第5讲_英语文体学.ppt

单击此处编辑母版标题样式,单击此处编辑母版文本样式,第二级,第三级,第四级,第五级,*,Session 5 Varieties of Language,Lectures on Stylistics,黄新祥,湖北经济学院外国语学院,2010,年春季学期,Contents,5.1 Two kinds of Varieties,5.2 Dialects,5.3 Registers,5.4 The Mutual Dependence Between Register,and Dialect,5.5 The Social Meaning of Language Varieties,Lectures on Stylistics,黄新祥,湖北经济学院外国语学院,2010,年春季学期,5.1 Two kinds of varieties,Dialectal varieties,Diatypic,varieties,(,语言变体或语域,),We have pointed out that when language is used,it is always used in a context.What gets said and how it gets said is always dictated by a variety of situations.Some situations seem to depend generally and fairly consistent-,ly,on some regular sets of language features,so that,dis-tinctive,varieties of language occur.These sets of features are historically formed and are changing overtime;but they remain relatively stable at a certain period of history governing peoples language activity.As a study of the linguistic features that characterize the main varieties of a language,stylistics needs to define its variety categories.Since the 196os,hopefully,studies in this area have made considerable progress.Modern linguistics has worked out a system of variety categories to help isolate these consistent relationships between particular features,of language,and the particular situations in which they might possibly occur,(see Gregory and Carroll,1978).,The constant features of the situational circumstances of speech events that can be consistently related to variations in language use fall into two main groups:one group relates to the relatively permanent characteristics of the user in speech events,the other relates to the users use of language in such events;and they yield two main kinds of situational varieties:dialectal and,diatypic,.,DIALECTAL VARIETIES,commonly called,DIALECT,s,are language varieties that are associated with different users of the language.As users in a society can be defined in terms of their individual,temporal,regional,and social affiliations,and their range of intelligibility,there are individual,temporal,regional,social and standard varieties respectively.These are relatively permanent features of the language user in a speech event.,DIATYPIC VARIETIES,commonly called,REGISTER,s,are language variations that are associated with the different use to which they are put.Such varieties do not depend on the people who use the language,but on the occasion when it is used.Different types of language are selected as appropriate to different types of occasion.The choice is determined by the convention that a certain kind of language is appropriate to a certain use.The occasions can be classified along three dimensions,each presenting an aspect of the situation and the part played by the language in them.In this way,registers may be distinguished according to field of discourse,mode of discourse and tenor of discourse.,5.2 Dialects,Individual Dialect-Idiolect,A specific person will display his or her own features of speech or writing habits.This is readily shown in the fact that most of us can recognize our friends by the sound of their voice or the look of their handwriting.Each speaker or writer will have his or her own particular voice quality,pitch and stress patterns,favorite lexical items,and even grammatical structures.These traits of speech or writing often point to a persons individuality which leads to a persons style.Terms like Conrads language,Hemingways language indicate just this type of variety.We call it,INDIVIDUAL DIALECT,or,IDIOLECT,.,Lectures on Stylistics,黄新祥,湖北经济学院外国语学院,2010,年春季学期,Temporal Dialect,Language changes over time,and so description of the language at a given point of time is likely to give rise to a historical variety.In the English language,for instance,there are Old English,Middle English,Elizabethan English and Modem English.A variety which correlates with the various periods of the development of language is called TEMPORAL DIALECT.,Some of the striking differences between Old,Middle and Modern English can be seen from their different ways of expressing the idea Its me:,1)description of the language at a given point of time a historical variety,2)e.g.“Its me”,Old English:,ic,hit,eom,(=I it am),Middle English:Hit am I (=It am I),Early Modern English:(=It is me),Regional Dialect,Language varies from region to region.Owing to the physical boundaries of oceans and mountains,people who live in different places tend to develop different speech patterns.So far as the English speaking world is concerned,there are British English,American English,Australian English,New Zealand English,South African English,Canadian English,and other international varieties.,Lectures on Stylistics,黄新祥,湖北经济学院外国语学院,2010,年春季学期,There are also regional varieties within Great Britain and the United States,such as cockney in Britain,North Midland dialect in USA,etc.A variety like this we call,REGIONAL DIALECT,.The lay term for it is,ACCENT,as a dialect is often associated with