LANGUAGE VARIATION AND

STYLISTICS

Stylistics
 LANGUAGE VARIATION: DIALECT

• Dialects are semi-permanent language varieties of language which vary

mainly according to geographical region and social class (cf. Yorkshire
dialect, Lancashire dialect, working class dialect, middle class dialect).

• But dialects can also be related to other factors (it is arguable, for
example, that male and female language varieties and language
differences related to age are dialectal).
 D I A L E C TA L VA R I E T I E S
&
D I AT Y P I C VA R I E T I E S (1)

• DIALECTAL VARIETIES
• Individual Dialect-- Idiolect
• Temporal Dialect
• Regional Dialect
• Social Dialect
• Socioeconomic status varieties
• Ethnic varieties
• Gender varieties
• Age varieties
• The Social Meaning of Language Varieties
 D I A L E C TA L VA R I E T I E S
&
D I AT Y P I C VA R I E T I E S (2)

• Variation due to Formality

• Variation due to Medium
• Variation due to Context
• Registers
 INDIVIDUAL DIALECT-- IDIOLECT

• Each speaker or writer will have his or her own particular voice quality, pitch
and stress patterns, favorite lexical items, and even grammatical structures
• These traits of speech or writing often point to a person's individuality which
leads to a person's style. Terms like 'Conrad's language', 'Hemingway's
language' indicate just this type of variety.
 TEMPORAL DIALECT

• A variety which correlates with the various periods of the development of

language is called TEMPORAL DIALECT.
• Language changes over time, and so description of the language at a given
point of time is likely to give rise to a historical variety.
• In the English language, for instance, there are Old English, Middle English,
Elizabethan English and Modem English.
 REGIONAL DIALECT

• Language varies from region to region.

• So far as the English speaking world is concerned, there are
British English, American English, Australian English, New
Zealand English, South African English, Canadian English, and
other international varieties.
• There are also regional varieties within Great Britain and the
United States , such as cockney in Britain , North Midland dialect
in USA , etc.
• A variety like this we call Regional Dialect. The lay term for it is
ACCENT, as a dialect is often associated with a particular accent.
EXAMPLES
EXAMPLES: VOCABULARY
 SOCIAL DIALECT

• A variety associated with certain social group is referred to as SOCIAL

DIALECT.
• Just as oceans and mountains separate people and can lead eventually to
distinct language habits, so social and political boundaries separate people
and can be instrumental in promoting different speech habits.
• Different groups tend to have their distinctive ways of speaking. Hence,
socioeconomic status varieties, ethnic varieties, gender varieties and age
varieties occur.
• Restricted Code
• Elaborated Code
 GENDER VARIETIES

• In most languages, men and woman do not speak identically.

Hence gender varieties occur.
• In English, for example, female speakers tend to use 'feminine-
sounding' words like lovely, darling and cute.
• Women tend to show extra politeness in their speech by leaving a
decision open rather than imposing their claims on others. They
make frequent use of expressions like 'I'm afraid that...', 'I'm not
sure, but...' etc; or tag questions like 'The film is awfully
interesting, isn't it?'
 AGE VARIETIES

• Language evolves with age. So a two-year-old child's

command of language is far from perfect while a five-year-old
in contrast has a much better command. A ten-year-old's
command of grammar does not differ significantly from that of
adults, though his/her vocabulary is smaller.
• There are language differences, chiefly in vocabulary, between
younger adults and older adults too. Nowadays some older
people still use icebox to refer to what younger generations call
fridge.
• Younger people tend to pick up newly sprung-up slangy
expressions all the time.
 SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS VARIETIES

• Different socioeconomic status groups tend to show different patterns of

speech characteristics. An often quoted example is the well-known case of r -
fulness in New York City.
• New Yorkers sometimes pronounce/r/and sometimes drop it in words like car,
fourth, beer, park (when/r / follows a vowel, either at the end of a word or
preceding a consonant). Investigation shows that the occurrence of/r/in the
pronunciation of these words is anything but random and anything but
meaningless.
• Labov confirms that members of higher socioeconomic status groups would
pronounce/r/more frequently than would individuals from lower
socioeconomic classes.
 ETHNIC VARIETIES

