I. INTRODUCTION

1.1. Background

Communication is one of the most crucial things that human need in their life. Related to

the fact, language is the means of communication we use in our daily life. There are thousands of

languages in the world which emerged naturally or made in order to fill their need and goal in

communicating. There are nobody speak exactly the same to the others. Each person has their

own style. However, the styles of people’s speak can be grouped according to certain aspects. In

monolingual communities, people tend to use varieties of language to show their membership to

particular group. Two of the most clearly seen varieties are the regional and social dialects.

Regional dialect deals with the varieties of dialect according to the geographical state of the

speakers of the language. Meanwhile, the social dialect refers to varieties of dialects associated

to the membership of the speaker to the particular group. This paper will discuss about these two

varieties of dialect as well as their examples.

1.2. Problems

1. What are regional and social dialect in monolingual communities?

2. What are context, style, and class in monolingual communities?

1.3. Aims

1. To know regional and social dialect in monolingual comnmunities.

2. To know context, style, and class in monolingual communities.

II. CONTENT

2.1. Regional and social dialect

Regional and social dialects focused to the information conveyed by language variation in

monolingual communities. People often use a language to signal their membership of

particular groups. Social status, gender, age, ethnicity and the kinds of social network

belong to turn out to be important dimensions of identity in many communities.

No two people speak exactly the same. There are infinite source of variation in speech. Even

a singe vowel may be pronounced in hundreds of minutely different ways. Some features of

speech, however are shared by groups, and become important because they differentiate one

group from another. For example, the pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary of Scottish

speakers of English in some respect quite distinct from that of people from England.

1. Regional variation

1. International varieties

There are many such stories of mistakes based on regional accent differences. For

Example; to British ears, a New Zealander’s dad sounds like an English person’s dead,

and bad sounds like bed. There are vocabulary differences in the varieties spoken in

different regions too. For example; Australia has sole parents, while in England people

call it single parents, and New Zealander call it solo parents.

Pronunciation and vocabulary differences are probably the differences people most aware

off between different dialects of English but there are grammatical differences too.

Americans prefer do you have, though it can also be heard in Britain alongside the

traditional British English have you got.

2. intra-national or intra-continental variation

In this section, we are dealing not just with different accent, but also with dialect

differences within a country, since the distinguishing forms involve grammatical usages

and lexical items as well as pronunciation. Regional variation takes time to develop,

therefore British and American English provide much more evidence of regional

variation than New Zealand or Australian English. Some dialects, such as Scouse,

cockney and Geordie, even have distinct names showing how significant they are in

dishtinguishing groups from one another. In the USA, dialectologist can identify

distinguishing features of the speech of people from different regions.

In areas where English has been introduced more recently, such as Australia and New

Zealand, there seem to be considerably less regional variation – though there is evidence

of social variation. The high level of intra-national communication, together with

relatively small populations may have inhibited the development of marked regional

differences in these countries.

3. Cross continental variation: dialect chains

Though a map suggests the language of Europe or India are tidily compartmentalized, in

reality they ‘blend’ into one another. Dialect chains are very common across the whole

Europe. One chain links all the dialects of German, Dutch and Flemish from Switzerland

through Austria and Germany, to the Netherland and Belgium, and there is another which

links dialects of Portuguese, Spain, Catalan, French and Italian. However, it is hard to

define the boundaries between one dialect with another (in same language) or between

two languages which located next to another. In reality, most Norwegians claim that they

can understand Swedish, although two distinct languages are involved, while Chinese

who speak Cantonese cannot understand those who speak Mandarin, despite the fact that

both are described as dialects of the Chinese Language.

2. Social variation

1. RP: social accent

RP stands for “Received Pronunciation” – the accent of the best educated and most

prestigious members of English society. It is claimed the label derives from the accent

which was ‘received’ at the royal court, and it is sometimes identified with ‘the Queen’s

English’, although the accent used by Queen Elizabeth II is a rather old-fashioned

variety of RP. RP was promoted by BBC for decades. It is essentially a social accent not

a regional one.

