer:Sometimes there is no clear cut difference between a language and a dialect.
Dialects – are mutually intelligible (speaker understand each other).

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When people of two dialects do not understand one another then they are speaking two different
languages. This rule may not always be true for example people who speak Danish, Norwegians
and Swedish can actually converse with each other but the three are not referred to as dialects but
as different languages because they are spoken in different countries and there are some
grammatical differences.
Another example is from china where the languages mandarin and cantose are spoken. The two
are considered mutually unintelligible when spoken but are considered dialects of Chinese
because they share a common writing system that is shared by all and because it is spoken in the
same country. Indeed it is difficult to draw a distinction between dialects and languages. Strictly
on linguistic grounds.
Since neither the degree of grammatical differences or political or social boundaries is not
decisive in distinguishing a language from a dialect, one rule can be used is that dialects of a
language should be mutually intelligible system with systematic differences between them.

REGIONAL DIALECTS.
When we have linguistics differences accumulating in a particular geographical region,the
language in that region has its own characteristics. Each version of a language spoken in a
particular region is known as regional dialects e.g. when the American revolution took place,
there were three major dialect areas in the British colonies e.g.
 the Northern dialect spoken in New England
 Midland dialect spoken in Pennsylavania
 Southern dialect.
The three dialects differed from one another. The development of dialects can be illustrated
through the pronunciation of words.e.g. The British in southern England dropped their r‟s before
consonants and at the end of words e.g.
Farm (fa:m)
Farther (far :)
Father (far :)
This became ' r‟ less dialect.

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The ‘r’ less dialect today is spoken in parts of America e.g.Boston, New York and Savannah.
Some settlers from England however maintained the ‘r’.
Regional phonological or phonetic distinctions are often referred to as accents. So speakers can
be said to have a Boston accent or Brooklyn accent or Midwest accent. Accent is having a
particular characteristic of speech that conveys a speaker‟s dialect. Accents can reveal the
following:
a) Where a speaker grew up (country or part of a country)
b) The sociolinguistic group that one belongs.
A speaker can be said to have a British accent, American accent or Australian accent etc.
Sometime one‟s accent in English can be as a result of phonological differences that are caused
by one‟s language e.g. an individual who speaks French and learns English can be said to have a
French accent, Nigerians who have learnt English have a Nigerian accent. These foreign accents
do not reflect differences in the speech of the community where the language was learnt.
Regional dialects may differ not only in pronunciation but also in lexical choices as well as
grammatical rules.

PHONOLOGICAL VARIATION.
This part will lookat the case study of American English. Dialects often have phonological
difference e.g. one word being pronounced differently by different speakers.
Consider the table below.
WORD PRONUNCIATION.
Caught (kot) different pronunciation
Cot (Kat)
Caught/cot (Kat) same way pronunciation.
Mary (meri)
Merry (meri)
Marry (maeri)

Mary
Merry some people pronounce them the same

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Marry

Pin some pronounce them the same

Pen

Pin [Pin]
Pen [pen]
Word American British
Luxury [i^kseri] I^gzeri]
(voiceless) (voiced)

Below is a comparison between British and American English in terms of lexical variation.

LEXICAL VARIATION
Regional dialects may differ, the use of different words to refer to the same object. Consider the
table below.
British American
Lift elevator
Petrol gas
maize corn
post mail
curtains drapes
jumper sweater
cot crib
paraffin kerosene
chips French fries
whisky scotch
tap faucet
rubber eraser
autumn eraser
trouser pants

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rubbish garbage
solicitor lawyer
The participants.
Look at the paragraph below by Hans Kurath an eminent dialectologist who wrote a paper
“What do you call it? Asked
Do you call it a Pail or a bucket? Do you draw water from a faucet or from a spigot?
Do you pull down the blinds, the shades or the curtains when it gets dark?
Do you wheel the baby, or do you ride it or do you roll it? In a baby c
0arriage, a buggy, a coach or a cab? (Fromkin et al. 2011)
When we have concentrations defined by different word usages and pronunciations among other
linguistic differences from dialect areas.
A line drawn on the map to separate the areas is called an isogloss.