a particular accent.,In spite of the fact that with the ever intensifying intercommunication between countries and the resulting closing up of the two major international varieties of English,the most striking difference between British English and American English is still found in terms of,1)phonology;2)graphology;3)vocabulary;4)grammar.,Lectures on Stylistics,黄新祥,湖北经济学院外国语学院,2010,年春季学期,Social Dialect,Just as oceans and mountains separate people and can lead eventually to distinct language habits,so social and political boundaries separate people and can be,instru,-mental in promoting different,speechways,.A variety associated with certain social group is referred to as,SOCIAL DIALECT,.,The social groups may identify themselves as separate socioeconomic classes or as ethnic groups.And cutting across these social boundaries are differences in the ways of women and men,old and young.Each group tends to have its distinctive ways of speaking.Hence the occur-,rence,of socioeconomic status varieties,ethnic varieties,gender varieties and age varieties.,Lectures on Stylistics,黄新祥,湖北经济学院外国语学院,2010,年春季学期,1)Socioeconomic status varieties,Different socioeconomic status groups tend to show different patterns of speech characteristics.An often quoted example is the well-known case of,r,-,fulness,in New York City.New Yorkers sometimes pronounce/r/and sometimes drop it in words like,car,fourth,beer,park,(when/r,/,follows a vowel,either at the end of a word or preceding a consonant).Investigation shows that the occurrence of/r/in the pronunciation of these words is anything but random and anything but meaningless.,Lectures on Stylistics,黄新祥,湖北经济学院外国语学院,2010,年春季学期,William,Labov,investigated pronunciations of/r/among employees of three Manhattan department stores of different social rank:Saks Fifth Avenue,an expensive,upper-middle-class store;Macys,a medium-priced,middle-class store;and S Klein,a discount store patronized principally by working class New Yorkers.He found that at Saks,the highest-ranked of the stores,employees pronounced/r/more often than employees did at S Klein,the lowest-ranked store.At Macys,the middle-ranked store,employees pronounced an intermediate number of/,r/s,.This confirmed,Labovs,hypothesis that members of higher socioeconomic status groups would pronounce/r/more frequently than would individuals from lower socioeconomic classes.The findings help explain the social basis for linguistic,variation-even subtle differences in social stratification may be reflected in language use.,2)Ethnic varieties,Ethnic groups tend to develop and maintain distinctive,speechways,of their own.Hence the rise of ethnic varieties.This is especially true of urban Black Americans in the US who have actually developed a most widespread and familiar ethnic variety of American EnglishBlack English,with its characteristic phonological,morphological,and syntactical features,as well as some vocabulary of its own.It is as rule-governed and systematic,as rich in its communicative expression and adaptability,as other varieties of English,.,The most striking characteristics of Black English are as follows:,l)Phonologically,Black English is most salient in its frequent simplification of consonant clusters as des for,desk,pass for passed,and wile for,wild,.Another salient feature is the frequent deletion of the final stop consonants,pronouncing,side,like,sigh,and,borrowed,like,borrow,.,2)Black English distinguishes itself in a characteristic use of verb be.the omission of the contracted form in the present tense(,s,),and the use of be to express a habitual state of affairs;as in,That my book(=Thats my book).,The coffee cold(=The coffees cold).,The coffee be cold there(=The coffees always cold there).,Further,verb,be,is used to show habitual action;as in,Do they,be,playing all day?,(,cf,Do they play all day?),Yeah,the boys do,be,messin,around a lot.,(,cf,Yeah,the boys do mess around a lot,3)Another distinctive feature of Black English is the use of,it is,in the place of there is;as in,Is it,(=Is there)a Miss Jones in this office?,4)A final illustration of the distinctiveness of Black English is the use of multiple-negative constructions:,Dont nobody never help me do my work.,(,cf,Nobody ever helps me do my work.).,3)Gender varieties,In most languages,men and woman do not speak identically.Hence gender varieties occur.In English,for example,female speakers tend to use feminine-sounding words like,lovely,darling,and,cute.,Likewise certain four-letter words may surprise us when uttered by a woman.Moreover,women tend to show extra politeness in their speech by leaving a decision open rather than imposing their claims on others.They make frequent use of expressions like Im afraid that.,Im not sure,but.etc;of tag questions like The film is awfully interesting,isnt it?;and of rising tone for a request,like Do come and have a look,etc.Men,on the other hand,are usually more certain;decisive in their speech,often free to use strong expressions or