As triangle suggests, the linguist will find most linguistic variation at the lowest socio-

economic level where regional differences around. The variation reduces until one

reaches the pinnacle of RP – an accent used by less than 5 percent of the British

population. In addition, in ex-colonies of Britain such as Australia and Canada, other

accent of English have displace the RP from its former position as the most admired

accent of English.

2. Social Dialects

Dialects are simply linguistic varieties which are distinguishable by their vocabulary,

grammar, and pronunciation. Just as RP is a social accent, so standard English is a social

dialects.

a. Standard English

Standard English is more accommodating than RP and allows for some variation

within its boundaries. This is reflected by the figure below:

The flat top reflects the broader range of variants (alternative linguistic forms) which

qualify as part of standard dialect of English in any country. It is estimated that up to

15 percent of the British regularly use standard British English. In Standard English, a

limited amount of grammar variation is acceptable. The dialect of Standard English is

spoken in many differences accents. However, American Standard English is

distinguishable from Australian Standard English, for instance, and both differ from

Australian Standard dialect. In social terms, linguistic forms which are not part of

standard English are by definition non-standard. However, even though non-standard

forms are associated with the speech of less prestigious social groups, there is nothing

linguistically inferior about non-standard forms. They are simply different from the

forms which happen to be used by more socially prestigious speakers.

Just as vernacular languages contrast with standard languages, vernacular dialect

features contrast with standard dialect features. Vernacular dialects lack public or

overt prestige, though they are generally valued by their users, especially as means of

expressing solidarity and affective meaning.

3. Social Status

a. Castes

People can be grouped together on the basis of similar social and economic factors.

Their language generally reflects these groupings- they use different social dialects.

In places such as Indonesia and India social divisions are very clear-cut. In these

countries, there are caste systems determined by birth, and strict social rules govern

the kind of behavior appropriate to each group. These social distinctions are also

reflected in speech differences. A person’s dialect reflects their social background.

There are quite clear differences in Indian languages, for example, between the

speech of the Brahmins and non Brahmins castes. The Brahmin word for ‘milk’ in the

Kannada language, for instance, is haalu, while non Brahmin dialects say aalu. In

Javanese, too, linguistic differences reflect very clear-cut social or caste divisions.

Javannese social status is reflected not only in choice of linguistic forms which each

social groups customarily uses, i.e. the varieties of stylistic levels that together make

up the group’s distinctive dialect. In English, stylistic variation involves choices such

as ta mate vs thank you so much.

4. Social Class

a. Vocabulary

Social dialect research in many different countries has revealed a consistent

relationship between social class and language patterns. People from different social

classes speak differently. The most obvious differences is in their vocabulary.

Vocabulary differences exist at all, they are rather like those which distinguish

Brahmin and non-Brahmin castes, they distinguish social groups on a categorical

basis.

b. Pronunciation

The way different pronunciation reflect the social class of their speakers was first

demonstrated by William Labov in a study of new York City speech He interviewed

120 people and examines their pronunciations of a number of different consonant and

vowels. He found regular patterns relating the social class of the speakers to the

percentage of standard as opposed to vernacular pronunciation they produced. Some

of the linguistic features he studied have been found to pattern socially in English-

speaking communities all over the world. The pronunciation –ing vs –in at the end of

the word like sleeping and swimming, for instance, distinguishes social groups in

every English-speaking community in which it has been investigated.

c. [r]-Pronunciation

There are two possible variants of [r]. Either it is present and pronounced [r], or it is

absent. In a range of dialects, sometimes people pronounce [r] following a vowel, and

sometimes they don’t. In some regions, pronouncing [r] is part of standard prestige

dialect, e.g.; Scotland and Ireland. In other areas, standard dialect speaker do not

pronounce [r] after vowels (or ‘post-vocally’ as linguists describe it) in words like car

and card.