GRAMMATICAL VARIATION
SYNTACTIC DIFFERENCES
Syntax is the structure of sentences. Dialects can also be distinguished by systematic syntactic
differences. Compare the following sentence in American English.
John will eat and Mary will eat
Can be combined to one sentence.
John and Mary will eat.
Ozark dialect of southern missioiri,the following,
Conjoining is possible.
John will eat and Mary will eat-John will eat and Mary.
America dialect (1) America dialect (2)
Have them come early Have them to come early

He might could do it } use double modals

You might should go home }

Standardization of English
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In countries that speak English there is a variety of English known as Standard English assuming
that there is a single standard and there are other varieties, the other varieties are referred to as
non standard.The term sub-standard is sometimes used to mean non-standard however it carries
with it a lot of stigma that its grammar for example could be all wrong.The Oxford Dictionary
defines the term standardization as basically to bring to a standard, uniform size, strength, form
of construction, proportion of ingredients or the like. The process of standardization can be
understood as the process through which English went to get a unified system of speaking,
writing and spelling that has spread through the English speaking world. Standardization of
English cannot be pointed to a particular period of time but is one that has gone through several
centuries.

English has gone through different stages of development.Until the 14th century when France
colonized England, French was the official language of communication. After 100 years of war,
France was thrown out and England began to use English as the official language. English
borrowed a lot from French and German languages. English became the Language spoken in
London. The first printing press was up in 1476 which made it possible to spread the written
word. During the renaissance period, English had developed into a formal language. This period
saw many people become literate as people were encouraged to read the Bible. The London
dialect spread through Literature and it seemed to have developed a standard. It therefore became
difficult to alter the London dialect thus it became the standard version.

British English

Traditionally English was spoken in Britain however, when Britain acquired colonies traditional
English was modified and due to this various dialects came up in the new lands. The main ones
are American and Australian English.

Traditionally, British English is more formal but it is not homogeneous. There are three types of
British English.
 Conservative English(language of the royal family and parliament)

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  Adopted standard (receive) pronunciation of BBC English)
 Advanced English – Quite modified and most influenced by other dialects.
American English
American English underwent a lot of changes due to influence from the Indian people who had
settled in America and also by other many languages of Europe. Differences between British and
American English are notable in
 Phonetics
 Vocabulary
 Grammar
The American English also has a lot of lexical differences with British English as a result of
cultural differences and also as a result of other languages e.g. Spanish and Indian languages.
Difference in climate nature, features everyday life and political system of the US gave rise to
many new words and phrases that are not widely used in the UK e.g. drugstore, moose etc.

American English also helped to spread some words that are entrenched in many countries e.g.
“okey” and “teenager”.American English in terms of pronunciation is characterized by some
simplication (the disappearance of some words and consonants the emergence of the so-called
shock slip in the pronunciation).

American English too had differences in spellings e.g.

British English American English
Programme program
Cheque check
Theater Theatre
Colour color
Centre center
Exercise

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List at least 20 words whose spelling in British English differs from that of American English
American English also differs from British English in terms of grammar. E.g. in articles,
verbtenses (Disappearance of perfect tense in a spoken language).
 Use of will instead of shall.
 Many irregular verbs in British English are regular in American English.
The Major difference between America English and British English is in the pronunciation of
some words and in vocabulary.

AUSTRALIAN ENGLISH
This English originated when the British colonized Australia. Australian English is not exposed
to as many languages as American language is exposed to. Australian English is referred to as
Strain from Australia and has three dialects.
 Broad Australian
 General Australian
 Cultivated Australian
The three dialects basically differ on pronunciation.

Australian English has got distinct vowel differences and this is in reference to the position of the
vowel and loud sounds become more closed. There is not much contrast between the stressed and
unstressed syllables.
General Australian has got stressed syllables being higher than the RP and there is a difference in
intonation as well.

Lexical differences between Australian and British English are minor and are mainly based on
culture, names of courses and institutions. Some words acquired new significance in Australian
English e.g. bush means the same as forest.

Some grammatical differences in the nominal forms (the word data is used in the plural form
only)
 Auxiliary verb „shall‟ is used in motivational and interrogative forms.
 The word „should‟ is almost replaced by „would‟

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  Some outdated forms such as „whilst‟ and „amongst‟ are still widely used in Australia.
 Some forms of words are accepted as e.g. disinterested and uninterested are both
accepted.
 In Australian English „flammable‟ and „inflammable‟ have the same meaning.
As can be seen, the main differences between the three varieties of English, British, America and
Australian basically exist in:
a. Phonetics
b. Spelling
c. Vocabulary
d. grammar
A comparison between Africa America English (AAE) and standard American English.

