Lesson 2: Language and Dialect Flashcards
What is the popular understanding of dialects?
a type of pseudo-language spoken by uneducated or country people
True or False:
Dialects do not have any grammatical rules.
False
All dialects have a grammar
True or False:
Children acquire the speech of their communities.
True
dialect
any variety of a language that is shared by a group of speakers
standard variety
a language is a collection of dialects and one has been adopted as “the language”
True or False:
Everyone speaks a dialect.
True
What are the characteristics of a standard language?
- selected due to being the dialect of the most influential class
- acquires a written form
- has a standardized grammar
- authoritative dictionary
- spelling/writing is fixed
- a correct pronunciation
prestige dialect
perceived positively as the dialect of the educated, sophisticated, and upper-class
substandard dialect
perceived negatively as the dialect of the ignorant, lower-class, and uneducated
What factors can lead to language variation?
- geography
- social class
- political ideology
- age
- gender
- sexual orientation
- situation
- time
True or False:
[h] deletion in Norwich, England is highest among the lower working class.
True
Where do our notions of correctness come from when it comes to language?
- educational system
- government
- social class
discourse particles
particles of language with no direct semantic meaning, but serves a pragmatic function by changing the tone of the sentence
ex: Singlish “lah”
intraspeaker variation
variation within one person’s own speech
interspeaker
variation from one person to another
register
level of formality in a language
True or False:
The use of “like” is a deterioration of English language.
False
Evidence shows elderly speakers using “like” in New Zealand recordings from 1946-1948.
True or False:
In a housing discrimination study, the usage of SAE, AAVE, and ChE (Chicano English) respectively did not have any effect on confirmed appointments.
False
Confirmed appointments to view apartments correlated with prestige of dialect and ethnic makeup of area.
True or False:
Sign language is universal.
False:
There are many different signed languages and dialects around the world.
True or False:
Sign language is purely iconic, or just gestures.
False
Sign language is just as expressive as spoken language.
True or False:
Signed languages encode spoken languages.
False
ASL does not equal English
True or False:
Signed languages are just strings of hand motions (aka have no grammar).
False
All sign languages have a grammar
Have 5 basic parameters