d. Vowels

Measuring small but significant differences in vowel pronunciation can seem a

nightmare. Labov developed a method which involved giving a score to different

pronunciations according to how close they were to prestige pronunciation or

standard in the community. In New Zealand, a survey of 141 people living in the

South Island distinguished three different social groups on the basis of the way

speakers pronounced the diphthongs in words such as boat, bite, and, bout. Many

New Zealanders consider RP an inappropriate standard accent for New Zealand, but

in practice it is still an influential prestige norm. the higher a person’s social class, the

closer their pronunciation was to RP.

e. Other Languages

Although the sociolinguistic patterns have been most extensively researched in

English-speaking communities, they have been found in other languages too. In fact

we would expect to find such patterns in all communities which can be divided into

different social groups. In Paris the pronunciation of the first vowel in words like

casser and pas varies from one social group to another. In Montreal the frequency

with which [l] is deleted distinguishes the French of two social groups.

f. Grammatical Pattern

On average it was found that children from lower-class families used more

vernacular verb forms that children from middle-class families. This pattern has been

noted for a variety of grammatical variables. As with pronunciation, there is a clear

pattern to the relationship between the grammatical speech forms and the social

groups who use them. The higher social groups use more of the standard grammatical

form and fewer instances of the vernacular or the non-standard form. People are often

more aware of social stigma in relation to vernacular grammatical forms, and this is

reflected in the lower incidence of vernacular forms among middle class speakers in

particular.

2.2 Style, context, and register

Language varies according to its uses as well as its users, according to where it is used and to

whom, as well as according to who is using it. The addressees and the context affect our

choice of code or variety, whether language, dialect or style. Therefore, the focus will be on

the ways in which speech reflects the contexts in which language is used, rather than the

characteristics of the speakers.

1. Addressee as an influence on style

The speaker’s relationship to the addressee is crucial in determining the appropriate style

of speaking. People use considerably more standard forms to those they don’t know well,

and more vernacular forms to their friends. Therefore, relative social distance or

solidarity is one important dimension of social relationships. There are many factors

contributed in determining the degree of social distance or solidarity between people,

such as relative age, gender, social roles, whether people work together, or are part of the

same family, and so on.

1. Age of addressee

People generally talk differently to children and to adults. When talking or writing to

a 6-year-old as opposed to a 30-year-old, most people choose simpler vocabulary and

grammatical constructions. Many speakers also use a different style in addressing

elderly people, often with features similar to those which characterize their speech to

children by using a simpler range of vocabulary and less complex grammar, the use

of we rather than you to refer to the addressee, and even the sing-song intonation

which characterize baby talk.

2. Social background of addressee

Addressee or audience is a very important influence on speaker’s style. The speakers

accommodating their speech style to their addressees in order to get on well with

them and make people feel comfortable. One example comes from the behavior of the

same news reader on different stations. Where the stations share studios, a person

may read the same news on two different stations during the same day. In this

situation newsreaders produce consistently different styles for each audience. The

news is the same and the context is identical, except for the addressees. Therefore, the

same person reading the news on the middle-level station reads in very much less

formal style than on the higher-brow station.

2. Accommodation Theory

1. Speech Convergence

When people talk to each other their speech often becomes more similar. Speech

accommodation is the process of converging each person’s speech towards the

speech of the person they are talking to. It tends to happen when the speakers like

one another or where one speaker has a vested interest in pleasing the other or

putting them at ease. Converging towards the speech of another person is usually

a polite speech strategy. Using the same pronunciation and the same sort

vocabulary, for instance is a way of getting in the same wavelength.

Speakers accommodate by converging their speech downwards or upwards. When

people simplify their vocabulary and grammar in talking to foreigners or children,

they are converging downwards towards the lesser linguistic proficiency of their

addressees. When, in an interview with the hospital matron, a nurse adopts some

of the matron’s pronunciation features, she is converging upwards in her speech.

2. Speech Divergence

Sometimes for obvious reasons, the respondents deliberately diverged from the

speech style, and even the language, of the person addressing them. They do it

because they disagree with his sentiments and had no desire to accommodate to

his speech. Deliberately choosing a language not used by one’s addressee is the

clearest example of speech divergence. Accent divergence also occurs. People

diverging his/her pronunciation in order to make him/her distinguishable from

their addressees. Speech divergence does not always reflect a speaker’s negative

attitudes towards the addressees. Where the divergent forms are admired,

divergence can be used to benefit the diverger. A small difference, such as a slight

foreign accent (provided it is one which is viewed favorably), can be appealing. A

foreigner can also elicit help by using an accent or vocabulary which signals

inadequate control of the language.

