Varieties of Modern English

An Introduction

Diane Davies

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781317878148
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Sprachen & Linguistik
• Subtopic: Sprachwissenschaft

The 'story' of English is continually re-told and re-written, as more and more people use the language and have a part in shaping the way it develops.

Varieties of Modern English provides a critical introduction to the study of regional, social, gendered, context- and medium-related varieties of the language, and explores some of the debates concerning the role and impact of English in different parts of the world today.

Beginning by outlining the main types of variation in language, the book focuses on the link between language or dialect and the construction of both group and individual identities. Issues of identity are crucial to chapters on the roots of Modern English, on gender and English, on ethnicity and English and on English as an international language. As well as looking at a range of 'users' of the language, Davies also explores many of its 'uses' and modes, including the English of literary texts, advertising, newspaper reporting and commentary, political speeches, email and text messaging.

Written in a discursive, student-friendly style, the book also provides:

* A rich mix of illustrative material

* End-of-chapter Activities and related Comments at the end of the book

* Suggestions for further reading

Varieties of Modern English provides a thought-provoking overview of its subject and will be invaluable reading for students of English Language and Linguistics.

Chapter 1

Setting Out

1.1 Introduction

The English language varies in a number of ways, depending on the people who use it and on how, in what circumstances and why it is used. The central concern of this book is to introduce some of the key terms and concepts for studying variation related to both users and uses, as well as to illustrate and discuss particular varieties of English. It is not an assumption that you will necessarily have much knowledge at this stage of either how to analyse language in a formal sense (describing its sounds, words and sentences) or of how to talk about it from a sociolinguistic point of view (how it relates to society). Of course, what you already know about these things if you are, for example, a speaker of English as a foreign language, a student of anthropology, or someone who is bilingual, will certainly be helpful to you. What this first chapter aims to do is outline how variation is fundamental to how we use language, both as individuals and members of communities.

From one point of view, a language is a complex system of rules relating to sounds, words, sentences and the ways in which these elements are normally combined. The traditional approach to linguistics was to focus almost entirely on the forms or structures of language, whereas today there is far more emphasis on how and why people use language in particular ways, and on the dynamic interrelationship between language and communicative function. Very influential work was done on functions of language in the first half of the 20^th century by, notably, the Prague Linguistic Circle (a linguistic and literary movement founded in 1926), by Bühler (1934) and Jakobson (1960). However, it is the work of linguists such as William Labov (e.g. 1972), Douglas Biber (e.g. 1988) and Michael Halliday (e.g. 1973, 1994) that has, arguably, had the greatest impact on the study of communicative function and variation in English. Halliday describes three interrelated functions (or metafunctions) of language: the ideational function of representing experience; the interpersonal function of expressing the relations between, and the attitudes of, the people interacting; and the textual function of making words and sentences into coherent text. This functional approach to language, the theoretical basis of Halliday’s systemic functional grammar, provides a necessary bridge between language seen as an abstract system of rules and language in communicative and contextualised use. It therefore helps us to see how metafunctional variables will have some effect on the linguistic and pragmatic choices we make in any interaction, be it a routine chat with a colleague, a phone call to an insurance company, or an email message.

The distinction between form and function is also important in another way. Consider, for a moment, the possible communicative functions of the simple clause it’s raining. Depending entirely on the context and other factors such as the speaker’s intonation, the function of this sentence might be at least any of the following: social or phatic (to avoid an awkward silence); recording (to give factual information in answer to a direct question about the weather); reasoning (to explain why you don’t want to go out) or emotional (to express surprise or disbelief). In other words, there is no one-to-one correlation between a declarative sentence and the function of ‘declaring’ something. Likewise, there is no guarantee that the communicative function of an interrogative form is necessarily to ask for information (the function of Are you kidding? may be to express mocking disbelief) or that the function of an imperative form is necessarily to give a command (for example, Come round later is likely to be taken as an informal invitation). Of course, ‘knowing’ a language well (whether it’s a first or second language) means being aware of how its different grammatical forms may be used to ‘realise’ a range of communicative aims, so this is something that speakers must acquire naturally or ‘learn’. Either way, in face-to-face communication in particular, there are a number of additional factors we can take into account that play a part in conveying a speaker’s meaning, including the loudness and pitch of their voice, their facial expression, degree of eye contact, and their apparent feelings, moods and attitudes.

1.2 Variation and the individual

Looking at form versus function is one way of seeing how variation is part of the language we use, but there are more fundamental ways of accounting for variation than this. First, the speakers of a language do not all use it in the same way, even if they are very alike in knowledge of the language, social and regional background, and so on. Each of us has our own verbal repertoire or range of speech styles to draw on in particular situations. We might be very familiar with another person’s speech, but we are rarely able to guess exactly what they might say in a given context, or how they might say it. Indeed, it would be the stuff of nightmares if people really did use language in exactly the same ways as each other, since this would challenge the very nature of our sense of individual differences. We only have to think of the mechanical, single-style speech of many of the most sinister inventions of science fiction, such as the Daleks in the TV series Dr Who, to be reminded of this.

Often the characteristics of an individual’s speech are singled out for special attention. This can be seen in countless literary works, especially in drama and fiction, where particular characters are given marked speech styles to make them more distinctive or memorable. Examples include Alfred Jingle’s tendency to speak ‘telegraphically’ in Dickens’s The Pickwick Papers; Jay Gatsby’s fondness for addressing his confidant Nick Carraway as ‘old sport’ in Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby; and the repeated use of clichés and idioms by the isolated and self-deluding narrators of Alan Bennett’s TV monologues Talking Heads.