• Ethnic groups tend to develop and maintain distinctive

speech ways of their own.
• This is especially true of urban Black Americans in the US
who have actually developed a most widespread and
familiar ethnic variety of American English i.e. Black
English, with its characteristic phonological,
morphological, and syntactical features, as well as some
vocabulary of its own.
 THE SOCIAL MEANING OF
LANGUAGE VARIETIES

• l) the period of development of the language in which the speaker/ writer spoke or wrote it
(temporal dialect);
• 2) the geographical area he or she is from (regional dialect);
• 3) the social group he or she belongs to (social dialect);
• 4) the range of intelligibility of his or her language (standard or non-standard dialect);
• 5) the activity he or she is engaged in (field);
• 6) the medium he or she is using (mode);
• 7) the social relationship existing between him or her and his or her addressee (s) (personal tenor);
• 8) the intention in his or her mind in conveying the message (functional tenor);
• 9) the distinctive language habits he or she has shown (idiolect).
 EXAMPLES

• l) Phonologically, Black English is most salient in its frequent simplification

of consonant clusters as 'des' for desk , 'pass' for passed, and 'wile' for wild .
• 2) The omission of the contracted form in the present tense ('s),
• That my book (=That's my book).
• The coffee cold (=The coffee's cold).
• 3) Verb be is used to show habitual action; as in
• Do they be playing all day?
• ( Do they play all day? )
• 4) The use of multiple-negative constructions:
• Don't nobody never help me do my work.
• (Nobody ever helps me do my work.)
 DIATYPIC VARIATIONS

• Variation due to Formality

• Formal Speech
• Consultative Speech
• Colloquial Speech
• Slang
• Variation due to Medium
• Spoken
• Written
• Variation due to Context
• Physical Context
• Social context
• Register: is concerned with linguistic choices according to use.
 VARIATION DUE TO FORMALITY (1)

• Formal Speech

A careful, impersonal and often public mode of speaking used in certain

situations and which may influence pronunciation, choice of words and
sentence structure. For example the following when said by a speaker at
e.g. Ladies and gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure to be here tonight.
• Consultative Speech

Sometimes used to refer to a style of speaking used with others who do not
share the speaker’s background knowledge or experience and hence need
more background knowledge than is normally used in Colloquial Speech.
 VARIATION DUE TO FORMALITY (2)

• Colloquial Speech

An informal type of speech used among friends and others in

situations where empathy, rapport or lack of social barriers are
important. Colloquial speech is often marked by the use of slang or
idioms and by other linguistic characteristics such as deletion of
subject or auxiliaries (e.g. as in “Got the time?” instead of “Do you
have the time?”). Colloquial speech is not necessarily non-prestige
speech and should not be considered as substandard. Educated
native speakers of a language normally use colloquial speech in
informal situations with friends, fellow workers, and members of the
family.
 VARIATION DUE TO FORMALITY (3)

• Slang
Casual, very informal speech, using expressive but informal
words and expressions (slang words/expressions). For some people,
slang is equivalent to COLLOQUIAL SPEECH but for others, it
means “undesirable speech”. Usually, “colloquial speech” refers to a
speech variety used in informal situations with colleagues, friends or
relatives, and “slang” is used for a very informal speech variety
which often serves as an “in-group” language for a particular set of
people such as teenagers, army recruits. pop groups, etc. Most slang
is rather unstable as its words and expressions can change quite
rapidly, for example: Beat it! Scram! Rack off! (for “leave”)
 VARIATION DUE TO MEDIUM

• Difference in medium entails difference in ways and patterns of expression, and

hence variations within the same language
• Speech vs Writing
• Difference in Hearer/Reader Involvement
• Difference in Linguistic Explicitness
• Difference in Preparedness
• Stylistic Differences
• Difference in Terms of Grammar
• Difference in Terms of Vocabulary
• Difference in Terms of Phonology / Graphology
 SPEECH VS WRITING

• Difference in Hearer/Reader Involvement

• Generally most speeches assume the presence of the hearer.
• The speaker constantly monitors his/her message by using signals like oh, well, you
know, what I mean is, etc, so as to hold the hearer's attention.
• The speaker will also invite the hearer's active participation by using questions or
commands; items like yeah, mhm, really?
• A written text, on the other hand, normally presumes the absence of the reader, and
direct feedback from the reader is not possible.
 SPEECH VS WRITING

