Variation
Lawyer Dog
Tweet describing a Black man being assigned a Lawyer Dog, due to his request for a "lawyer, dog" being transcribed without the comma. The comments of the tweet offer many similar scenarios
Chaoju Tang, Vincent J. van Heuven, 2009: Mutual intelligibility of Chinese dialects experimentally tested
a study on mutual intelligibility of 15 Chinese varieties, which the graph shown in the tiktok video is based on
Why some speakers can't understand speakers who understand them - Asymmetric Intelligibility
Play videoThis video explains the phenomenon of asymmetric intelligibility.
Life of Brian - Latin Lesson - Romans Go Home!
Play video1979's "Life of Brian" comedically depicts the titular main character, played by Graham Chapman, defacing, in Latin, a Roman monument. A Roman centurion, played by John Cleese, stops him and punishes him for his "bad" grammar. The scene is largely a parody of the relationship between English schoolchildren and their teachers. Linguistically, it's interesting as a demonstration of prescriptive norms as well as the representation of different dialects. Cleese's dialect is meant to sound more elevated while Graham Chapman's, who is from Melton Mowbray, north of London, is meant to sound less elevated, which is supposed to add to the comedy. Funnily enough, I think some of Brian's usages correlate with changes that would end up occurring in Latin before it changed into the various Romance languages.
Philadelphian Accent - Indexing and Ideologies (PhillyTawk: Da Accent inna Media)
Play video
Philadelphian and self-proclaimed “accent nerd” Sean Monahan makes Youtube videos about the accents in the Mid-Atlantic region. In this video he talks about representations of the Philadelphian accent in movies and TV (or lack thereof), then it cuts to a montage of Philadelphians speaking to hear the difference between actors and native speakers. This video is a great example of indexicality and language ideologies at play. Sean is very proud of the accent that indexes him as a Philadelphian but aware that the lack of accurate representations of the dialect makes it hard for outsiders to recognize it. In the beginning of the video he even mentions people on the west coast though he had a speech impediment – this reveals a language ideology they have about how English “should” sound.
Newbies' guide to talking like you're from Portland
This article notes terms and pronunciations of certain words that seem to contribute to the establishment of Portland as a distinct speech community. Imus used data from the Harvard Dialect Study, as well as conversations with native, longtime, and newly arrived Oregonians to gather information about the terms included in their article. Kitty-corner, filberts, and the distinction between grocery and grocery store were a few terms on the list that stood out to me. [Published on 10-18-2016]
Languages of New York City
This map was created by The Endangered Language Alliance and showcases the linguistic diversity of New York City.
Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers - Let's Call The Whole Thing Off
Play videoSong written for the 1937 film Shall We Dance, highlights some interesting phonological differences in American speech at the time that were obviously salient to speakers. Includes the famous [təˈmeɪtə]~[təˈmɑːtə] variation.
SODA / POP / COKE
This video is a nice, cute compilation of examples of linguistic variation across the US. Most of the examples are more semantic, simply having different names for things like "soda" or "sub" as we've seen in class. The different areas that are highlighted on the map are particularly drastic for some of them, like "in line" versus "on line," with "on line" only really being said around New York and in most of Colorado (outside Denver). These isolated instances make me wonder what drove the variation, especially when they aren't very populated areas. It would also be interesting to know how multidialectal individuals would respond to these questions.
Beijing speech meme
"When you speak Chinese after a week in Beijing" - to complement the Zhang paper.
Instructional Video on Beijing Dialect
Play videoThis video is part of an instructional course on speaking "Beijing Dialect", presented by a young man with background music. This video focuses on a specific rhotacized word, but the presenter uses rhotacized speech throughout the video. I think this relates to our reading on rhoticity as relating to a "smooth" characteristic that goes in hand with other character traits to form a "smooth" persona.
Don Omar - Danza Kuduro ft. Lucenzo
Play videoThe song Danza Kuduro is an example of the effect globalization has had on language. It is sung in both Portuguese and Spanish, with the music video also utilizing English, by Don Omar, a Latin American pop star, and Lucenzo, a French-Portuguese artist. Borrowing from African culture, the kuduro itself is a type of dance that originated in Africa becoming popular in Angola, a Portuguese colony. The song was number one on the charts in Argentina, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland, showcasing how the song transcended language barriers and how globalization has impacted language use.
