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Englishes: British, Scottish, Global

This article delves into the various dialects, Received Pronunciation, and their role in British society. It explores the historical and regional differences in British English, including Cockney, Geordie, and Scouse, while also examining the influence of Standard English and its significance in different social contexts.

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Englishes: British, Scottish, Global

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  1. Englishes: British, Scottish, Global

  2. British English • Many sociolects, idiolects • Regional dialects • Britain: long, shared heritage, small area • vs • USA: short shared past, vast territory • Yet greater differences within the North of England than in North America • Linguistic Atlas of Britain (1948-61)

  3. British English • No overarching authority or ‘academy’ • Strong local identity • Irregular spelling – legacy of dialects • ‘busy’ – ‘bury’ • ‘one’, ‘once’ • Spelling crystallised with printing

  4. Professor Higgins’s English Received Pronunciation (RP) (Received) Standard English, Oxford English, Public School English, BBC English „talking proper/posh”; „la-di-dah” 1791: Critical Pronouncing Dictionary of the English Language (John Walker)

  5. Standard English • Educated London and S-E dialect • Canterbury Tales, York Mystery Plays, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: no standard Standard English: no longer a dialect Middle classes; printing, media; education; Empire; EFL

  6. Standard English • Imperial civil service • Education Act of 1870: rise of public schools • Standardisation (stygmatising dialect) • WW1 officers • BBC: Lord Reith

  7. Standard english • - long ‘a’ (far, fast) • - ‘oi’ (boil, soil) • - ‘Ə:’ (curtain, certain) • - weakened ‘r’ (orator)

  8. „He wore a tattered brown trilby, grey shabby trousers, crepe-soled shoes and a dark-coloured anorak. He carried a walking stick and spoke with a good accent, the police say.” • „It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishmen despise him.” (G. B. Shaw) Paul Scott: The Jewel in the Crown (Hari Kumar and Ronald Merrick)

  9. Standard English • BBC experiment in WW2 Yorkshire entertainer Wilfred Pickles Tom Leonard (Scottish poet): ‘Six o’clock News’

  10. Standard English • Not just linguistics: social, political issue • Respected in US (rise of silent film) • Detested by many (language of privilege, oppression, effeminacy: ‘lah-di-dah’)

  11. Standard and non-standard • Change from 1950s • British new wave film (Tom Cortenay, Albert Finney) • Kitchen sink drama • 1980s: policy change in BBC • Film, tv, popular entertainment, stand-up • Soap operas (East Enders, Brookside, Coronation Street)

  12. Dialects, RP and society • Thomas Hardy: Tess of the D’Urbervilles: • Tess, „who passed Sixth Standard in the National School under a London-trained mistress, spoke two languages: the dialect at home, more or less, ordinary English abroad and to persons of quality”

  13. dialect - accent • Non-standard language: • vocabulary, • grammar, • pronunciation

  14. I didn’t have no dinner tonight. I seen an accident before I come here. I shall stay here while she comes. („Wait while lights flash.”) Our teacher can’t learn us nothing. (OE ‘leornian’)

  15. Cockney English „cockeneyes” (cock’s eggs) Canterbury Tales: „cockenay” (milksop) C17: Bow Bell Cockney ‘born within the sound of Bow-bell’ C16: language of Londoners outside the Court C18: pejorative (Dr. Johnson’s idea of correct English) – rising middle classes slander: Keats as a ‘Cockney poet’

  16. Cockney • C19: working-class, debased language (Shaw: Pygmalion) • Dickens’s Sam Weller (The Pickwick Papers)→literary stereotype (v/w)

  17. Features of Cockney (1) ‘th’ sounds →f and v (muvver, barf, no bovver) firty fahsn fevvers on a frush’s froat (2) dropping the aitch „That’s an ‘edgeog. It’s really two words. ‘Edge and ‘og. Both begin with an aitch.” (3) diphthongs: beat, fate, great, high, why, nice (4) the glottal stop (5) about – abaht; thousand – fahsn, Gawd (6) the linking ‘r’ (7) syllable-final ‘l’ vocalised: tewwim (tell him) (8) question tags („innit”) (9) intonation, pitch, tone („Ay-ee, Ba-yee, Cy-ee”)