Africa American English is basically spoken by the Afro Americans in America (Americans of
Africa descent). This dialect seems to persist due to social, educational and Economic reasons.
Due to historical discrimination of the blacks, the dialect thrived. Many Afro Americans have
embraced the dialect as a sign of positive group identification. Emphasis will be put on the
African America English since is shows distinct differences between its standard American
English in terms of morphological and syntactic regularities. Standard American English is a
dialect of English that many Americans speak. The dormant or prestige dialect is often called the
standard dialect

Phonological differences between African American English and standard American English.

Africa America English includes a rule of „r‟-deletion that deletes [r] everywhere except before a
vowel e.g.
Guard & go }
Nor & gnaw }
Sore & saw } Pronounce the same way.
Poor & poe }
Fort & fought }

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Court & caught}

Africa America English also in some instances deletes to create similar pronunciation of some
words e.g.
Toll & toe
All & awe
Help & hep

African American English too had developed a consonant cluster reduction rule. It simplifies
the consonant clusters at the end of the word and when one of the clusters is on aleveator.
[t] [d] [s] [z]
This often leads to the deletion of the past tense morphemee.g.
Meant}
Mend} both pronounced at men

Past } both pronounced as pass

Passed}

The above rule however is optional. It does not work in the case where„t‟ for example is plural.
e.g.
Seats
Kits
Pits

Neutralization of [1] and [E] before nasal consonants. This leads to the production of identical
sounds e.g.
Bin and Ben.
Tin and ten
Pin and pen

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DIPHTHONG REDUCTION
The diphthong [ↄi] particularly before [i] to the simple word [c] without the glide so that boil
and boy are pronounced as [bo]

Loss of interdental fricatives.

One feature that is regular is the change of
[Ɵ] to [f] Ruth is pronounced as [ruf]
[ð] to [v] brother is pronounced as[br^vƏr]
Initial [ð] in words like this, that, these and those is pronounced as [d]
Glottal stop is substituted for an alveolar stop e.g.the word Rodman is pronounced as [rƋɁm∂n]
but the word rod is pronounced as [rɖd]

Syntactic differences between Africa America English and Standard American English.
Afro American English has syntactic differences with standard American English.

Multiple negatives
African American English has constriction that have multiple negatives e.g., ‟He do not know
nothing‟
Deletion of the verb „be‟
In most cases the verb „be‟ can be contracted
E.g
He is sick – he‟s sick
They are around – they‟re around
In such cases, the African American English, the form is deleted. he is sick – becomes he sick
They are around - becomes they are around.
However where the form of the verb iscannot be contracted in standard American English, It
can also not be contracted in African American English e.g.
Here I am – remains here I am.
Look at the table below.

SAE AAE

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 He is nice/ He‟s nice He nice
They are mine/ they‟re mine They mine
A am going to do it / I‟m gonna do it I gonna do it
Here I‟am Here I am
Here I‟m Here I
How beautiful you are How beautiful you
These issues show that syntactic reduction rules operate in both dialects although they show
systematic differences.

HABITUAL „BE‟

Look at the sentence John is happy. The sentence can have two possible meanings.
I. John is happy now
II. John is a happy person generally.
The meaning of the sentence can be clear by; lexical addition. E.g John is always happy or John
is a happy person to remove ambiguity.

In African America English the distinction is made syntactically. Where an uninflected form of
„be‟ is used if the speaker is referring to habitual state.
John be happy “John is always happy”
John happy “John is happy now”
He be late “He is habitually late”
He late “He is late this time”

“There” replacement
Some Africa American English dialects replace standard America English with its positive
sentences and don’t or ain’t in negative sentences.eg
AAE SAE
It‟s a fly messing with me “There is a fly messing with me”
Aint no one going to help you } “There is no one going to help you”
Don‟t know one going to help you}

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The examples above show how there is a multiple negatives consonant cluster simplification,
complement deletion etc. make the speakers to produce a highly condemned but clear logically
sound sentences e.g.Aint no hard worker never get no good paying job means
“There isn’t a hard worker who never gets good paying jobs”

Another dialect of standard American English is discussed below:

LATINO (HISPANIC ENGLISH)

Latino English is spoken by native Spanish speakers or their descendants. They have learned
English as a second language. It is difficult to speak of a homogeneous Latino dialect. This is
because there are those who are born in Spanish homes that speak English as their first language;
some of them are monolingual while others speak Spanish as their second language. Definitely
there will be a difference between monolingual and bilingual speakers.

