FAKULTET ZA PRAVNO-POSLOVNE STUDIJE

T. Paunović Niš 2007/2008

12. Language stratification - LANGUAGE, DIALECT & ACCENT
[adapted from 'Phonetics and Phonology for Serbian EFL Students', Paunović 2007, pp 127-139]

When we describe and discuss a language, we start from the assumption that, say, Serbian, or
English, is a single language, a single linguistic system. However, when we stop to think about any
natural language and the way it is used in real life, we are bound to realize that what we are used to
thinking about as ‘the same’ language actually consists of a whole group of different ‘sub-languages’, a
whole array of different ‘forms’ of one language, of different ways in which people speak the same
language. These linguistic systems are, of course, similar, sometimes even very similar, but there may
be important and not so small differences between them, too. The term commonly used to refer to
these different forms is language varieties.
There are different types of varieties within a language. Their source and the reasons why they
exist are of various kinds. In other words, language varieties can be regional, social, pragmatic, or
psychological, and we conventionally use different terms to refer to those different kinds of varieties.
Geographical or regional varieties are known as dialects. You are surely aware of the dialectal
differences between different regions in which Serbian is spoken today – think, for instance, of the
dialects spoken in the regions of Pirot or Leskovac, and compare them to the
way people speak Serbian in Subotica or Loznica. You have probably had a
chance to hear native speakers of English who come from different
geographical areas speak different dialects of English, too. Some of them may
sound familiar, similar to the varieties of English you have been studying at
school, while some of them may sound somewhat strange to your ears.
By analogy with the term dialect, we use the term sociolect to refer to different varieties of a
language spoken by different social groups of people. You are certainly aware that the variety of
Serbian you use when talking to your friends is not the same as the variety of Serbian you use when
talking, say, to your teachers at university (on those rare occasions when you are not required to use
English ☻). Young people use a different variety of Serbian than the one(s) used by
older generations; people speak in different ways depending on their level of
education, too; and members of a social group speak in a way peculiar to that social
group. And such differences occur in anylanguage - English included. All these language
differences that can be related to social status, age, education or profession are
referred to as sociolects. Jargon and slang are the terms we use to refer to the
varieties of the same language used by specific (smaller) social groups, e.g. rock musicians, doctors,
computer operators or lawyers.
Since we play different roles in our lives (we are children to our parents, buddies to our old
school friends, students to our teachers, secretaries or dentists at work, strangers to some people on
the train to the seaside… ), we use different varieties or our language on different occasions. Some
authors even claim that an individual speaks as many ‘languages’ as there are situations in which s/he
uses the language. The varieties of the same language used by the same speaker in different
communicative situations and for different purposes are known as genres and functional styles or
registers. They depend on the people we are talking to, the subject matter of conversation, the place,
the occasion; they depend on whether we speak or write, too. We use different levels of formality,
different registers on different occasions, and that determines the vocabulary and grammar we use,
but also the way we speak - our pronunciation. In some specific domains such as politics, medicine,
science, sport or literature, we use specific styles, different varieties in terms of terminology and
even structure.
Finally, it is often claimed, especially in the context of Psychology and
Psycholinguistics, that each individual uses his/her mother tongue (or, as a
matter of fact, any language – first, second or foreign) in an idiosyncratic way
peculiar to that individual alone. This kind of variety is referred to by the term
idiolect.
Different branches of Linguistics and related disciplines deal with these varieties of a
single language. Sociolinguistics would be interested in dialectal and sociolectal varieties, while
Psycholinguistics and Pragmatics would be more interested in investigating idiolects and functional
styles or registers. The growing popularity of Dialectology today also shows that language varieties
are an exciting area of research, from different aspects.
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Dialects

