substandard

Kirk   Tue Jan 10, 2006 11:06 pm GMT
I'm reading a recent (and very interesting) book called "American Voices--how dialects differ from coast to coast right now" and in the introduction the authors repeatedly mention how the notion that American dialects are dying or becoming more homogenized is an absolute myth not substantiated by evidence, which consistently points to the contrary. Here's an excerpt from the final words of the introduction:

"If nothing else, we hope that readers will understand that American dialects are alive and well -- and that they remain every bit as interesting today as they were during their presumed heyday, whenever that was supposed to have been. In fact, our point is that dialects are not artifacts of the past, but ongoing, contemporary social statements about people and place. We also hope that some of the excitement that inspires dialectologists and sociolinguists to devote their entire lives to the description of a speech community will rub off on the reader. If these descriptions do that, then we will have succeeded beyond our imagination. Dialects are such fun -- and such an essential part of who we are and what America is. Don't believe the myth that dialects in American society are dying!"

--Walt Wolfram
William C. Friday Distinguished Professor
North Carolina State University

Ben Ward, Editor
Language Magazine
Kirk   Tue Jan 10, 2006 11:07 pm GMT
typo: the end-quote for the title of the book should end at "coast" and not "now."
Travis   Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:12 am GMT
>>I know a few people from Milwaukee who have a slight accent characteristic of that city, but I also know other people from Milwaukee who have no discernable accent. It depends on what company they keep, how much they move around, and other factors. In a society that is ever more mobile with ever faster communication, the tendency is for accents to disappear. And that's exactly what is happening.<<

Of what age, approximately, and in what register did they generally speak to you? For starters, it actually appears that most dialect features here are more marked and more consistent amongst *younger* individuals than older individuals here, which is completely contrary to what one might assume to be so were what you asserted above true. Secondarily, one must also remember that formal and semi-formal speech can very effectively mask dialect features which are definitely present in informal speech. One cannot necessarily assume that just because one does not hear certain features as being present said features are not present across a full range of registers.

In semi-formal speech, the speech here does not necessarily differ that much from GAE, besides some things such as a form of partial Canadian Raising, front and back middle vowels being tense before /r/, more pronounced vowel length allophony, devoiced but markedly lenis word-final lenis obstruents when not before vowels or words starting with lenis obstruents, slight affrication of word-initial interdentals, palatalization of /st/ clusters as wholes, restriction of [eI] and [oU] to prevocalic and final positions, /O/ being used instead of /A/ in many positions (especially before /l/), and raising of /A/ to [V] before /r/ followed by a fortis obstruent. Not even all of these features are necessarily consistent amongst middle-aged individuals, as one can hear, for instance, middle-aged individuals who lack things such as the consistent raising of /A/ to [V] in the environment described above.

However, very informal speech, especially amongst younger individuals, is a whole different matter from the above, and has many features which could be considered very non-GAE in nature, some of which are far more pronounced versions of features like those listed above, and some which simply are not present in semi-formal speech for the most part altogether. Such includes things ranging from elision of /t/, /d/, /v/, and even /n/ at times in certain intersonorant positions, to very strong "hardening" of word-initial interdentals in a gradient-type pattern, to purely monophthongal tense vowels in all non-prevocalic positions, to increasingly less distinction being made between word-final fortis and lenis obstruents, to /st/ clusters being palatalized de novo in medial positions in certain words like "sister". Of course, in addition to the above there is also increasingly advanced expression of an NCVS-type shift in increasingly informal speech, but such is not as typical for specifically this particular area as some of the above features. One way or another, there are many phonological features that are quite unlike GAE which are present in informal and especially very informal speech here which are absent in even just much semi-formal speech, and consequently the dialect here would seem more just like a variation-on-theme of GAE if one heard primarily just semi-formal speech, and especially the semi-formal speech of middle-aged or older speakers.
Mxsmanic   Wed Jan 11, 2006 5:46 am GMT
The ones who had noticeable accents were mostly older.

Very informal speech is essentially slang, and I'd expect it to differ greatly from one place to another, as that is the whole purpose of slang. However, slang is ephemeral and non-standard, and so it doesn't matter. What matters is formal and correct speech, and that is becoming more and more consistent throughout the English-speaking world, as you yourself imply.
Kirk   Wed Jan 11, 2006 8:57 am GMT
<<Very informal speech is essentially slang,>>

No. Slang has nothing to do with what Travis is talking about, which is phonological processes. Slang is a strictly lexical issue which is not what we're talking about here (this is also not to mention that there is plenty of very informal speech in everyone's daily lives that does not consist of slang--mundane things like "did you go to the store last night?" and the like. Informal speech, which is the everyday daily speech that most people have for the vast majority of their days and lives, consists of different phonological processes than the more peripheral formal speech (which is still interesting to analyze, sure, but is not the most common of speech registers by definition).

<<and I'd expect it to differ greatly from one place to another, as that is the whole purpose of slang. However, slang is ephemeral and non-standard, and so it doesn't matter.>>

No one's talking about lexical items here...just phonological...

<<What matters is formal and correct speech, and that is becoming more and more consistent throughout the English-speaking world, as you yourself imply.>>

It goes the other way around. Formal speech tends to preserve more conservative phonological processes as compared to how people normally speak in everyday life.
Travis   Wed Jan 11, 2006 10:35 am GMT
>>The ones who had noticeable accents were mostly older.