CHICANO ENGLISH

Chicano English is acquired as a first language by many children and is spoken by millions of
speakers in America.
The dialect systematically differs from standard American English just like African American
English.
Let‟s study some o f the differences between Chicano and standard American English. English
has eleven vowels (phonetics) [i I,e,ɛ,ɖe,u,o,Ɔ,a,A] leave out diphthongs) but Spanish has got
only five[i,e,u,oa].Chicano speakers may substitute the Spanish vowel system for English e.g.
Ship}
Sheep} both are pronounced as sheep
Rid is pronounced like read

Chicano English has other differences also where the consonants [ts] and [s] are interchanged
e.g.

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Shook is pronounced as if spelt with ch[ts]
Check is pronounced as if spelt with sh[s]

Chicano English may devoice some consonants e.g. [z] is pronounces as [s]
Easy (isi)
Guys (gạis)
[t] is often substituted for [Ɵ] and [d] for [ð]
Thin will be pronounced like tin or teen
They will be pronounced like day.

Chicano English has a word final consonant cluster reduction e.g.

War }
Ward} both pronounced as war

Star }
Start} both pronounced as hate

Sometimes Chicano English deletes the third person singular agreement suffixes e.g.
He loves her becomes he love her

She hates them becomes she hate them

It drinks milk becomes he drink milk.

Sometimes there is word – final alveolar – cluster reduction e.g. Fast is pronounced as fass.

Chicano English may also show differences in vowel length and intonation patterns from that of
standard American English.

Syntactic variables in Chicano English (CHE)

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Syntactic differences occur between CHE and SAE (standard American English)
In Spanish a negative sentence use negative morphemes before the verb even though there is
another negative. This is known as the negative concord (the multiple negative mentioned) is a
regular rule of CHE.
Standard American English (SAE) Chicano English (CHE)

I don‟t have any money I don‟t have no money

I don‟t want anything I no want nothing

Lexical differences between CHE and SAE

The word borrow is substituted for lend e.g.Borrow me a pen.

Barely is substituted for juste.g.the new queen has barely come.

NIGERIAN ENGLISH
There are three distinct varieties of English Language in West Africa mainly; Nigerian English,
Gambian English and Ghanaian English. The three varieties have in common accent and
grammar.
Lexicon similarities can be seen in these West Africa varieties. Look at the following examples.
 Chopmeans food in the three varieties shown above.
 Kola means fruit and is used both in Gambian and Nigerian English.

VOCABURARY
A lot of words have been borrowed from African English Varieties. This is what is
commonly as Africanism. Examples of such words borrowed from Nigerian English
include:
Fufu yam Ugali
Dodo fried plantains
Oba king
Dibia diviner
Sharia Islamic law

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 With the above examples, it is quite clear that some African words have found their way
to Standard English

KENYAN ENGLISH
The English Language was introduced to Kenya by the British colonialist. English was
introduced in schools and also as the official language today while Swahili is the
national Language. The English spoken in Kenya can be distinguished from standard
British English in terms of pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary and grammar.
Sometimes a Kenyan speaking English may be considered as speaking sub standard
English. Some of the features found in Kenyan English are derived from Swahili and
Bantu languages that are the majority,
Below is a discussion of some of the features of Kenyan English.
GRAMMAR
Articles
Most Kenyan Languages lack articles and this is translated to English for example;
(a) I ate egg
(b) I went for the birthday party
(c) The students have gone to office
(d) Give me burger

Prepositions
Most Kenyan Languages tend to have fewer prepositions and this leads to some of them being
deleted from the constructions from English. Examples include:
a. Pour me some tea
b. Pick him a flower
c. I prefer tea than coffee
d. We are keen with the story.
Pluralization of uncountable nouns
Some uncountable nouns are pluralized and these include:

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 a) Datas
b) Equipments
c) Luggages
d) Softwares
e) beddings

GENDER
Most Kenya languages lack feminine and masculine gender. This leads to total confusion
between the two in English and when some Kenyans speak they cannot distinguish between
genders spoken about and most people think that it is broken English. Examples include:
a. Mary came this evening. He came to visit.
b. He delivered a baby boy.
c. John love her mother very much‟
d. Joan himself ran into trouble
VOCABULARY
The Kenyan English has borrowed some words from indigenous languages. Some of the words
that have been borrowedinclude:
a) Ugali
b) Sukuma wiki
c) Matatu
d) Shamba
Sometimes there is direct translation from mother tongue to English and this affects the syntax of
sentences. Let us look at the examples below:
Kenyan English Regular English
 We have reached We have got to the destination.
 It has refused It has stopped functioning.
 I am alighting Iam getting off the bus
 Let me confirmLet me check