Different Chinese Dialect Groups in Malaysia
Play videoThis video shows different Chinese dialect groups in Malaysia and their respective histories. From the video, the relationship between language and immigration can be seen clearly, addressing the importance of social environment in the process of forming different Chinese dialect groups in Malaysia.
How “Rez Accents” Strengthen Native Identity
A cool article about identity and “reservation English” [Published on 03-06-2017]
What Makes a Dialect a Dialect: The Roots of Upper Peninsula English
Play videoHistory and development of English in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, a regional dialect also known as Yooper.
Sonic girls making new words
Play videoThese girls are taking words that already exist and combining them to make a new word with a new meaning.
Fargo - Chit Chat
Play videoHaving experiences traveling around the country, many people find Minnesotan accents to be a novelty. In this clip from the movie "Fargo", two Minnesotan men are discussing a recent homicide in the town. The example does a great job of portraying the conversational mannerisms and (overwhelmingly polite, questioning, not all that descriptive, and full of town references) that one finds in Minnesota, North Dakota, and Wisconsin.
Teens Tell All About Slang
Play videoThis video emphasizes a new language habit of teenagers in todays' world. What I mean is using slang. Slang is highly informal and often used in colloquial speech. It is a part of a language that is usually outside of standard usage and that may consist of both newly coined words and phrases and of new or extended meanings attached to established terms. This video helps you to understand some slangs with a good explanation of the reason for these changes.
Excerpt from Donald Glover's
Play videoI used these four songs, a clip from "Weirdo," and this interview of Donald Glover's coronal stop deletion.
Different Chinese Accents - North v. South
Play videoWe are going to read Qing Zhang's Rhotacization and the ‘Beijing Smooth Operator’:The social meaning of a linguistic variable in class. I think that this video will showcase the differences in accents between North (closer to Beijing) and South China.
International Art English
This article explores the linguistic features of a highly stylized register of English called 'International Art English'. Looking at a corpus of words taken from e-flux, an art publishing platform, Rule and Levine explore the history, vocabulary, and syntax of IAE. I think that this article not only showed the ways in which IAE was used to enforce the boundaries of the art world, but also showed how writers (speakers?) of IAE actively used it to construct a persona for themselves that drew upon stylistic features to reinforce relevant and desirable traits. They noted that IAE users used it to "signal the assimilation of a powerful kind of critical sensibility, one that was rigorous, politically conscious, probably university trained." This meshes well with the Eckert's belief that third-wave variationist papers focus on variation as the result of "lifelong projects of self-construction and differentiation." (Eckert 2012) by highly agentic speakers.
Denzel Washington - Dillard commencement speech
Play videoVideo of a commencement address delivered by Denzel Washington at Dillard University in May 2015. Compare to Washington's commencement address given at the University of Pennsylvania in 2011. Washington is an African American actor and director from New York who is a native speaker of AAE. Dillard University is a small, private, historically black university in New Orleans. Over 90% of the Dillard student body is black.
Used for /ai/ monophthongization project for Reed AAE class Spring 2018.
Denzel Washington - Penn commencement speech
Play videoVideo of commencement speech delivered by Denzel Washington at the University of Pennsylvania in May 2011. Compare to commencement speech given at Dillard University in May 2015. Washington is an African American actor and director from New York who is a native speaker of AAE. The University of Pennsylvania is a large Ivy League university located in Philadelphia. White students make up a relative majority of the Penn student body.
Used for /ai/ monophthongization project in Reed College AAE class Spring 2018.
Glaswegian Accent
Play videoA Polish man and a Scottish man with a Glaswegian accent talk about sports and being friends.
Scottish Accents
Play videoThe dialect coach Carol Ann Crawford for the show Outlander demonstrates a series of Scottish accents and gives a brief description on each.
Australian English
Play videoLooking at the different Australian accent varieties. Also shows some popular language myths about why the Australian accent sounds the way it does, and shows a bunch of people pronouncing the same line.
Key & Peele- Substitute Teacher
Play videoThis video shows how language is often construed as wrong to many different kinds of people because there are so many different variations in the English language.