• Difference in Linguistic Explicitness

• In speech, the participants rely heavily on their common background knowledge and
the immediate context.
• The immediate context can eliminate the ambiguity carried by implicit linguistic
structures, bring some words with concrete referents (such as demonstratives, like
this, here, now etc).
• The closer the relationship between the participants, the more they take what they
are trying to say for granted, and the more they rely on subtle reference:
A: What is the time by your watch?
B: Milkman has come.
 SPEECH VS WRITING

• Difference in Preparedness
• Speech, especially conversation is often spontaneous.
• There are often random shifts of topics.
• Spoken texts often show a general lack of conscious planning.
• Writing is on the whole more 'careful' than speaking.
• The writers have a clear idea about the subject matter of their written text and about
the logical arrangement of their thought.
• With skill and planning, written texts are usually compact and self-contained.
 STYLISTIC DIFFERENCES

• Difference in Terms of Grammar

• Speech
• Grammatically in spontaneous spoken texts, sentences tend to be short, characterized by a
large number of loosely connected clauses.
• Clause structure is simple: usually of the S P (0) (C) (A) type. Dinner, if you could call it
dinner! was not' served until ten o' clock.
• Nouns are not frequently used as subject rather personal pronouns, especially I and you are
used.
• The preposition in the clause is put at the end, as
The worker you talked to
• Verbal groups are also simple in structure
 STYLISTIC DIFFERENCES

• Difference in Terms of Grammar

• Writing
• In written language, sentences are usually complete and tend to be longer than the average spoken
sentences.
• The relative clause within the group usually retains the relative pronoun.
• The preposition in the clause is often put at the beginning; as in:
The worker to whom the president talked
• Verbal groups can be complex, some consisting of more than one auxiliary verbs and lexical
verbs; as in:
This machine can be easily dismantled and reassembled .
• Contractions are not so frequent as in spoken texts.
 STYLISTIC DIFFERENCES

• Difference in Terms of Vocabulary

• Speech tends to use simple words and phrases: thing, business, do, get, go, nice, really, well,
cos, OK, I see, I mean, you know, kind of, just, yeah, the simple truth is, the thing to do, it
seems that, etc.
• A large number of phrasal verbs, such as come across (encounter), get together (accumulate),
let down (disappoint), look into (investigate), make up (compensate), put up with (tolerate),
take part in (participate), etc.
• Vague terms, such as thing, what's-his-name, what-do-you-call-it, you-know-what-I-mean.
• A great deal of lexical hyperbole, such as absolutely, awfully, great, lovely, marvelous,
magnificent, superb, terrific, wonderful, horrible, formidable.
• Slang, such as, bread (money), buck (dollar), butter up (flatter), dome (head), tea-leaf (thief),
corked (very drunk), up the creek (in trouble).
STYLISTIC DIFFERENCES

• Difference in Terms of Phonology

• In speech more information can be conveyed by stress and
intonation besides the literal meaning of an utterance.
• Pause and tempo are also meaningful.
• All kinds of paralinguistic features such as gesture, facial
expressions laughs, giggles, snorts, exclamations of disgust,
disapproval, help convey various attitudinal meanings.
 STYLISTIC DIFFERENCES

• Difference in Terms of Graphology

• Writing makes use of the multitude of graphological devices such as punctuation,
paragraphing, capitalizing, italics etc.
• The use of different sizes and shapes of type and format can add prominence to the
information conveyed.
• When presenting the speech, 'cues' are put in: paralinguistic features are indicated by
descriptive statements about the participants of the speech event; as in
In a hoarse voice, he yelped...
• Sometimes, strange-looking spellings are used to show the dialect speaker; (Eye Dialect) as in
Ah'm goin' to th' 'crick fer water.
(I'm going to the creek for water.)
 VARIATION DUE TO CONTEXT

• Physical Context
• Change of place
• From classroom to playground

• Social context
• Change in topic
• Taboos and Politics
 QUESTION:

Literature Dialect

What dialect of English do you normally expect literary texts to be

written in?
 TASK:

No Mate for the Magpie

Read the extract below from the beginning of the novel No Mate for the Magpie by Frances Molloy and
then answer the questions. The sentences are numbered for ease of reference:
 