Very informal speech is essentially slang, and I'd expect it to differ greatly from one place to another, as that is the whole purpose of slang. However, slang is ephemeral and non-standard, and so it doesn't matter.<<

I was speaking about phonology here, which is a fundamentally different matter from slang. The phonology of informal speech here has many features that likely date back to the large-scale European settlement of this area, which indicates that it is in no fashion ephemeral at all. Rather it means quite the opposite, that many aspects of such are substratum features which have survived to date, in one form or another, in the dialect here, despite the complete disappearance of the sources of such substratum features amongst all but the very old.

Secondly, when you speak of such (which is actually phonological featuers, not slang) as being "non-standard", well yes it is, as such is not part of GAE. But why does its not being part of GAE somehow make it irrelevant or inconsequential? Do I give a shit about "standardness" when I speak to most people I know? Even when I speak in a deliberately formal or semi-formal fashion, I do so in my own dialect, not in some idealized sort of GAE. And I myself at least would find it very insulting in the least if someone insisted that I speak in a specifically "standard" fashion.

When you speak about older individuals having noticable accents, yes, such is generally true for older (rather than middle-aged) individuals here; such is most likely due to many of such individuals having had direct contact with if not having actually spoken things other than English, and consequently often have relatively strong non-English-language influence in their English. If anything, middle-aged individuals here seem to have the most GAE-like speech of any age group overall by far, with the differences from GAE in the speech of many such individuals being relatively limited and not that much different from individuals in the same age segment in other areas of the Midwest. Such is unlike many younger individuals' speech, which very often seems to not only be further from GAE but to also have significantly more pronounced *substratum* features with respect to phonology, seemingly paradoxically. Why such is so is another question, which has yet to be clearly answered, even though I myself have my own guesses as to why such is so.

>>What matters is formal and correct speech, and that is becoming more and more consistent throughout the English-speaking world, as you yourself imply.<<

The thing is that the kind of speech one uses at, say, work outside of rather informal contexts there or when trying to be deliberately polite is only one part of the speech that people use in their everyday lives. I myself would not define the language overall in such terms at all, but rather regard informal speech as "default", and semi-formal and formal speech as a veneer on top of such. Considering that I really only use formal speech when trying to be markedly polite or forceful, when waxing poetic, or when trying to speak with non-native speakers who have had problems with my normal everyday speech, I would not assume such is the "normal" register with respect to the dialect here.
Mxsmanic   Wed Jan 11, 2006 12:58 pm GMT
We all use formal, standard speech when communication is essential. It's the best way to communicate outside of one's own microcosm of society.
Kirk   Thu Jan 12, 2006 12:45 am GMT
You're not really responding to the comments we've been making, Mxsmanic.
Mxsmanic   Thu Jan 12, 2006 4:53 am GMT
The comments you've been making are not relevant to ESL/EFL. I don't concern myself with what linguists and their ilk study in their academic isolation.
Kirk   Thu Jan 12, 2006 9:25 am GMT
<<The comments you've been making are not relevant to ESL/EFL.>>

You have been making blanket statements that did not imply just a focus on ESL. For the millionth time, I also work in ESL and would never dream of dealing with these distinctions in my classes--there are far more basic things to cover. However, that is not the issue here. We're talking about things that are not strictly related to ESL.

Just because a topic is on this forum does not mean it needs to be directly related to ESL and ESL pedagogy. Antimoon's English forum is one with the intent of "Discuss(ing) learning English and the English language"--that means that both topics specifically about learning it (ESL) and discussing the language are fair game. I, for one, am happy to talk about and do participate in strictly-ESL topics as well as more general ones on the English language on this forum. If you, on the other hand, wish to make comments directly only related to ESL that's your prerogative but as *soon* as you make comments stepping into a more general area than that, don't be so surprised that people will respond to you in a non-strictly-ESL-related context as has happened here.

Also, if a discussion isn't strictly about ESL no one is forcing you to make comments on such topics. In fact, all the better--if you wish to exclusively stick to ESL I would politely request you not interfere with discussions or subdiscussions which you've made clear don't concern you. It'll save us all a lot of time. I will continue responding and posting about ESL-relevant topics as well as general English-relevant topics but if you want to stick to just ESL, you're completely free to do so. However, please remember to refrain from interfering with topics or approaches to topics you've said don't concern you.

<< I don't concern myself with what linguists and their ilk study in their academic isolation.>>

Then it is wholly unnecessary for you to respond to what we're talking about. If that's the case, please don't.
Travis   Thu Jan 12, 2006 10:12 am GMT
>>The comments you've been making are not relevant to ESL/EFL. I don't concern myself with what linguists and their ilk study in their academic isolation.<<

In a way, actually, they do, as individuals who cannot handle everyday informal speech here, even when they are non-native speakers, are often quite irritating, as I absolutely hate having to speak as if I were trying to be a CBS newscaster just to be understood, and I would not be surprised if many others had the same sorts of views on such matters. It is one thing if occasional words trip individuals up, but it is another thing if individuals, no matter their native language, cannot understand most normal everyday speech *in dialect*.
Kirk   Thu Jan 12, 2006 10:22 am GMT
Yes, many would argue that even discussion of general topics in English (not those specifically directed towards ESL students) may still often be relevant to ESL students (not to mention the fact that just seeing a language in use is good whether the topic is celery or phonology). Of course, Mxsmanic has made it clear if it's not (directly) relevant to ESL he is not concerned with such matters. One would hope he will stick to his word and refrain from intruding upon discussions which supposedly don't concern him (and one would also hope he would not be surprised when more general comments get general replies instead of ESL-directed ones).