Attention is also drawn to individual speech in other contexts, with the usage of politicians and celebrities often being the focus of interest, amusement or even intervention. On becoming Prime Minister of Britain, Margaret Thatcher was apparently advised to speak with a lower voice pitch, so as to sound less ‘feminine’ and more authoritarian (and recordings show that her speech did gradually change in this way). Another example is a billboard advertisement for Nescafé that I noticed several years ago, which represented orthographically (i.e. through spelling) the characteristic lisp of the British former boxer Chris Eubank. At the time Eubank was well known not only for this minor speech defect (accompanied by an aspiring ‘upper-class’ accent and fastidious choice of words) but also for a flamboyant style of dress. The poster called up these associations by showing him smartly attired in an elegant drawing room while savouring the aroma of a cup of Nescafé, accompanied by the caption ‘Thimply the betht’ (for ‘Simply the best’). Here was a case of an individual’s speech being cleverly exploited to invest a simple, everyday product with a mock-serious glamour intended to appeal to the target audience.

The individual way in which each of us speaks is called our idiolect, and it is a combination of the ways in which we use the sounds, words and grammar of the language. Our idiolect is not a fixed phenomenon, as our language changes according to our age and the circumstances of our lives. When I was a child there were stronger features of a Welsh accent in my English speech than there are now, although this change is largely because I have spent many years living and working outside Wales. When I was a teenager I also used different slang expressions from those I use now, and the normal pitch of my voice was probably higher. Today I regularly use the vocabulary associated with the study and teaching of English and linguistics, whereas if I went to work for a charity like Oxfam, for instance, I would start to use that of international aid agencies and human rights on a daily basis. Our idiolect is limited by what parts of the language we actually use or have access to, not just by the way we use the language. For example, one person might be able to talk with experts on nuclear physics, another on ballet or chess. Obviously no speaker knows all of the language in all of its possible forms and contexts of use.

As individual speakers we can be very creative in our use of language (we can put on accents, invent nonsense words, create puns and language jokes, etc.). However, there is a limit to the kinds of variation we can introduce if we want to communicate clearly. As we acquire knowledge of how our language works – the rules of its interrelated systems of sounds, words and grammar – we develop an understanding of its norms and possibilities and of what type of creativity is open to us without making our speech incomprehensible. For example, we know that the sequence They holiday on going are tomorrow does not constitute the kind of variation in word order that standard varieties of the English language normally show, so this kind of variation is avoided. Similarly, we know that there are limits to the variations in the way words are pronounced. We might pronounce ‘dog’ in a range of accents (as ‘dawg’ or even ‘dock’, for instance) and remain comprehensible in context, but we know that pronouncing it as ‘dot’ is not really an option, because a final ‘t’ sound is never a variant of a final ‘g’ in English.

When we consider variation in individual speech, we should not, however, see the individual in total isolation from other speakers. The kinds of variation possible in our speech are related not so much to abstract norms of the language as to those of the particular communities and groups to which we belong and with which we usually communicate. In the next section we will look more closely at variation from the point of view of such groups.

1.3 Variation and the group

A few years ago the case of an elderly Hungarian psychiatric patient released from many years’ incarceration in Russia following the Second World War drew attention to the need we all have to be with others who speak our language. It was hoped that the man, who was unable to say who he was and had virtually stopped speaking altogether, would regain his speech on hearing his native language being spoken around him once again. Indeed, very soon after his release, TV news reports showed him once again happily conversing in Hungarian. Although an extreme case, this does suggest that the functionality and versatility of our speech even as adults tend to be closely bound up with the opportunities we have to use our language interactively. If we are denied such a possibility, the scope of our speech may become seriously limited since we will not be able to draw in the normal way on our verbal repertoire.

Most of us would accept that we use our language in a wide range of situations and with a number of other speakers on a regular basis. We might even use more than one language in this way or sometimes draw on two or more languages at the same time if we happen to share those languages with specific people. Usually linguists use the word code to describe the particular language, dialect or variety we choose to use on any occasion. In bilingual or multilingual communities one of the most important kinds of variation is known as code-switching, defined by Trudgill (2003:23) as ‘a process whereby bilingual or bidialectal speakers switch back and forth between one language or dialect and another within the same conversation’. Switching may come about because one language or dialect is associated with a particular communicative domain (such as the home or when speaking about informal topics) and the other language or dialect with different domains (such as more formal, official or ceremonial contexts). In some parts of the world, like Hong Kong, Malta and Nigeria, the process may go beyond switching of this kind to code-mixing, where speakers use different languages even within single utterances. Trudgill (2003:23) notes that ‘it is not really possible to say at any given time which language they are speaking’, adding that ‘[s]ociolinguistic explanations for this behaviour normally concentrate on the possibility, through using code-mixing as a strategy, of projecting two identities at once, for example that of a modern, sophisticated, educated person and that of a loyal, local patriot [ … ]’.

The important link between language and identity (or identities) means that when we explore variation in the language used by groups of speakers, we need first to consider what we understand by ‘group’. Sociolinguists often make use of the term speech community to describe a group of speakers who share the same language varieties or speech repertoires. On a basic level, all speakers of English belong to an English speech community, but a definition as broad as this is obviously not very useful to us in studying variation within English, since it is too all-encompassing and assumes that English is used uniformly around the globe. In reality speakers of English can be distinguished regionally, ethnically and socially, as well as through factors like their gender, jobs and interests. In other words, they belong to several speech communities at the same time, which may be discrete or intersecting. In this sense the concept of the speech community is a ‘fuzzy...