Week 5: Regional and social variation

Discover how English dialects and social class shape language! Practice identifying regional words and speech markers.

1. Study the following words. Which English dialect do they characterise? Sort the words into the suitable category British cheeky pint wellies (for Wellington boots) Australian arvo mozzie New Zealander gummies solo parents chur American ballin hustle South African robot (for traffic light) aikona 2. Study the two texts by two different speakers. Can you find clues of each speaker's social class?There is no space in this worksheet to elaborate on your judgement, but think about how you might explain it. I tell thee, she is: and therefore make her grave straight: the crowner hath sat on her, and finds it Christian burial. Working class To be, or not to be, that is the question:– Whether ’tis nobler in the mind, to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune; Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them? – To die, – to sleep, No more: – and, by a sleep, to say we end The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to, – ’tis a consummation Devoutly to be wish’d . . . Upper class 3. A report published in 1997 proposed a new classification scheme for social class divisions in Britain based solely on occupation.Without looking up the scheme, see if you can classify the following jobs into their appropriate class. Job Class doctors Professionals and senior managers teachers Professionals and senior managers nurses Associate professionals and junior managers plumbers Other supervisors, craft jobs builders Self-employed non-professionals waiters Elementary job journalists Associate professionals and junior managers unemployed 'underclass' truck drivers Routine jobs secretaries Intermediate occupation 4. Tick ALL the correct statements Accent is a regional linguistic characteristic on the sound level Accent can be adjusted to signal identity Accent refers to non-standard, foreign pronunciations A person from a lower working class family speaks differently from one from an upper-class background. An accent gives accurate information about where someone comes from Accent is the distinct pronunciation of each person 5. The given words are all collected from regional dialects of BritishEnglish.Can you guess what they mean and where they are used mainly? Word Meaning Dialect a bairn a child Scottish snowblossom snowflake Somerset mask the tea infuse or brew the tea Cumberland, Durham, York, Northumberland, Scotland, Yorkshire I’m really stalled I'm really fed up Yorkshire Ay up, me duck Hey mate (friendly greeting) Nottinghamshire, the Midlands