(1) Way a wee screwed up protestant face an' a head of black hair a was born, in a state of original sin.
(2) Me ma didn't like me, but who's te blame the poor woman, sure a didn't look like a catholic wain at all.
(3) The state of original sin didn't last long. (4) That's wan good thing about me ma, she maybe didn't like
me but by god she done hir duty by me an' didn't lave me lyin' there in the clutches of the divil. (5) That
very day a was took te the chapel at the tap of the town be me godmother, that me ma didn't like either,
an' hir husband who could have been me uncle if me ma hada married hes brother who was handsome
an' beautiful an' iverythin' me da wasn't. (6) But me ma, on a point of principle, jilted him, an' he went te
England way a broken heart an' married an oul' woman an' made a lot of money.
(Frances Molloy , No Mate for the Magpie, p. 1)
 MAGPIE TASK QUESTIONS

1. Translate this passage into Standard English, noting the changes you
make as you go.
2. What dialect do you think is being represented?
3. Why is Standard English not being used?
4. What linguistic features mark the dialect (look at each sentence
carefully in turn)? How many different linguistic levels are involved?
5. How realistic do you think the interpretation of the dialect is?
 TASK: WUTHERING HEIGHTS

Below is an excerpt from Emily Brontë's famous C19 novel Wuthering Heights. Nellie Dean is reading out a letter which
Isabella Linton, who has recently married Heathcliff, has written to her. In this part of the letter Isabella reports part of a
conversation she had with the servant Joseph. Read the extract carefully and then answer the questions below:

The contents of the pan began to boil, and he turned to plunge his hand into the bowl I conjectured that this preparation
was probably for our supper, and, being hungry, I resolved it should be eatable; so, crying out sharply, "I'll make the
porridge!" I removed the vessel out of his reach, and proceeded to take off my hat and riding habit. "Mr. Earnshaw," I
continued, "directs me to wait on myself: I will. I'm not going to act the lady among you, for fear I should starve."
"Gooid Lord!" he muttered, sitting down, and stroking his ribbed stockings from the knee to the ankle. "If there's to be fresh
ortherings - just when I getten used to two maisters, if I mun hev a mistress set oe'r my heead, it's like time to be flitting. I
niver did think to see t' day that I mud lave th' owld place - but I doubt it's nigh at hand!"
(Emily Brontë , Wuthering Heights, ch. 13, p. 128)

1. What dialect does Isabella write in and what dialect is Joseph represented as speaking?
2. What feature mark Joseph's dialect?
 LANGUAGE VARIATION: REGISTER

• Dialect variation, because it is semi-permanent, is language variation

which helps to distinguish one person, or group of people from others.

Medium, Domain or Tenor

 REGISTER

• is a variety of a language used for a particular purpose or in a particular social

setting.
• Halliday and Hasan interpret 'register' as 'the linguistic features which are
typically associated with a configuration of situational features
 EXAMPLES

• No inflammation or dermatic condition was found but there was

some pain on palpitation.
• Small-scale, lightly-reinforced concrete members were introduced
into structure.
• The prisoners stands indicted for that he on the tenth day of
November did murder Fred Bloggs.
• Well-appointed, very desirable, residence in up-market area.
• He just got an inside edge between the keeper and first slip.
 R EG I S T E R VA R I AT I O N I S M O T I VAT E D B Y C H A N G E S
IN:

 
• Medium (sometimes called 'mode' by other writers): Your language changes according to the medium used
(c.f. 'the language of speech', 'the language of writing').
• Domain (sometimes called 'field' by other writers): Your language changes according to he domain that the
language is related to. This includes (a) the subject matter being spoken or written about (cf. 'the language of
science', 'the language of law') and (b) the function that the language is being used for (cf. 'the language of
advertising', 'the language of government'). Note that the 'Style Variation in USA' and 'Style Variation in a
Poem' exercises were effectively exercises in spotting register variations according to domain inside literary
texts. This is sometimes called reregisteration or register borrowing.
 
• Tenor: The tenor of your language (e.g. how politely or formally you speak) changes according to (a) who
you are talking or writing to (cf. the language we use when talking to close friends compared with that used
when talking to strangers or people who are socially distant from us) and (b) the social situation you find
yourself in (e.g a child whose mother is a teacher will talk to her in different ways, depending on whether they are at
home or at school).