Week 15

I really enjoyed the readings for this week because I think sociolinguistics and variations in English are interesting concepts that aren't always brought up. In Chapter 5 of McKay, we see how the spread of English has led to the development of varieties of English between countries and also varieties within countries. For example, Nigeria has four varieties of English that reflect different levels of social acceptance and international intelligibility. I thought it was surprising that very few Nigerians spoke the varieties that were closest to Standard British English, but that is what makes their form of the language unique. I like to think of all of the variations in English as being unique, rather than inadequate to the Standard English that we know. Kachru argues that English has "blended itself with the cultural and social complex", so we must look at these varieties as intertwined with the culture of the country, instead of inferior to the Standard form. The chapter also discussed those who support a monolithic model of language and argue that if we allow local spaces to modify the language for their environment, that soon English speakers could not understand one another. This idea really surprised me and I think that we need to realize that language is constantly changing and we cannot prevent variations in English. It will always be changing, but what matters is that speakers can work together to understand each other.

The article by Lippi-Green further brought up language variation, but specifically accents. It specified the difference between accent and dialects by saying that, "Two varieties of a single language are divided by accent when differences are restricted primarily to phonology." Dialects are when the language varies in morphological structures, syntax, lexicon, and semantics. Many people often think it is easy to change your accent and that if you cannot adapt to the "standard" accent, then you have not tried hard enough or are unintelligent. However, accents can be difficult to change and why should we have to change our accent? I never realized my "Chicagoan" accent until I went to Spain and everyone from the East and West Coast in the U.S. always commented on it. Just because we had a few differences in our English, it doesn't mean that theirs was better than mine or that mine was better.