2. Accommodation problems

Over-convergent behavior may be perceived as patronising and ingratiating, as

sycophantic, or even as evidence that the speaker is making fun of others. In general, then

reactions to speech convergence and divergence depend on the reasons people attribute for

the convergence or divergence. If divergence is perceived as unavoidable, for instance,

then the reaction will be more tolerant than when it is considered deliberate. Deliberate

divergence will be heard as uncooperative or antagonistic. Someone who uses English in

Montreal because their French is clearly inadequate will be perceived more

sympathetically than someone who, though a fluent bilingual, deliberately chooses to use

English to Francophones. The best way of solving an accommodation problem will

depend on the context. The speech accommodation or style shifting which often occurs

unconsciously in casual contexts may not be appropriate in more formal settings.

2.2 Context, Style and Class

1. Formal contexts and social roles

Besides characteristics of the addressee, formality of the context and their relative roles

and statuses within a setting are also relevant factors on choice of style. For instance; the

way the businesswoman was addressed was determined largely by the relationship

between the woman and her addressee in terms of relative status and solidarity. People

who were very close to her used a short form of her first name (Meg), while people who

were less close and socially subordinate used her title and last name (Mrs Walker). In

classrooms where a child’s mother or father is the teacher, the children will call their

parents Mrs Grady or Mr Davis rather than Mum or Dad. People’s roles in formal

contexts determine the appropriate speech forms.

2. Colloquial style or the vernacular

There are other strategies besides topic manipulation which have been used in order to

capture people’s most relaxed or vernacular style. Taping groups of people rather than

individuals, for instance, and choosing a very comfortable or informal setting are

strategies which have been found to shift people’s speech towards the vernacular. There

are many such features which distinguish colloquial from more formal style of English.

Two examples which can be found in the English of widely different regions of the

worlds are the use of me(for formal my), e.g. then me mate arrives, and the use of them

(instead of those) as a determiner: there’s a cross-piece in them old-fashioned doors.

3. The interaction of social class and style

When information about the way people from different social groups speak with

information about the way people speak in different contexts is combined, it is clear that

features of social class and contextual style interact.

Figure above illustrates the relationship between social class, style and linguistic

variation. The structured hierarchy of the Norwich social classes is reflected in each of

the distinct lines drawn on the diagram.. Each social class uses more [iŋ] pronunciations

than the one below and less than the one above. The diagram also shows that the more

formal the style a person is using, the fewer vernacular [iŋ] pronunciations or the more

standard [iŋ] pronunciations they will use. A low frequency of vernacular [iŋ]

pronunciations or a higher frequency of standard [iŋ] pronunciations may therefore signal

that the speaker belongs to a high social class, or reflect the fact that they are speaking in

a more formal context, or both. The same linguistic feature often distinguishes between

speakers socially (inter-speaker variation), while within the speech of one person it

distinguishes different styles (intra-speaker variation). When people want to shift style,

the obvious way is to imitate the speech of another person. Therefore, they often adopt

the linguistic features of different group. For instance, In order to sound more casual,

people model their speech on that of a lower social group.

4. Hypercorrection

Hypercorrect usage goes beyond the norm. it involves extending a form beyond the

standard. The use of I rather than me in constructions such as between you and I

illustrates structural hypercorrection. So does with he asked for you and I. These

examples of hypercorrect behavior result from the insecurity introduced by Latin-based

English grammars. I is over-extended from contexts such as It was I who rang you last

night where one could argue it is formally and technically correct, to contexts which

appear similar but in fact grammatically different.