When regional varieties of a language are concerned, it is very difficult to tell, solely on the
basis of linguistic criteria, when two linguistic systems should be regarded as
varieties 'belonging' to a single language, and when they should be ascribed to two
different languages. In many countries in which we say that one language is spoken
there are many dialectal varieties, covering various smaller or larger areas and
regions. The United Kingdom is a perfect example – beside other languages spoken in
Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, the varieties of the English language spoken
in different regions of the coutnry show remarkable differences.
Or take, for instance, Germany and the German language. From the far north down to the
southern borders of the country (as well as across the border, in Austria!), many regional varieties of
German are spoken. These regional varieties form a dialect continuum: each pair of neighbouring
dialects is similar enough, but if you compare some northern dialects with some geographically distant
southern dialects, you may find striking differences between them. It is the same in Scandinavian
languages and Scandinavian countries (Sweden, Norway, Denmark).
It often happens, therefore, that a dialect of one language spoken near the state border is very
similar to the dialect of a different language, spoken just across the border. It may be more similar to
that variety of a different language than to some other dialects of the language to which it itself
‘belongs’. Traditionally, the question of whether two varieties should be identified as belonging to the
same language was solved by the criterion of the so-called mutual intelligibility - whether the
speakers of one variety understood the speakers of the other. It is clear from the above examples,
though, that the mutual intelligibility criterion is not really applicable, because in today’s world it often
happens that the speakers of two neighbouring dialects on either side of a state border understand
each other perfectly, and yet their dialects belong to two different languages, despite their ‘mutual
intelligibility’.
Obviously, the criteria for assigning a language variety to one language or the other will often be
social and political rather than linguistic - depending on the political, social and historical
circumstances, not on mutual intelligibility or any other linguistic criterion. After all, consider the
familiar (and still sore) example of three languages with undeniable mutual intelligibility but with well-
guarded state borders between them: Serbian, Croatian, and Bosnian – are they, judging by linguistic
criteria alone, really different languages, or just varieties of the same language? The reasons for one
decision or the other are more likely to be political than linguistic (see, for instance, the discussion in
Bugarski 2002). It is not surprising, then, that a linguist has wittily remarked that ‘a language is a
dialect with army and navy’. And it is not surprising that these issues should be so controversial,
considering how closely language is related to questions of identity and the speakers' self-image.
People often have strong feelings about the varieties of their mother tongue. We can be a bit
sensitive about the regional variety we have acquired as our mother tongue, especially if it is
remarkably different from other varieties of our language, because this issue is closely related to
language standardization, language education and language policies. When one variety is promoted as
the standard in a language community, other varieties may be considered ‘sub-standard’, ‘bad’ or
undesirable. And it is a fact that in any language community some dialects and sociolects are
considered socially prestigious, attractive and desirable, while some others are ridiculed as socially
‘low’ and unacceptable. This makes people’s attitudes towards language varieties an even more complex
and controversial issue.

Dialect and accent

Language varieties can differ at all linguistic levels – in pronunciation, vocabulary, even grammar.
This is true of regional dialects, sociolects and even functional styles or registers. However, when a
language variety differs from some others chiefly in pronunciation, and not so much or not at all in
other linguistic domains, such varieties are called different accents. Because the term accent is also
used in phonological description to refer to a special kind of prominence that some part(s) of an
utterance may have, it is important to always specify the context in which the term is used. In the
context of language varieties, it refers to a variety which has specific properties in the domain of
pronunciation, at the level of phonetics and phonology. ‘He’s got a funny accent’ or ‘I find her accent
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very difficult to understand’ are frequently heard remarks. Here, the term accent is used to describe
the peculiar pronunciation, the peculiar way of speaking a person exhibits.
In addition to several dialects of English, there are numerous accents
in the United Kingdom, and they differ to a greater or lesser extent. Apart
from the different ways in which people speak English in Scotland, Wales,
Ireland or Yorkshire, people speak with different accents in the north and
south of England, or in the western and eastern counties of the Midland, or
around the cities of Manchester, Birmingham or London. Moreover, accents
need not always be connected to particular regions – in the city of London itself several accents can be
heard. Since we define accents as varieties which differ mainly at the level of phonetics and phonology
(pronunciation), we can say that Cockney English and Estuary English are different accents.
Finally, General British, Standard English, Educated Southern English, or, dated BBC English
and older still Queen’s (or King’s) English – these are all different names for one of the most famous
of English accents – the standard variety of English, promoted both through the educational system of
the United Kingdom and in teaching English as a foreign language elsewhere. The most widely known
name of this accent is, probably, the Received Pronunciation (RP). It is the accent indeed very
commonly heard in Serbian foreign language classrooms, too, although standard American (General
American, Standard Midwestern) is used almost as widely. Although not officially proclaimed as
'standard', this accent is felt by most American speakers as 'neutral', with no
striking dialectally-specific features, unlike, for instance, the Southern or North-
eastern accents.
The standard variety of a language can be one of the regional dialects used by a
speech community. Such is, for instance, the case with standard French, or
General American, regionally connected to the 'middle' of the USA (Iowa, Illinois,
Nebraska). Naturally, when a regional variety is chosen as the standard, the
choice is more often than not based on social, political or historical factors and
not on any kind of 'linguistic supremacy'.
In some countries, however, the standard variety is a dialect which is not geographically located
anywhere. Such is the case of RP – although it is sometimes described, as mentioned above, as
‘Southern English’, this variety of English is, in fact, not a regional variety at all. Estuary English, on
the other hand, which may one day replace RP as the standard variety, is defined as 'standard English
spoken with an accent that includes features localizable in the southeast of England' (Wells 1998).
Such is also the case with standard Serbian today – the variety described in school grammars is not
spoken in any part of Serbia, although it is similar to the varieties spoken in some geographical regions
(chiefly Šumadija, but to some extent in Vojvodina, too).
From our point of view, the issue of language varieties, dialects, sociolects, and accents is very
important. In foreign language learning, we have, among other things, to make a choice with respect to
the variety of the language we are studying, the variety which we want to adopt as our model. What is
our model in studying the English language? What is our model in studying the English phonetics and
phonology? And finally, do we need a model at all? Do we want to ‘improve’ our pronunciation? These are
some of the questions frequently asked today, in both EFL theory and practice.

