|
|
Do we say "a man of many brains" or "a man of
Travis, where did you learn your English? The term "sociolect" is synoymous with the term "social dialect". A sociloect is a type of dialect. There fore, you have just admitted that Standard English is a dialect. Think why we often need to use the term "regional dialect". Think.
<There is no single spoken standard variety that can be claimed to "not have an accent" (even though I would dispute that notion as well even in that case). >
Trudgill did not say that Standard English speakers do not have accents. He said that Standard English as a whole does not have an associated accent, which is true. Standard English speaker have varied accents.
<That's stretching the term "dialect" quite a bit>
As said above, you are using the term in a layman's way and not as a linguist or dialectician of any worth would use it.
>>Travis, where did you learn your English?<<
I natively speak it, for the record.
>>The term "sociolect" is synoymous with the term "social dialect".<<
Umm, no. This is a use of "-lect" as a reanalyzed morpheme separate from the original word that it is derived from, "dialect", which is used to refer to any sort of speech variety, and not just one that is defined by the area in which it is spoken.
>>A sociloect is a type of dialect.<<
Only with how you use the word "dialect". If anything, the use of "sociolect" that I have seen is to describe a speech variety defined by the social grouping which speaks it as opposed to the area in which it is spoken. Of course, some might use "dialect" more loosely so that one could say such, in using such to describe any speech variety, but I tend to prefer to avoid such usages of it.
>>There fore, you have just admitted that Standard English is a dialect.<<
No, because you are foisting your looser use of the term "dialect" upon what I have written, despite that I have rather explicitly stated that I am using a strict definition of it, and furthermore you are interpreting "-lect" to simply be an abbreviated version of the word "dialect" when it is actually a morpheme derived from it which is used to construct words referring to different sorts of language varieties.
>>Think why we often need to use the term "regional dialect". Think.<<
"Regional dialect" is to basically simply emphasize that the variety in question is relatively limited in range, and tends to imply that such differs from whatever applicable standard varieties exist. In many cases, though, it is rather redundant in nature.
>><There is no single spoken standard variety that can be claimed to "not have an accent" (even though I would dispute that notion as well even in that case). >
Trudgill did not say that Standard English speakers do not have accents. He said that Standard English as a whole does not have an associated accent, which is true. Standard English speaker have varied accents.<<
I would have to agree with that, simply because there is no single spoken Standard English. From this point of view, where one is simply ignoring phonology altogether, one could say that there is spoken Standard English, something which I myself can agree with. At the same time, though, I still think it is a stretch to say that there is a unified colloquial Standard English, as opposed to different colloquial registers being present in different dialects which fall under the umbrella of "Standard English".
Probably the main reason for my skepticism with respect to the applicability of the notion of Standard English to lower registers in dialects whose higher registers may clearly fit such is that there likely is to be far more variation in lower registers than in higher registers and far more nonstandard features present in such lower registers (such as the aforementioned "kinda" and "sorta"). As a result, it would be much harder to speak of such lower registers as truly constituting a unified Standard English overall (as opposed to simply having features of Standard English present).
>><That's stretching the term "dialect" quite a bit>
As said above, you are using the term in a layman's way and not as a linguist or dialectician of any worth would use it.<<
There are some areas of linguistics where it is customary to use different meanings of the word "dialect" from that I am using, such as North Germanic linguistics where the term "dialect" is commonly reserved for speech varieties which are descended directly from Old Norse as opposed to being later offshoots of one of the different North Germanic standard varieties. However, such does not apply across the board, and I am following the definition that a dialect is the speech in a given area, and that the more general term to refer to any sort of language form is "variety". Such generally seems to be clearer than simply applying the term "dialect" to just about anything spoken by anyone, and in many cases avoids the question of what a "dialect" really is by liberally using the intentionally vague word "variety" instead.
Note that I would *not* call such a layman's definition, as laymen's usage of the word "dialect" tends to be far more frought in connotations, especially ones of nonstandardness, and tends to strongly exclude varieties which are spoken which are very close to standards from being called "dialects". I use the term "dialect" to refer to *anything* which is spoken in a particular area, be it standard or not, unlike many laypersons. Rather, it is just a very limited and strict definition that happens to not agree with how some linguists (such as aforementioned North Germanic linguistics) have extended the usage of the word "dialect".
>><Note that I am using the term "dialect" in a stricter sense than Trudgill, in that I am using it just in the literal sense of the word, that is, a variety spoken in a particular area, as opposed to, say, a variety spoken in a particular social group (a sociolect). >
No, you are using it in its limited sense to suit your needs. The literal sense of the word is:
Dialect (Page: 405)
Di"a*lect (?), n. [F. dialecte, L. dialectus, fr. Gr. , fr. to converse, discourse. See Dialogue.]<<
Dictionaries are practically useless for anything other than to get the generally gist as to what some given word that one does not know means, aside from the rare exception which is actually useful for any scholarly purpose, such as the OED. Often in practice words have significantly different meanings in actual usage than those that one would get in a dictionary, specially when those words are used in the context of some particular field.