PHONOLOGY

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Kenyan Englsh is non – rhotic. This means then that there are major phonological featuressuch
as the length of loss of length contrast in vowels, lack of central vowels, the monophthongisation
of diphthongs and the dissolving of constant clusters.
Vowel sounds
Examples include:
In some words like face, made, ate and paythe /ei/ sound is monophothongised to „e‟ .
The long sound /a:/ is shortened to /a/"
foot" or "good" changes from /ʊ/ to /uː/,
The pronunciation of the vowel sound in a word such as "the" varies, where some would
pronounce the usual /ðə/ or /ðiː/, while others would pronounce /ðɛ/.
The behaviour of "u" sounds also varies in Kenyan English. The pronunciation of the vowel
sound in words such as "mud", "gun" or "us" is generally open and not fixed, as some would
pronounce the usual /ʌ/, while others would pronounce /ɑː/ or /ɑ/.
Consonant sounds
There are consonant sounds that are commonly mispronounced and these are often referred to as
"shrubbing". These include mispronunciation of the /ʃ/ sound in words such as "shop" and
"hashish", the /z/ sound in words such as "is" and "has" and the /ɛnd/ sound in words such as
"intend" or "endocrine". Following these examples, a person may mispronounce "shop" as /ˈsɔːp/
instead of /ˈʃɔːp/, "hashish" as /hɑˈsiːs/ instead of /hɑˈʃiːʃ/, "is" as /ˈɪs/ instead of /ˈɪz/, "has" as
/ˈhɑːs/ instead of /ˈhɑːz/ and "endocrine" as /ˈɛd.o.krɪn/ instead of /ˈɛnd.o.krɪn/. The word
"intend" may be mispronounced as /ɪnˈtɛd/ instead of /ɪnˈtɛnd/, while its past participle
"intended" may be mispronounced as /ɪnˈtɛd.ɛd/ (inteded) or /ɪnˈtɛnd.ɛnd/ (intendend) instead of
/ɪnˈtɛnd.ɛd/.

SOCIAL VARIETIES

Social varieties of Language can be determined by many factors such as class, ethnicity or race,
sex and age. Below is a discussion on how social varieties are determined by the factors
mentioned.

Social varieties as determined by class.

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Language variety can be determined by class.
Background
Social class refers to any group of people who are of the same level in terms of wealth, influence
and status. In society, people can be grouped into 4 classes .These are:
 The lower class
This group of people consists of the poor people in society. They are usually poor, homeless and
often unemployed. This group of people often lacks proper medical care,housing,food,clothing
etc. They lack proper basic needs. Typical of those who are found in the slums/ghettos.
 The working class
These are the people who are involved in manual jobs and usually do unskilled jobs such as in
menial jobs and usually do unskilled jobs such as labourers, waiters/waitresses/house
helps/security.
This class of people earns a menial income and is often called the working poor. There are some
skilled workers in this category e.g. electricians,plumbers,carpenters etc sometimes called blue
collar workers. Their jobs need a lot of physical energy.
 The middle class
These are the people who have the white collar jobs. The middle class can be divided into two.
These are:
Lower middle class-teachers, managers etc
Upper middle class (very highly educated business and professionals e.g.
Doctors, lawyers, CEO‟S etc.)

 Upper class
These are the people in society who have more money than they need. They are exceptionally
rich. The upper class can be divided into 2
Lower upper class-people with „new money‟. They have invented
e.g. Bill gates
Upper-upper class-people with „old money‟. They have inherited
their money e.g. the royal family Queen Elizabeth.

40
The upper class live in posh areas exclusive neighbourhood)e.g. Karen in Kenya, their children
attend the most expensive schools, visit exclusive clubs and have a lot of influence,are powerful
in their respective countries e.g. the royal families.

With that background of social class, we can now look at how language is affected by social
class.Listening to two speakers speaks from two different social classes can be evident e.g. The
English spoken by the royal family the Queen will definitely be different from that of a
youngster from the ghetto in Britain. The Queen‟s English obviously reflects a higher social
status.
Indeed varieties of language exist as a result of social class and these are referred to as social
class dialects. Compare
Speaker 1 Speaker 2
He aint here He isn‟t here
I done it yesterday I did it yesterday
Speaker 1 should be of a lower social status compared to speaker 2
It should be noted that different social groups use different linguistic varieties (Trudgil 1983)
Children from the lower class are likely to attend lower cadre schools that lack proper facilities
and may not have adequate professional teachers. These are likely to speak broken English/slang
etc as compared to children of the upper class who attend refined schools that will tend to speak
refined English (standard-standard English). We can conclude that social class does affect the
variety of English that will be spoken.