The legitimacy of language varieties – World Englishes English or Englishes? Foreign accent

English is not spoken only by the speakers in the UK and the USA - some varieties of English are
also spoken as mother tongue (L1) by people in several other countries. According
to the useful classification offered by Braj Kachru (Kachru 1985:12-15; but also
see e.g. www.cla.purdue.edu/academic/engl/WE/circles.html), English is spoken as
the first language (L1) in the countries of the ‘Inner Circle’: beside the UK and
USA, these are, as you surely know, Canada, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand.
English is used as the second or official language of communication (L2) in
several countries, too, the countries of the ‘Outer Circle’: Bangladesh, Ghana, Hong
Kong, India, Kenya, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka,
Tanzania, Zambia. Finally, it is used as the language of international communication
by millions of speakers of English as a foreign language all over the world (which
Kachru calls the ‘Expanding Circle’).
Terms such as Global English and International English or, more wittily, Globish, have been
coined to emphasise the fact that English is spoken in every part of the world today, by millions of
people, and, not surprisingly – by more non-native than native speakers. Some estimates show that
International English is spoken by about 1.5 billion people at the moment. About 300 million people
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speak English as their native tongue, but the estimated ratio of non-native to native English speakers
amounts to about four or five to one!
Therefore, in addition to a vivid variety of regional and social variants used by native English
speakers, the huge conglomerate of speakers, with vastly diverse mother tongues and social, political,
economic and cultural backgrounds, speak a growing number of more or less diverging English varieties,
often referred to as World Englishes.

Foreign accent
Foreign accent is the term which has, for a long time, been used to describe the pronunciation
of a language (say, English) by those speakers who have not acquired it in early childhood as their first
language, but have learned it later in life. The distinction between acquiring and learning a language is
crucial, and we deal with it in some more detail in a later chapter.
Learners of English as a foreign language, in formal educational circumstances, can rarely attain
native-like pronunciation, even if they do attain native-like proficiency in other linguistic domains, in
grammar or vocabulary. It is often stated that this is largely due to mother tongue influence, or
interference. The phonology of our first language (mother tongue) is the first linguistic sub-system
acquired in the process of L1 acquisition, so it must be deep down at the roots of our mental knowledge
of the language. We are only too well trained to perceive other people’s speech through the matrix of
our L1 phonology. This is sometimes referred to as categorical petrifaction or even categorical
contamination, as we have already pointed out (Ch. 5). Therefore, it is very difficult to acquire a
different phonological matrix later in life, while learning a foreign language. It requires much more
time, patience, careful practice and experience than learning grammar or vocabulary.
Naturally, foreign language learners will make mistakes in grammar and vocabulary too, but not
all of those can be ascribed to the influence of the learner’s mother tongue. Learner’s interlanguage is
the term used to point out the fact that the learner actively constructs grammatical systems through
making and testing hypotheses about that language, that each stage of foreign language development,
just like in L1 acquisition, is a linguistic system, and not just ‘corrupt’ English or English with random
mistakes. In the learner’s interlanguage, the differences between the grammatical and lexical forms
used by the learner and those of standard English can be explained by a variety of factors, mother-
tongue interference being but one.
However, when pronunciation is concerned, it is widely accepted that foreign accent results
chiefly from mother tongue interference. Foreign accent means that while producing (and perceiving!)
English speech we apply the phonological matrix of our mother tongue – what we say (and what we
hear) runs through the ‘filter’ of our mother-tongue phonology. This may happen at the level of
individual segments (vowels, consonants), but also at the suprasegmental level – in the domain of word
stress, accent, rhythm, or intonation. Obviously, foreign accent is not only a matter of ‘strange’
pronunciation, as we usually think. A student with a strong foreign accent, that is, with problems in
articulation, is also very likely to have problems with perception, with understanding other people’s
speech in that language, especially native speaker’s speech.