And yes, I have deliberately chosen the sense of the word "dialect" that I use. The reason is that such tends to be the most useful sense due to being clearer in nature, and because it is in clear opposition to words like sociolect. As for the more general sense of the word "dialect", as mentioned before I strongly favor the word "variety" over it because it is more clearly vague than it and consequently avoids confusion with stricter usages of the word "dialect"; the word "variety" is specifically generic in nature whereas the word "dialect" can mean different things to different people.
<No, because you are foisting your looser use of the term "dialect" upon what I have written, despite that I have rather explicitly stated that I am using a strict definition of it,>
Could you link us to sources that use the strict definition you claim to be using?
Travis, your approach is all waffle and wordplay. Get a life! Do you really think you can win minds by such amatuer tactics?
So, Travis, a sociolect is not a social dialect, right?
I'm not sure I get all what you say, Travis, as it does seem a bit wordy, but I get a feeling you are saying that it is only when we write or speak formally, and not when we speak informally, that we can be said to be using Standard English. Am I right?
It would be interesting to see your answers to the above questions regarding formal to informal English. If I say to a friend "could you help me tomorrow" or "can you help me tomorrow" or "help me tomorrow, will you", is only the former Standard English?
<<Dictionaries are practically useless for anything other than to get the generally gist as to what some given word that one does not know means, aside from the rare exception which is actually useful for any scholarly purpose, such as the OED.>>
What does "the generally gist" mean, Travis?
It seems Travis simply mistyped, and meant to say "general gist", i.e., the basic idea.
As a passive reader, there is something fishy i have detected. M56, Pos and Bridget. Two of them are the same person and I cant figure which one is which. Bridget and Pos, is my near guess. If you are reading this post, please give up your haggling approach on the forum.
I've avoided this thread before, because there seemed to be a lot of trollery going on, but I have to say that I (mostly) agree with Travis on this one. The word 'dialect' is used by laymen to mean "a variety of a language, especially a non-standard one". This usage is not very useful because it doesn't specify what kind of variety it is (regional, social, etc.) and because it carries connatations of incorrectness, rusticity, low social class and education, etc. In linguistics, this is generally called a 'lect' or a 'variety' to avoid choosing arbitrarily if something is a language or just a dialect. This allows us to apply the word 'dialect' to something else; it is generally applied to regional lects.
As for registers in Standard English, I again agree with Travis. Only literary English and the spoken varieties based on it (eg. news reports, speeches, etc.) can truly be said to be standard worldwide: as mentioned above, usages like 'you guys' that may be perfectly accepted in all but the most formal speech in some places, are foreign to others and ungrammatical there. These local/social/ethnic particularisms tend to be more frequent and more divergent from written English the lower the register.
>>As a passive reader, there is something fishy i have detected. M56, Pos and Bridget. Two of them are the same person and I cant figure which one is which. Bridget and Pos, is my near guess. If you are reading this post, please give up your haggling approach on the forum.<<
I agree myself; Pos and Bridget are trolls and I would not be surprised if they were sockpuppets (whose sockpuppets is another question), even though I do not think they are the same person as M56. One way or another, Pos seems to be mindlessly cheerleading for M56 whereas Bridget is a naive layperson who has stupid objections to what I say while clearly not understanding the sort of discourse in question (as evidenced by her dictionary comment, as the only people who would actually think that you can use a dictionary definition, OED aside, as an argument against anything would be a rather naive layperson).
>>I've avoided this thread before, because there seemed to be a lot of trollery going on, but I have to say that I (mostly) agree with Travis on this one. The word 'dialect' is used by laymen to mean "a variety of a language, especially a non-standard one". This usage is not very useful because it doesn't specify what kind of variety it is (regional, social, etc.) and because it carries connatations of incorrectness, rusticity, low social class and education, etc. In linguistics, this is generally called a 'lect' or a 'variety' to avoid choosing arbitrarily if something is a language or just a dialect. This allows us to apply the word 'dialect' to something else; it is generally applied to regional lects.
As for registers in Standard English, I again agree with Travis. Only literary English and the spoken varieties based on it (eg. news reports, speeches, etc.) can truly be said to be standard worldwide: as mentioned above, usages like 'you guys' that may be perfectly accepted in all but the most formal speech in some places, are foreign to others and ungrammatical there. These local/social/ethnic particularisms tend to be more frequent and more divergent from written English the lower the register.<<
I have to say that I agree completely here myself.
I'm not sure Bridget is a troll. I've seen Bridget ask legitimate and reasonable questions. Pos, on the other hand... well, I wouldn't say for certain that Pos is a troll, but I'm admittedly suspicious.
|