HON MCC 101 Talk to Me
Assignment 8: due
Read Chapter 10 in Fromkin book.
This chapter talks about how language production differences have sociological implications. Fromkin concentrates on the how things are said in difference dialects and focuses heavily on different geographic or racial groups. Many of the things she said could be extended to different social groups (and perhaps ‘social group’ is the most appropriate distinction).
1) Write a paragraph or two on the discussion board about your particular dialect. In particular, if it’s significant, mention where you grew up, where your parents grew up, what ethnic/ religious group affiliation you had/ they had. Everyone speaks in a particular dialect, so locate yours.
Look up http://classweb.gmu.edu/accent and find your native language in the left frame (e.g. English is a quarter of the way down). See if you can find your dialect. If you have relatives or friends from other dialect groups, see if you can locate them.
Another website that might be
helpful is http://www.ling.upenn.edu/phono_atlas/home.html
, regional maps, especially Northeast region, that shows where the major
dialect boundaries are in
2) I made an off-handed comment in the introductory paragraph above, that ‘social group’ might actually be the operable factor in different dialects. Write a second paragraph about whether you think this vague idea of mine is on the right or wrong track. Consider a single person who switches dialects (do you speak differently to your friends? your family? Is it a dialect difference?) Consider the erosion of geography as a dialect determiner when we used to think solely of “Southern Accents”, “New York Accents” and “Boston Accents” and now we see references to “Surfer Dude” or “Urban Youth”.
Do exercises #3, 4, 5, 8, 10, 11 (in preparation for My Fair Lady!), 15