 Is foreign accent ‘bad’?

In foreign language teaching, foreign accent was traditionally considered very undesirable.
Bearing in mind that it can cause students problems in both understanding and being
understood, foreign language teachers insisted on their students making a lot of
effort to improve their pronunciation. Traditional British phonetics was also, as a rule,
pedagogically oriented – most textbooks on English phonology contained a lot of advice
for foreign students, who were, naturally, supposed to give their best to improve their
pronunciation.
However, with the emergence of so many different varieties of English used for inter-cultural
and trans-national communication - and used successfully, in spite of how divergent they may be - with
the new view of English as the international language, the traditionally acknowledged role of native
speaker models in EFL teaching is challenged today (see, for instance, Davies 1996, 2003, 2004). Thus,
even the term foreign accent is not very popular any longer, and it has become more customary to
refer to the differences in the way speakers – native and non-native – pronounce English as just
‘accents’ or ‘varieties’. Or, even more likely, they are not referred to at all!
The issue of foreign accent and what is to be done with it in the foreign language classroom is
closely related to the issue of language standardization mentioned earlier. It is the standard variety
of the language in question that is taught at school, promoted through state media and through
publication of grammar books and dictionaries and the like. For instance, the Serbian Academy of
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Science and Art (SANU) has a special committee in charge of language standardization (Odbor za
standardizaciju). This is a common practice in some other European countries, too, for instance, in
France, where the state promotes clearly articulated standardising language policies. And with English,
learned all over the world, it used to be a standard variety that was used in foreign language teaching,
too.
To what extent language standardisation is necessary seems to have become an arguable point as
well, though. This issue is often discussed in the context of the general approach in linguistics, i.e. the
choice between the more traditional prescriptive or proscriptive approach and the more modern
descriptive approach. Although it has never been disputed, after the general spreading of
Structuralism in the XX century, that each language system - each dialect that may sound 'exotic' to
someone's ears, or each 'small' language spoken by a handful of native American Indians in Dakota - is
equally valuable and complex, that there aren’t 'developed' and 'primitive' languages or dialects,
language diversity has never been so widely advocated as it is today. While standard varieties were
‘enforced’ much more enthusiastically in earlier periods, today even the biggest ‘standard’ reference
dictionaries offer information about different varieties and dialectal variation (e.g. Wells, J. C. 2000:
Longman Pronouncing Dictionary).
That matters of language standardisation and educational language policies are also often
governed by social and political factors rather than by purely linguistic principles is very nicely
illustrated by the fact that promoting language diversity has, itself, it seems, become a matter of
political correctness today. And especially so when it comes to learning and teaching the English
language. Let us, therefore, take just a brief look at the possible causes and explanations of this state
of affairs.

