Исследование по теме "The development of dialects and accents of English language".

The development of dialects and accents of English language

by Papakina Ekaterina,

the pupil of the 10 th form, school №102

Scientific adviser:

Kohan S.A.

The scientific novelty of the work lies in the fact that this issue, in spite of its extensive study is interesting and informative for the pupils, due to the fact that the issue involves a lot of things like linguistic, geographical and historical material.

The problem - studying the literary norms of English, we do not always understand its concrete speakers living in different counties of the United Kingdom to be able to recognize the linguistic characteristics of a person in terms of his accommodation , origin and ethnicity.

The purpose of this research is to study the development and characteristics of the existing dialects of England.

The objects of study of this work are linguistic variations and dialectal speech at a certain period in the history of England and of the English language.

The subject of research is the dialect.

The methods are - searching;

- description:

- analysis and generalizations;

- comparisons.

Sources: Hughes A., Trudgill P., Kellett A., TV programs and Websites.

The history of English is divided into three main periods: Old English (before 1100); Middle English (from 1100 till 1500); Modern English (after 1500). The changes that the English language underwent in each historical period did not start or end simultaneously throughout the country.

An Overview :

• First known languages are the Celtic ones: Welsh and Scots-Gaelic .
• 55 BC: Roman Invasion. The Romans spoke Latin . The place name containing “ chester ” comes from the Roman word for “camp”.
• 5th century AD; three Germanic tribes invaded Britain. The various dialects spoken by the Germanic tribes are known as Pre-Old English .
• Old English was not entirely uniform and four main dialects were predominant: Northumbrian, Mercian, West Saxon, and Kentish .
• About half of the most commonly used words in Modern English have Old English roots. The words be, strong and water, for example, derive from Old English.

• 1066: The Normans, led by William the Conqueror, invaded Britain. They spoke a kind of French. Old English began to change with the influence of the new French speaking Norman aristocracy. More than 10,000 French words came into English.
• 1476; William Caxton introduced the printing press in London. The printing press brought standardization to English. The dialect of London became the standard.
• Spelling and grammar became fixed.
• Many more languages got introduced into English due to:

The industrial revolution .

The expansion of the British Empire.

Technology.

Standard English

• the official language of Great Britain
• recognized as acceptable wherever English is spoken or understood
• literary and current English

A “dialect” and an “accent”

• An accent is the way that particular person or group of people sound .  It’s the way somebody pronounces words, the musicality of their speech, etc.
• A dialect describes both a person’s accent and the grammatical features of the way that person talks.

England

Scotland

Northern

English

Southern

English

Dialects of English

Highland

English

Scottish

English

Midlands

English

Wales

Northern Ire land

East

West

Wenglish

East Anglia

Mid Ulster

English

Pembrokeshire

Hiberno-English

Dialects differ from standard English by:

• phonetic peculiarities
• grammar peculiarities
• lexical peculiarities

Peculiarities of dialects :

• dialects are chiefly preserved in rural areas
• used in speech of the elderly
• used mostly for the purposes of oral communication
• dialects are declining in importance
• used to characterize speech of personages in books

• dialect words are connected with local customs, social life, and natural conditions e.g. loch – Scottish lake, kirk – church
• names of objects and processes connected with farm keeping, names of tools, domestic animals and so on e.g. shelty – Shetland pony
• emotionally coloured words e.g . bonny – beautiful, healthy-looking, loon – a clumsy, stupid person
• word-building patterns e.g. Irish diminutive suffixes –an, -een, -can – bohereen ‘narrow road’ bothar ‘road’ e.g. girl girleen
• different meaning in the national language and the local variety e.g. to call – in Scottish ‘to drive’, short – ‘rude’

One of the best known Southern dialects is Cockney , the regional dialect of London. Cockney speakers have a distinctive accent and dialect, and frequently use Cockney rhyming slang.

Imagine a conversation like :

" Got to my mickey, found me way up the apples, put on me whistle and the bloody dog went. It was me trouble telling me to fetch the teapots. “ which really means,

"Got to my house (mickey mouse), found my way up the stairs (apples and pears), put on my suit (whistle and flute) when the phone (dog and bone) rang. It was my wife (trouble and strife) telling me to get the kids (teapot lids). " - " Я добрался до дома , поднялся по лестнице , надел костюм , когда зазвонил телефон . Это была моя жена . Она сказала , чтоб я забрал детей ".

Questionnaire.

The question was “Can you learn English properly if you don’t learn it in the native speaking environment?” 50 students took part in that questionnaire.

Look at the results.

• FOR 7 pupils 14%
• FOR 7 pupils 14%

• AGAINST 43 pupils 86%
• AGAINST 43 pupils 86%

Practical significance

• the study of territorial dialects allows to recognize the dialectal features of talking and learn more about the interlocutor;
• to overcome the stereotypes associated with a particular dialect ;
• it will be clearer and more interesting for student to learn the country which language they are studying ;
• pupils want to read more literature on the history of England, and as a result to know better the daily life, morals, culture and to love this country.

Directions for further research

This is a more in-depth study of regional dialects of the United Kingdom and their impact on the literary norms of the language, as these skills are necessary for a high level of ownership of the English language.