  18. sources of Cockney vocabulary Romany: pal, chavvy, mush Yiddish: shemozzle, nosh Arabic and other Oriental: bint, cushy, dekko, shufti, doolally French (WW2): parleyvoo, San fairy ann (ça ne fait rien), toot sweet (toute suite) Mate, chum, guvnor, cock, love, me old duck Blimey (Gorblimey), Cor, Wotcha aggro

  19. Literary Cockney • Sam Weller in Dickens’ The Pickwick Papers (Wellerisms: „Bevare of vidders”) • G. B. Shaw: Pygmalion • Kipling: Barrack-Room Ballads • East Enders (soap); Only Fools and Horses (sitcom)

  20. Cockney (rhyming) slang • Adam and Eve • Brahms and Liszt • Rosy Lee • trouble and strife • butcher’s; cobbler’s • Jimmy Riddle; Bristols • to rabbit; raspberry • Joe Strummer, Hampdon roar, Salisbury Crag • BACK-SLANG (yob, nevis)

  21. Geordie English ‘Geordie’: Northern nickname for George talk, walk – wahk Clear ‘l’ Uvular ‘r’ Don’t, goat, know Down, town

  22. Scouse(r) English • „lobscouse” (sailor’s dish) • Fair=fur, spare=spur • ‘r’: alveolar tap (rabbit, grass, carry) • Matter – ‘marra’ (Norra lorra fun) • k/x/ing, back/x/, d/z/ad, bad/z/ • Adenoidal speech • Brookside (soap opera)

  23. Yorkshire dialect • Fast, car, path • House, down – hoos, doon • Up, cut, much • ‘th’ sounds • Summat • Norse words: beck, lake (laik)

  24. Scotland • continuum: • Standard English – Scottish English – Scots – [Gaelic] • strong regional differences

  25. Scottish English, Scots ‘r’ sound („rhotic”) (laird, beard, bird) Vowel length rule Rise vs rice, brewed vs brood, Do, poor, use – boot, tool Voiceless velar fricative χ (loch) Where, while

  26. Scots vocabulary • Gaelic: clarsach, loch, pibroch, cairn, clachan, capercailzie, slogan • ceilidh, slainte, glaikit • Old E: bairn, wee, bide, dicht, heuch, glaikit • Norse: ain, aye, blether, kirk, lass, lowp, maun • Dutch: pinkie, callan, coft

  27. Literary Scots (Lallans Scots) • Debated status • no Bible translation • Robert Burns (18th cent.) • Scottish Renaissance (1920s, 30s) • Literary Scots: more archaic • Hugh MacDiarmid: The Eemis Stane

  28. Global Englishes India since 1947: 3-language formula Tristan da Cunha South Africa Singlish (Singaporean)

  29. Global English English enriched Hindi loanwords: bungalow, pundit, pukka, juggernaut, jungle, the Hobson-Jobson (dictionary, 1886) Afrikaans: trek, spoor, veldt

  30. Creole Englishes • Jamaica and West Indies: • Continuum: Jamaican English – Jam. Patois/ Creole „Di kuk di tel mi mi faamin, bot it nat so.” (the cook told me I was shamming sick, but it was not so)

  31. NO RIGHT TURN  NO TON RAIT • SCHOOL ZONE BEGINS  SKUUL ZUON BIGIN • NO ENTRY  NO ENTA • KEEP LEFT  KIP LEF • NO PARKING BETWEEN THESE SIGNS  NO PAAK BITWIIN DEM SAIN YA • NO OVERTAKING OR PASSING  NO OUVATEK NAAR PAAS

  32. Creole and pidgin West Africa: Krio (Sierra Leone) Pidgin Englishes (eg. Tok Pisin [talk pidgin] in New Guinea) Pidgin: contact language, language of trade Small and specified vocabulary, reduced grammar

  33. Global English back in Britain • Nation Language • (Kamau Braitwaite): the work of artists from the Caribbean and African diaspora • Preferred to ‘dialect’ • Dub poetry • Linton Kwesi Johnson

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