Language varieties

Question 1

Language variety

Answer 1

A general term for any distinctive form of a language as used within a subgroup of speakers. Linguists commonly use language variety as a cover term for any of the overlapping subcategories of a language, including dialect, register, jargon, and idiolect.

Question 2

Standard variety of language

Answer 2

In English -> Received Pronouncation

“Basic” grammatically correct form of language,

e.g “Good morning. How are you? I’m pleased to meet you.” STANDARD
“Hey! Alright?” NON-STANDARD

Question 3

Dialect

Answer 3

Socially or geographically delimited groups of people

e.g. COCKNEY (London) SCOUSE (Liverpool)

Question 4

Ethnolect

Answer 4

Language variety of an ethnic group

e.g HISPANIC ENGLISH, BLACK ENGLISH

Question 5

Idiolect

Answer 5

Everyone’s own dialect

Question 6

Accent

Answer 6

Variety of pronouncation

Can be divided into REGIONAL ACCENTS and SOCIAL ACCENTS

Question 7

Main differences between British and American English

Answer 7

LEXICAL DIFFERENCE
e.g. BE cooker - AE stove

GRAMMATICAL DIFFERENCE
e.g. irregular verbs have regular inflections in AE ( BE learnt - AE learned)

SPELLING DIFFERENCE
e.g BE disgraph -ou is often shotened in AE (BE humour - AE humor), double consonants in AE changed into single graphemes (BE programme - AE program)

DIFFERENCES IN PRONOUNCATION
American /r/ is often rhotic before a consonant or a pause ( e.g barber)

Question 8

Formal style

Answer 8

Mostly used in written form -> scholarly papers, scientific works, business letters

Question 9

Informal style

Answer 9

Everyday conversation relates to informal style using everyday words, slang, dialects and simple sentence constructions

Question 10

Colloquialisms

Answer 10

Everyday words (informal usually)

Question 11

Slang

Answer 11

Consists of expressive, metaphorical, unserious and ironic words used by social and age groups

Question 12

Jargon

Answer 12

A special type of SLANG

Jargon is the specialized terminology associated with a particular field or area of activity.
e.g. ice-cream man might say “bucket of mud” instead of “chocolate ice cream”

Question 13

Language Register

Answer 13

Set of features of speech typical of a given style or speech

e.g. Economic, religious, legal register…

Question 14

Pidgin Language

Answer 14

no native speakers -> created for a special purpose

e.g lingua franca -> language used as a means of communication among speakers of different languages

PIDGIN ENGLISH -> simplified standard English

Question 15

Creole

Answer 15

Nativized and the only speech form in a given community

Question 16

Ellipsis

Answer 16

Used in formal style
Exclusion of some elements from the original language form

Question 17

Archaisms

Answer 17

Old words that aren’t used today and have been replaces with new ones

Question 18

Historicism

Answer 18

Old words, no longer in use

Question 19

Neologism

Answer 19

New words, just recently introduced into a language

Question 20

Emotionality

Answer 20

Informal language can be emotionally coloured
e.g by adding a derivational morpheme - daddy
e.g underived lexical words themselves - whoops