Diversity Within English Essay -- essays research papers

Diversity at heart EnglishIn order to understand how langu suppurate variation descriptors are used, wefirst must understand what language variation is. We can tell that the U.S. islinguistic whollyy diverse because of the multitude of languages spoken here, butwe can excessively find diversity within these languages. All languages have bothdialectic variations and registral variations. These variations, or dialects,can differ in lexicon, phonology, and/or syntax from the step delivery thatwe often think of as correct Language, although they are not needs lessproper than, say, Standard English. It depends on where, by whom, and in what stance the dialect is used as to whether or not it is appropriate.Most battalion are familiar with regional dialects, such as Boston,Brooklyn, or S egresshern. These types of variations ordinarily occur because ofimmigration and settlement patterns. People tend to seek out others likethemselves. Regional variations tend to become more pronoun ced as the speechcommunity is more isolated by physical geography, i.e. green goddess ranges, rivers.Linguists have done extensive studies on regional dialects, producing detailed lingual Atlases. Many linguists can tell where a person is from just byknowing whether a person carries groceries home from the supermarket in a makeupbag or from the grocery store in a make-up sack (Yule 184). And the person whocomes home from the supermarket with a paper sack serves to instigate us thatlanguage variation is not a discrete, but quite a continuous variable.Characteristics of the dialect are more pronounced in the center of the speechcommunity and tend to be less palpable at the outer boundaries, where theyoften overlap other regional dialects.Within, and between, these regional variations we find the socialdialects. The primary social factors that influence dialects are cast,education, occupation, ethnicity, sex, and age (Ferguson 52, Yule 191). Andsocial dialects can vary on any or all three descriptor levels syntax orgrammar, lexicon or vocabulary, and phonetics or pronunciation. amicabledialects are also where the described differences are often defined asstigmatized or nonstigmatized (Ferguson 52). Stigmatized items include use ofthe double negative (grammar), substituting the d sound for t... ...frequency. Using in for ing, as in goin is universal across situation groups, but it is found almost twice as often in the lower working classthan in the lower middle class, and almost four times more than in the uppermiddle class (Ferguson 61).With all these different variables that intersect and overlap with thedifferent dialect variations is is a wonder that any sense can be made ofAmerican English at all. But there two other chief(prenominal) point to remember.Language universals such as displacement, arbitrariness, productivity, culturaltransmission, discreteness and dichotomy are unique to human language (Yule 22)and provides a base or norm for bar var iations. Implicationalrelationships provide a way of measuring relative distance between the differentvariations and also serve as a means to predict changes in individual dialects(Ferguson 66).Works ConsultedFerguson, Charles A., and Shirley Brice Heath, eds. Language in the USA.Cambridge Cambridge UP, 1981.Piatt, Bill. Only English? Law and Language Policy in the United States.Albuquerque U of New Mexico P, 1990.Yule, George. The Study of Language. Cambridge Cambridge UP, 1985.