CHAPTER 2 THE DIALECT
2.1. The Definition of Dialect
How do people define the term ‘dialect’? It is known that any two people surely have differences in their way of talking, though they are from the same
dialect area. I have tried to make a definition of dialect. For me, dialect is a way of speaking in which people will find it hard to understand or hear what someone
else says even if it is his own language. A simple definition will say that dialect is a various different forms of the same language. In common usage, a dialect is a
substandard, low status, often rustic form of language, generally associated with the peasantry, the working class, or other groups lacking prestige. Charles W.
Kreidler 1995 explained that when people who have the same native language can understand one another and at the same time notice consistent differences in
each other’s speech, it means that they speak different dialect of the same language. From his statement, I concern at the words ‘consistent differences’. It
means that different dialects will produce the consistent differences. It can be said that when there is only a little or inconsistent difference, there is no different
dialect. But it must not always true. We know that anything can be learned and adopted. With a deep science and experiences, people will imitate or adopted
other’s language or dialect. It is easy to see that all speakers are the speakers of at least one dialect. A standard English dialect, for example, is just as much a dialect
as any other form of English, and it does not make any kind of sense to suppose
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that any one dialect is in any way linguistically superior to any other J.K. Chambers and Peter Trudgill, 1980. It is clear that the definition of dialect
depends on a number of criteria, some overlapping, and inconsistency.
2.2. The Distinction between Dialect and Language
In many situations, dialect is sufficient to describe various forms within the same language. Dialect refers to strictly speaking, to differences between
kinds of language which have different vocabulary and grammar as well as pronunciation K.M. Petyt : 1980 . How different is the dialect from language?
The problem is that of deciding how different two forms can be before they are held to be different languages rather than dialects. When dealing with related
languages for example, English and German, it is reasonable to maintain that the distinction between dialect and language is a ‘quantitative’ matter. For example,
Liverpudlian and Cockney are different in many ways, but not sufficiently different to be called different languages, but they are different dialects. On the
other hand, English and German, though they were originally the same language and though they have some similarities in sound pattern, grammar, vocabulary etc,
can not be called as dialects of saying them ‘Germanic’, they are too different. A more technical distinction between the dialect and language is that the
dialects are the varieties of different forms of the same language, while language always involves at least one of its dialects, for example, the dialects of English are
Yorkshire, Berkshire, Cockney, New York, etc. However, two problems arise in relation to such a definition. First is what is meant by ‘a different form of
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language’. There are different forms between people in Bradford and people nearby rural area around Haworth, England. In Bradford, she is pronounced as
[ ʃ i:] and house is pronounced [ a
ʊ
s], while in Haworth, they are [ ʃu:] and
[
Ө
a:s]. Then it is distinguished a virtually infinite number of ‘different forms’ of any language, depending on what linguistic features that is focused on, and in how
much detail J.K. Chambers and Peter Trudgill : 1980 . To take a further example, in British English, some groups of people pronounce look with a long
vowel, while others with a short. But among the long-vowel forms we can certainly distinguish [lu:k] from [l
ɪə k] – and among those with [u:]-like vowels we could distinguish [lu:k], [liu:k], [liuk], [l
ʊ
u:k] etc. And the various groups who say [l
ʊ
u:k] will differ among themselves in the way thay pronounce other words; and so on.
This process leads to the speech of smaller and smaller groups, until it ultimately reaches the speech of an individual. This is called the idiolect, and in
fact each idiolect differs in some details from every other. But somewhere it is called that a halt to this concentration on differences, and decide that among a
certain group there is an important degree of linguistic unity – that its members speak the same dialect. This term then implies both difference from other groups
speaking the same language and unity with other individuals.
2.3. The Distinction between Dialect and Accent
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