Social varieties as determined by sex

Genderlects

We usually classify dialects in terms of the groups of speakers. The most common dialects are
the regional dialects. We also have social dialects though social groups are less amorphous and
so social dialects are less well delineated.

41
Human beings can be divided into basically male or female but not much study has been carried
out in terms of dialect.

Robin wakoff (1973) carried out a studied and compared some features of speech between male
and female and those were his findings.

 Women were found to use hedges in their speech more than men e.g. they tended to
“hedge” more in their speech. For example they tended to use expression such as – I
suppose, I would imagine, sort of, this is probably wrong etc.
 Women were found to use question tags more often than men. This was mainly to qualify
their statementse.g. He is very smart today, isn‟t he? She dislikes interruption, doesn‟t
she?
 Women were also found to use more words of politeness in their speech e.g. please thank
you may I, kindly etc (Lakog 1973}
 Women were also found to use the adjectives really and „so” very often e.g.
She really looks good
It is also kind of you
She looks so great
According to Lakof, he concluded that women used some of the devices above because they
were uncertain and lacked confidence in whatever they said.
Some of the sociolingusts who have carried out a study on the same however believe that women
make use of hedges a lot and other similar devices because they want to express friendliness and
solidarity, share attitudes and values with friends. They disagree with Lakof‟s findings.

Studies show that women are more conservative in their speech style than men. They are less
likely to use vernacular forms e.g. in the reduction of „–ing‟ to „–in‟ or him to „-im‟ as in the
sentence below.
I was walking down the street when I saw im.Some speakers drop “h” at the beginning of words
e.g.half an hour pronounced as arf an hour.
Henry pronounced as „enry’
Happy pronounced as ‘appy‟

42
The ‘h’ lets pronunciation occurs more often in men than women.

Studies have also shown that women tend to speak more “properly” than men. Girls as young as
six years tended to avoid vernacular in their speech.

According to Lakof,women spoke more “proper” English than men because of insecurity that is
caused by sexism in society. Other suggestions that have been given for why women use more
Standard English compared to me include;
 In order for them to gain access to senior level job that man cannot easily access.
 Generally the society expects better behavior from women in society.
 One linguistic Janet Holmes says that since many sociolinguistic students are carried out
amongst middle aged class and well educated academics, the female gender could change
their speech to be lack that of the interviewers which may not be the case for men.
One linguist Deborah Tannen calls different variants of English used by men and women as
genderlects(a blend of gender and dialect)
Let‟s consider a case study of Japan where the language is quite distinct in terms of gender.

In Japanese, there is a standard Japanese dialect and female dialect. The standard Japanese
dialect is for both men and women.
Japanese language is famous for having many honorific words – words intended to convey
politeness,respect,humility and lesser social status. In addition to their regular meaning. As
discussed earlier, women tend to use more polite forms and formal forms in speech. In Japanese
we have different words in Japanese used in males and female speech e.g.
word women‟s word men‟s word
Stomach Onaka hara
Delicious Oishi Umai
I/me Watashi Boku

Phrases
Eat a meal gohan – o taberu Meswhi- o kuu
Be hungry Onaka – ga suita hara – g hetta

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 Stomach become empty stomach decrease
The above difference between male and female language is basically to do with lexical choices
and conversational style rather than grammar.

There are instances in some languages where there can be grammatical differences between male
and female language e.g. in the Muskogean language Koasati spoken in Lovisiana. E.g words
that end with an (s) when spoken by men and in (I) or (n) when used by women.
English Women Men
Lift it Lakawhol Lakawhos

In Yana language, it has been noted that women‟s words at times are shorter than men‟s because
of a suffix often added.
Examples:
word in English women (Yana) men (Yana)
Deer ba ba – na
Person yaa yaa – na

In Chiquita, a Bolivian language, there is a distinction based on noun – class gender distinction
such that names of males and supernatural beings are morphologically marked in one way and
those referring to females are morphologically marked differently.

Another clear distinction between male and female dialect is the pitch used by the two genders.
Females tend to us a higher pitch compared to men and this is caused mainly because females
have shorter vocal traits (Physiological reasons).
It is clearly notable that the main causes of language varieties are both the regional and social
factors as discussed in this module. This is applicable to all languages and not just English which
is the main focus in this module.

The End

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45