The sociolinguistic context

As usual, the controversies in linguistic and EFL issues stem from larger-scale controversies.
Globalisation, accompanied (or brought about?) by the advance of new technologies, greatly affects
the conditions, the aims and the standards in EFL teaching, because the English language is seen as the
main and most powerful vehicle of this process, since it provides the shared linguistic code for the
global inter-national and trans-cultural exchanges. Thus, some of the most controversial questions
about globalisation are translated into controversies about the English language itself.
One such question is whether globalisation is a unifying process, or the geopolitical dominance of
one social, political, economic and, consequently, cultural model over all the others, or a process
enhancing new diversities. While some argue that globalisation is promoting extreme standardisation
and uniformity, others use terms such as hybridisation and glocalisation to point out that it ‘entails a
synergetic relationship between the global and the local’ (Block and Cameron 2002:3). In addition,
different opinions are expressed on whether globalisation is basically, positive or negative. And, the
implications for the English language are, accordingly, seen as either positive or negative.
The negative attitude to this state of affairs is often expressed by using terms such as
linguistic imperialism (compare Phillipson 1992; 2003), the Anglicisation of the world and McEnglish
unification to describe the growing impact of English all over the world. It is often claimed in this
context that the spreading of English undermines the 'small' local languages and, consequently, the
local cultural identity, so it implies cultural imperialism, too.
The positive attitude to the global usage of English is expressed in two different ways. First,
some people welcome English as the Lingua Franca (common tongue) of today, which ‘brings unity
through linguistic uniformity’ (Cameron 2000:22). Second, many people point out that globalisation
actually offers new possibilities for constructing one’s identity, since an individual can actively
construct his/her identity as a unique combination of the global and the local. Thus, the modern
‘hybrid’ social identity is seen as increasingly ‘deterritiorialized’ (Portes 1997, 1999).
We can see that, irrespective of the specific value judgements expressed, language is seen
primarily as the key to identity, as the symbol of individual or collective ethnic, national, social and
cultural identity. In this sense, to paraphrase David Crystal from another context, the different
languages of the world perform the identity function for their speakers. So, our ‘languages for
identification’ (House 2001) are all the different sociolinguistic varieties of the language we use.
All, but not English! Being used as the Lingua Franca, the English language itself is increasingly
seen as deterritorialised and ‘denativised’, as a ‘stateless language ... we all embrace’ (House 2001). It
is claimed that English is not ‘owned’ by the native speakers any longer, that it is ‘owned’ by the world,
or, at best, that nobody owns English today. Simply, the 'non-Inner circle' users of English do not want
to view it as the symbol of British, American, Australian and other native ethnic, cultural and national
identities. Rather, they view English as a vehicle for expressing their own, unique and diverse
identities, as a sort of neutral code that can be used to communicate any kind of ethnic, cultural and
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national content and identity. For instance, an EFL learner (Ahmad from Saudi Arabia) says: “… Every
foreigner speaks like a foreigner, at least until they get into an Anglophone environment. Even then,
most of us will not change our accents even if we could. Can you imagine the Gabor sisters […] speaking
like Queen Latifa?” ³
Therefore, global international English is often defined as the 'language of communication', as
opposed to the 'language of identification' (House 2001), or, in Crystal’s terms again, as the tool which
performs the intelligibility function, as opposed to the identity function (compare Crystal 1997-2003).
In the same vein, Kachru has suggested a revised version of his classification of English-using
countries, with only two 'circles' instead of three - the Inner circle where English is used as L1, and
the rest of the world as a single circle characterized only by 'functional nativism', that is, the level of
speakers' proficiency in English, and not the official status of the English language in the given
country (Wajnryb 2006; Kachru et al. 2006; Bugarski 2006).

 Intelligibility
With the growing popularity of the communicative approach in foreign language teaching, the
focus has shifted from native-like performance to effective communication, setting ‘intelligible’ speech
as the goal, and allowing for a wide variance in learners’ performance, as long as communication is
successful.
But intelligibility, just like International English, is very difficult to define. It is claimed that,
because native speakers are no longer the sole judges of what is intelligible, intelligibility needs to be
re-defined. Namely, the key argument for giving up native speaker models is that
native speakers’ pronunciation is not necessarily the most intelligible (or appropriate)
when non-native communication is concerned (Jenkins 2001; 2004). Therefore, for
lingua franca interactions in English, some authors (e.g. Jenkins) propose ‘the lingua
franca core’, consisting of just those features of English pronunciation which are
essential for intelligible speech, i.e., as an EFL learner wittily remarked, as a universal
English-Lite dialect.
Some fundamental objections can be made here. First, such views seem to promote the idea that
the speakers of English today belong to two clearly defined categories – native and non-native. Leaving
aside the fact that the former category itself is diverse, the latter category certainly does not exist
as a single speech community, at least not yet. Second, the question of intelligibility cannot be tied to
the level of pronunciation alone, because the meaning of a message does not depend solely on its sound
shape, but to a great extent on the context, the shared knowledge of the extralinguistic reality, the
familiarity of the topic etc. It is a two-way process, not speaker- or listener- centred but
interactional between speaker and listener. So, for instance, the speaker (native or non native) who
speaks clearly, is able to paraphrase and talks at the appropriate level in terms of proficiency, topic
and speed, will be most intelligible (Taylor 1991).
And at the very end of this discussion, here is a joke that may help you make up your mind on some
of the questions we have discussed in this chapter, especially on the issue of foreign accent.
Tourist: Is it Hawaii or Havaii?
Benny Hill: Havaii.
Tourist: Thank you!
Benny Hill: You're velcome!

[from Jeremy Smith's AmE-BrE dictionary at www.peak.org... see below]