Miraculous Accent
Play videoLanguage is miraculous. It is diverse because of various regions, there comes accents. Siobhan Thompson imitates 17 different accents in Britain, exploring which region may speak these accents and who are the people that speak these accents. She presents typical stars or movie actors and demonstrates accents like RP, Received Pronunciation, the standard BBC English; Heightened RP, generally spoken in movies or television; London; East Anglia; West County; Northern Welsh and the like. United Kingdom is not among one of those countries with the large territory but it has more than 17 kinds of accents. How can you believe the millions of accents spoken around the world? Besides the amazing of the large numbers of accents, the diverse culture and language behind the accents are also amazing. It is easy to find that people who speak different accents sometimes have their own slang, which represents for their unique culture.
A Few Things to Know About American Sign Language
Play videoSimilar to the different accents that exist in the English language, different styles of sign language express different cultural upbringings. This video is a short personal account into a few individual’s experiences with sign language and its perception from none deaf people. Explaining issues like the use of the term “hearing impaired”, is considered more offensive than being labeled deaf because it does not recognize deaf people as a “linguistic minority”. The point is that deaf people have a culture. One of the speakers talks about how slang has influenced ASL specifically in the African-American cultural community. Being deaf does not exclude people from existing in a living language that adapts and changes to fit the times. Rich with the impact of various cultures.
Movie Accent Expert Breaks Down 32 Actors' Accents
Play videoThis video picks apart different actors movie accents and talks about whether they are appropriate to the dialect they are portraying. It gives insight into what unique phonological features make an accent sound authentic, and the relevant social context that can affect a person's way of speaking. This video pick apart different actors movie accents and talks about whether they are appropriate to the dialect they are portraying.
These accents include some that relate to socioeconomic classes in the English language, and english accents from different geological location around the world. The video gives insight into what unique phonological features make an accent sound authentic, and the relevant social context that can affect a person's way of speaking.
Hurt BAE
Play videoThis video shows a younger couple discussing the infidelity on part of the male in the relationship, while a variety of older viewers watch the conversation. The video shows the differences in how younger generations communicate versus older generations, and the changes in how we communicate. Throughout the video, you see and hear the various reactions from the group and hear their thoughts and perception of the situation based on the conversation between the couple and the memes that were posted on the internet about the video.
lesson 7.1 Tokyo vs Osaka Accent - same words, different sounds
Play videoThe differences in intonation between Osaka dialect and Tokyo dialect. Tokyo dialect is accepted as standard Japanese and is what is taught outside of Japan. In the video, the Osaka dialect speaker says that she is able to speak standard Japanese very well, but her pronunciation of "sensei" is what clued people in to her Osaka origins.
Language Barriers
Language barrier is not only two people speaking two different languages. Word choices, linguistic ability, slangs, abbreviation and grammar can also identify language barrier. Language barrier stands for “no meaning” communication that can lead to misunderstanding. Even when two people speak same languages, there can be a language barrier because not everybody understands professional technical terms unless working in the field.
Survey of California and Other Indian Languages
A series of California maps over the years depicting the Languages spoken among various Native American tribes and what Linguistic roots these Languages have drawn from posted by as University of California Berkeley.
The Differences Between Latin American Spanish and Spanish in Spain
This article, by Alex Hammond, gives a historical background on how Spanish came to be different all throughout South America, Central America, and Spain through segregated colonialism and practices of differing phrases and words. [Published on 02-06-2012]
Why Linguists are Fascinated by the American Jewish Accent
In this article, the various features of what are commonly associated with the American Jewish accent are detailed. This accent is often associated with comedians such as Mel Brooks, Larry David, and Don Rickles. The accent, while not as widespread as it used to be, is still recognizable to listeners by the word order and intonation it borrows from Yiddish, Hebrew, and other languages of prominent Jewish communities.
[Published on 09-26-2016]
Variety of Spanish Accents
Play videoJoanna Rants uses analogies to compare different Spanish accents.
