Language variety comes in several different forms. In these notes, I will talk about four.
First, there are the national varieties. Australian, American, English, Scottish, Welsh, Irish, New Zealand, South African, Indian and Jamaican English (and there are more) are all recognisably different from each other.
It’s worth remembering that the main difference is in the sounds of the language, the phonology.
There are also some differences in vocabulary, and a (very) few differences in grammar, but the difference that we all notice is the sound. And sometimes we make too much of that: American and British English are very close to each other, and in formal writing are often indistinguishable, except for a few minor differences in spelling. The sound is what makes them different.
Second, there are the regional varieties, again mostly distinguished by accent and a few phrases. Grammatical differences are few and far between. In Britain we have Welsh, Scottish, Irish and English, all divisible again according to the areas people come from within those countries. A Mancunian (from Manchester) or a Liverpudlian (from Liverpool) are often distinguishable by their accents. However, in Britain (and elsewhere), people move around a lot more than they used to, and live, study and work in areas far from their original homes. As a result, a lot of people lose some or all of their original accents, and end up speaking a regionless “Britspeak”, or “General American”, with signs of their origin sometimes showing through.
Thirdly, a variety often discussed is social class: do you speak like the Queen, or the Duke of somewhere-or-other, or do you talk like Alfred Doolittle, the dustman in My Fair Lady (based on Bernard Shaw’s wonderful Pygmalion)? I myself don’t much care, but people do, and native speakers often judge each other on their accents. What often distinguishes the ‘posh’ speakers is their high level of confidence. This makes them think their utterances are valuable, and they therefore state them clearly and confidently; people from middle and lower class backgrounds often speak more tentatively and less clearly. But be warned: do not confuse confidence with intelligence or moral superiority; it may be no more than an overdeveloped sense of entitlement. Social class is especially noticeable in England, more than in other English-speaking parts of the world, but class of one kind or another is, sadly, an integral part of the human condition.
My fourth variety is the formal-informal continuum. We vary our choice of language according to the context, the role we are playing and the domain we find ourselves in.
The context might be conversation with your partner-in-life, a meeting with your boss, a visit to the doctor, a trip[ to the local story, a journey on a bus . . .
The role might be employee, boss, patient, doctor, co-worker, husband, wife, grandson . . .
The domain might be a cafe, the doctor’s surgery, our workplace, our home, public transport . . .
A conversation with our doctor is not the same as a chat with our friend in the café. We use different words, even different grammar.
Here is an example with five categories – though the real truth is more of a gradient than a set of categories:
Frozen Passengers may proceed to the upper floor by means of the
staircase.
Formal Please make your way upstairs.
Neutral You can go upstairs now.
Informal OK, d’you wanna go upstairs?
Intimate Up you go!
In my (controversial) opinion, none of these varieties is the most important. The most important one is the next one – and it’s a variety which varies with every individual speaker.
My fifth and final variety is Fluency, subtlety, richness and complexity in the use of language. I think the most important variety is the extent to which people put the language to good use. I don’t care where you come from or what accent you have. I care whether you express yourself in a way which is complex yet clear, rich yet easy to follow, elaborate and yet coherent. That’s what matters.
Of course this is often (not always) linked to level of education, and almost certainly linked to how much a person reads. But it is definitely not linked to national or regional variety, or social class.
How should teachers cope with all this? here are some thoughts:
Basic
- Learners soon notice that people from different parts of the world speak in different ways (mostly accent), and you need to get used to that, so welcome the exposure even if it is hard to deal with. Don’t ever think that one accent is superior to another, although some accents are more widespread, and therefore more widely understood.
- Some people are better mimics than others. Good mimicry is useful, but it’s not the definition of a good language learner. Persistence and commitment will get you where you want to go. Think of the story of the Hare and the Tortoise.
- Learners soon become aware of the frozen end of language variety, in phrases like stop, no smoking, no entry, no parking, sell by . . . , use by . . . , . . .prohibited and many more.
- As a learner, you are mostly better off using formal or neutral language; only advanced learners can handle informal and intimate language, and even then, it is very easy to use language in the wrong context, to the wrong person . ..
Intermediate
- Depending on where you are in the world, your students will hear a range of accents. A (slightly bogus) American accent is widely used by popular singers – the Beatles (from Liverpool), the Rolling Stones (from London) and Abba (from Sweden) have all done it, and it’s still happening. If you like songs, celebrate the different accents in the recordings.
- When vocabulary or spelling differences come up, enjoy them. Vocabulary varieties are neither good nor bad – they just are. Plants vary too, depending on the soil and the weather.
Advanced
- Some advanced learners start to get judgmental about accents from countries other than the one they have identified with. Remember that all accents are of equal worth in their own context, be it Kholkata, the East End of London or Brooklyn or Texas, or Australia, or even Buckingham Palace (though that’s a bit specialist) . . .
- Strong local accents sometimes cause a problem in understanding, so for general, global use, it’s probably better to have an accent that will be widely understood. And that means clearly spoken, and not strongly marked for any particular part of the world.
- Advanced learners often like to try out informal and intimate language forms; remember that these uses are highly context-dependent and often ephemeral, and misuse may cause misunderstandings. On the whole, even for advanced learners, formal and neutral choices will work better.
What you say – how rich and complex is it, how true is it, how nuanced is it? – all this matters more than your accent and choice of vocabulary.
That’s all for now!
© Shepherd School of English