5. Style in Non-Western Societies

One of the numbers of languages with a special set of grammatical contrasts for

expressing politeness and respect for others is Japanese. Before deciding which style of

Japanese to use, Japanese speakers access their status in relation to their addresses on the

basis of such factors as family background, gender, and age, as well as the formality of

the context. They then select from plain, polite and deferential styles. The choice of

appropriate style involves not only pronunciation, but also word forms and syntax. The

appropriate form of verb, for instance, varies in different styles.

Knowledge of the complexities of stylistic variation in countries like Japan and Korea

reflects a person’s educational level and social status. Better- educated people have

greater control of the various styles. Although the Islamic revolution has increased the

use of reciprocal forms of address, ritual courtesy is still very important in Iranian society

too. In all social groups, there is a dramatic increase in the percentage of standard

variants in people’s reading and word-list styles, compared to their careful and casual

styles. For at least some linguistic features, then, this society marks speech style

differently from social group membership.

Here, it is shown that linguistic features which signal social group membership are often,

but not always, signals of contextual variation too. A high level of education and

familiarity with using language in more formal contexts frequently go hand-in-hand, and

so it is scarcely surprising that the features which characterize each tend to overlap.

However, particular pronunciations, syntactic constructions or vocabulary items may

simply indicate a person’s social group without also patterning for style.

6. Register

Styles are often analyzed along a scale of formality, as in the examples from social

dialect research discussed. Registers, on the other hand, when they are distinguished from

styles, tend to be associated with particular groups of people or sometimes specific

situations of use. Journalese, baby-talk, race-callers, and sport commentators could all be

considered examples of different registers. The term ‘ register’ here describes the

language of groups of people with common interests or jobs, or the language used in

situations associated with such groups.

Sports announcer talk

Example of this – sports announcer talk – to illustrate the kind of linguistic features

which may distinguish different registers. When people describe a sporting event, the

language they use is quite clearly distinguishable from language used in other contexts.

The most obvious distinguishing feature is usually the vocabulary. Terms like silly, mid

on, square leg, the covers, and gully, for instance to describe positions, and offbreak,

googly, and leg break to describe deliveries, are example of vocabulary peculiar to

cricket. .

1. Syntatic reduction

Example

From Baseball or cricket commentaries.

a. (it) bounced to second base

b. (it’s) a breaking ball outside

c. (He’s) a guy who’s a pressure player

d. McCatty (is) in difficulty

e. Tucker (is) taking a few ah shuttering steps down the wicket from the bowler’s

end but Waugh (is) sending him back

While describing the action they are observing, sports announcers often omit the subject

noun or pronoun, as in (a), and frequently omit the verb be as well, as utterances (b) and

(c) illustrate. Utterance (d) and (e) omit only be. There is no loss of meaning as a result of

this syntactic reduction, since the omitted elements are totally predictable in the context.

2. Syntactic inversion

Reversal or inversion of the normal word order is another feature of sports announcer

talk. This device allows the announcer to foreground or focus on the action and provides

him or her (but almost universally him in fact) with time to identify the subject of the

action- an important piece of information for listeners.

3. Heavy noun modification

From baseball or cricket commentaries

a. David Winfield, the 25-million-dollar ma, who is hitting zero, five, six in this

World Series…

b. First-base umpire Larry Barnet…

c. This much sought- after and very expensive fast bowler

People rather than action are the focus of interest at certain points during the sports

announcer’s spiel. When this is the case, the subject nouns which are the focus of interest

are often heavily modified both after the noun as in (a), and before the noun as in (b) and

(c).

4. Routines and formulas

An interesting feature of sports commentaries, including race calling, is the use of

routines to reduce the memory burden on the speaker. The formulas involve a small

number of fixed syntactic patterns and a narrow range of lexical items. The sound

patterns of race calling are also distinctive. Race callers use particular intonation patterns

or tunes as they call the race.

Sports commentators are expected to give the impression of fluency. Pauses and

hesitations in race calling, for instance, are unacceptable. Race callers must keep talking

at four to five syllables per second. The use of formulas enables them to convey

information with the minimum demand on short-term memory. Sports commentators

must also retain the listener’s interest and convey the drama of the action.

III. CONCLUSION