Key & Peele - Awkward Conversation
Play videoIn this video, Key & Peele use a sketch to poke fun at people they feel simply react to others instead of sharing actual views. Jordan Peele's character uses types of performativity, including drawn-out words and phrases, eye rolls, and looking at his friends while excluding Keegan's character to express his displeasure with Keegan's opinions on pop culture.
Hooked on Ebonics
The article dives into several important concepts as they relate to the understanding of Ebonics. The author explains that there are rules and variety within Ebonics that demonstrate its value as a variety of English. The author also addresses that Ebonics is not just "a black thing" and that many whites, Hispanics and Asian Americans all engage in AAVE.
How to understand the differences between British and American English
Play videoThe video does a great job at comparing words and the differences in meanings they can portray whether being interpreted from someone from the U.S OR U.K. It shows the power of the interpretation of language and how it can cause an interaction to be positive or negative. It shows the importance of linguistic relativity and the social context individuals are a part of.
10 Surprising Ways to Offend People in Other Countries
Play videoThe video explores how the use of body language can mean one thing to a culture and a completely different thing to another. It provides good evidence to show that language can be communicated in other ways than verbal cues. It also shows the importance of the environment and the socialization process.
Language Could Diagnose Parkinson's, ALS and Schizophrenia before Lab Tests
A recent study shows the use, or lack of, certain words by patients could be diagnostic indicators of a future disease or ailment. [Published on 02-01-2016]
Mapping How Americans Talk - Soda vs. Pop vs. Coke
Play videoThis video shows the numerous dialects found in and around America. The video also shows us that despite speaking the same language, we can have multiple different words to describe a single product or object.
The Linguistics of YouTube Voice
This article focuses on YouTube stars, and how they capture a viewer's attention by changing their speech and accommodating to their audience. [Published on 12-07-2015]
language and social networks
social network factors of language variation
Way Back When
Play videoThis artifact brings a funny play on words that has shows how much our culture has changed over the years and how even in our society words have taken on several meanings. They aren't pointed out directly but most people in our society today can relate.
Post-creole continuum chart
So the article itself we've mostly covered, but the included chart is a great and clear example of the variety that can exists within a language that can potentially be explained as various levels of "decreolization" or varieties that have always existed with different features of the superstrate. [Published on 09-01-2014]
Which English you speak has nothing to do with how smart you are
A Slate guest post by linguist Anne H. Charity Hudley addressing issues of language discrimination in U.S. schools based on the use of nonstandard varieties and features. She argues in favor of embracing language diversity in the classroom. [Published on 10-14-2014]
Accent Tour of the UK
We talked in class about how one person producing two versions of one vowel was helpful when asking people to evaluate or respond to speech, because it eliminates other factors such as age and gender, and controls for the vowel itself. I thought this was a really good example of that: this man is really good at putting on a lot of the accents of the UK, and the fact that it is just one person makes it really easy to hear the differences in his speech.
The "ax" versus "ask" question
A 2014 op-ed in the LA TImes from John McWhorter on the pronunciation of "ask" as "ax" by African Americans.
Mapping how America Talks
The Atlantic compiled audio recordings from the Harvard Dialect Survey and the maps of Jonathan Katz from the same dataset into a video.
Stephen Fry on language
Play videoHumorist Stephen Fry rants against language mavens and prods us all to enjoy linguistic innovation.
Buzzfeed: The Ultimate Regional Vocabulary Throwdown
A 2013 Buzzfeed list of a number of regionally distinguished lexical items, including pop and soda, sub and its variants, tennis shoes and sneakers, and more.
Engrish Test
Play videoKlik.Tv interviews speakers of Singapore English on the street to test their "correct" pronunciation.
New Zealand's Next Top Model
Play videoDiction Coach: Singin' in the Rain
Play videoA scene from the 1952 musical Singin' in the Rain, with a diction coach working on a particularly tense short-a before nasals
Southern Dialects: Talkin' Tar-Heel
Transcript of interview with Walt Wolfram in which many aspects of Southern English are discussed. Audio available on website.
(r) in New York City English
(Enlarge image)The classic graph from Labov (1966) showing stratification by socioeconomic class and speaker style for coda r vocalization in New York City English
Eddie Izzard on Being Bilingual
Play videoEddie Izzard stand-up about British English vs. American English and the tendency of monolingualism in native English speakers.