7 Dialects
What Is a Dialect?
Language varies over time, across national and geographical boundaries, by
gender, across age groups, and by socioeconomic status. When the variation
occurs within a given language, we call the different versions of the same lan-
guagedialects. Thus, we describe English, for example, in terms of British
English, Canadian English, American English, Australian English, Caribbean
English, and Indian English. Within the United States, we speak of Southern
English, Boston English, New York English, West Coast English, and so on.
Dialects are largely the result of geographical and socioeconomic factors,
although many people mistakenly associate dialects with ethnicity (Haugen,
1966; Hudson, 1980; Trudgill, 2001; Wolfram, Adger, & Christian, 1998).
They differ with respect to accent, prosody, grammar, and lexicon. Measurable
differences exist between the language that men and women use—women tend
to be more concerned about correctness than men—but dialects are not related
to gender, overall. The influence of geography is evident in the observation that
a person from Arizona, for example, is highly unlikely to utter “I have plenty
enough,” whereas this utterance is common in many parts of North Carolina.
The influence of SES (socioeconomic status) is evident in the observation that
someone from the upper third of the socioeconomic scale would be likely to ut-
ter “I’m not going to the party,” whereas someone from the lower third would
be more likely to utter “I ain’t goin’ to no party.” Some dialectic features differ
both by region and SES, as in the case of:
- Fred jumpedoffthe table.
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