rough language.Sometimes their,pronunciation is not so clear as womens.,4)Age varieties,Language evolves with age.So a two-year-old childs command of language is far from perfect while a five-year-old in contrast has a much better command.A ten-year-,olds,command of grammar does not differ significantly from that of adults,though his/her vocabulary is smaller.Children through(and especially in)their teens tend to experiment with vocabulary,using long,literary words more than adults.,There are language differences,chiefly in vocabulary,between younger adults and older adults too.Nowadays some older people still use icebox to refer to what younger generations call,fridge,and they use,record player,for,stereo,.,They might not have adopted words like bad-mouthing or dumping on someone.Younger people tend to pick up newly sprung-up slangy expressions all the time.,5)Standard Dialect,There remains another type of dialect distinction,the distinction between a standard and a nonstandard dialect.,STANDARD DIALECT,is the variety of a language based on the speech and writing of educated native speakers of that language which enables speakers of the language throughout the world to communicate intelligibly with each other,respective of their social standing or regional background.A standard variety is generally taught in schools and to non-native speakers when my are learning the language and is used in the news media and described in dictionaries and grammars.,So far as the English language is concerned,there are Standard American English and Standard British English,etc.Standard English,however,is sometimes used as cover term for all the national standard varieties of English,which enjoys wide intelligibility throughout the English-speaking world.,5.3 Registers,1)Field of Discourse,Our daily lives take us through a succession of activities requiring the use of language.The activities are diverse and,whatever dialect we speak,have specific features of language associated with them.Many activities are connected with our job-a teacher lecturing to a group of students,a lawyer advising a client,a sergeant instructing a soldier,or a scientist reading a technical report.,Other activities are part of our leisure-we may be playing basketball or boating on the lake.At home,we may be acting as mother or father,wife or husband,daughter or son.Every day an individual will pass through a succession of such roles and in each he or she will use features of language that are typical of the activity involved.,In the type of situation in which the language activity accounts for practically the whole of the relevant activity such as an essay,a discussion,or an academic seminar,the field of the discourse is the subject matter.In situations in which the language activity plays a minor part,the field is the whole event,such as a register of domestic chores,or of moving the piano.,FIELD OF DISCOURSE,is the linguistic reflection of the purposive role of the language user,-the type of social activity the language user is engaged in doing in the situation in which the text has occurred.That is to say,the language the user uses will show what his/her language is about,what experience he/she is verbalizing,what is going on in the speech event.,Some roles are non-specialist in nature and relate to non-specialist fields such as establishing personal contact or,phatic,communion.They are likely to have related topics:weather,health,news,etc.Look at the following,for instance:,Jeff:,Mornin,Stan!,Stan:Hi.Hows it,goin,?,Jeff:Oh,cant explain,I guess.Ready for the meeting this afternoon?,Stan:Well,I cant have much choice.,Other fields of discourse such as gossip,general conversation,personal letters,in a similar way,tend to have shifts of topic and subject matter,each of which could be the realization of a dominant field of discourse.But these shifts are better thought of as characteristic of the non-specialist nature of the field of casual conversation.We call,phatic,communion,gossip,casual conversation,and personal letters non-technical fields of discourse.,On the other hand,the roles of teacher,lawyer,sergeant,scientist,expert,and informed enthusiast relate to specialist fields,and are more likely to have a one-to-one relationship to fields.We call these technical fields of discourse.,There are indefinitely many fields depending on how detailed we wish our discussion to be.Learned(or scholarly)language covers a wide range of subject matter(such as linguistics,psychology,mathematics,medicine,history,literary criticism),generally distinguished as the field of scientific discourse.Applications of technology are reflected in instructional writing,itself included within technical language.,Lectures on Stylistics,黄新祥,湖北经济学院外国语学院,2010,年春季学期,Field of discourse can be more or less restricted in language.Extreme cases are the languages of parade-ground drills and knitting patterns which have a very restricted purpose and therefore a very limited number of lexical i