Riassunto The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language - Crystal D., Sbobinature di Lingua Inglese

Scarica Riassunto The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language - Crystal D. e più Sbobinature in PDF di Lingua Inglese solo su Docsity! LINGUA E TRADUZIONE INGLESE I – MOD. A CHAPTER 8: THE NATURE OF THE LEXICON The term “lexicon” is known in English from the early 17th century, when it referred to a book containing a selection of a language’s words and meanings, arranged in alphabetical order. Within linguistics it refers to the total stock of meaningful units in a language (words, idioms and part of words which express meaning, such as the prefixes and suffixes). To study the lexicon of English is to study all aspects of the vocabulary of the language (for example, how words are formed, how they are developed over the time, how they are used now, etc.). It is a study which is carried on by lexicologist, who are thus practising lexicology. Lexicographers: lexicologist who choose to write a dictionary and their calling is lexicography (but one can be a good lexicologist without ever having written a dictionary at all). The lexicon is the area of language which is most difficult to systematize and control. Its size, range and variability is both an attraction and a hindrance. It comprises the largest part of the forms and structures which make up a language. WHAT IS A LEXEME? A lexeme (or lexical item) is the fundamental unit of the lexicon of a language. Etymology: from the Greek, “word, speech”.  A lexeme is often, but not always, an individual word (simple lexeme or dictionary word). A simple lexeme (love) may have a few inflectional forms or grammatical variants (loved; lover; loving).  A lexeme can be made up of more than one orthographic word (multiword or composite lexeme), such as a phrasal verb (speak up), an open compound (fire engine), or an idiom (throw in the towel). Come, coming and come in are all lexemes. The way in which a lexeme can be used in a sentence is determined by its word class or grammatical category. HOW LARGE IS THE ENGLISH LEXICON? The Webster’s Third New International counts over 450.000 lexemes in 1961. In 1992, the Oxford English Dictionary counts over 500.000 lexemes. ABBREVIATIONS Abbreviations are shortened versions of words and phrases. The story of abbreviations can be traced back over 150 years. The fashionable use of abbreviation, a kind of society slang, comes and goes in waves, though it is never totally absent. They are one of the most noticeable features of present-day English linguistic life. Reasons to use abbreviations:  The desire for linguistic economy.  Succinctness and precision are highly valued, and abbreviations can contribute to a concise style.  Abbreviations help to convey a sense of social identity: using an abbreviated form to be part of a social group. Types: 1. Initialisms: a type of abbreviation which are spoken as individual letters (BBC, DJ, FBI, WWW). They are formed by using some of the letters in the word or phrase. 2. Acronyms: initialisms which are pronounced as single words. They are formed by using the first letters in the words of a phrase or first parts of a phrase (NATO, UNESCO, RADAR, GIF). 3. Clipping: the shortening of a longer word, often reducing it to one syllable (PHONE, AD). 4. Blends: a word which is made of the shortened forms of two or more other words (BRUNCH: breakfast + lunch; SMOG: smoke + fog). 5. Facetious forms: TGIF - Thank God It’s Friday. 6. Latin abbreviations: etc. - et caetera - “and the others”; ead. - eadem - “the same (woman)”. PROPER NAMES English proper names are on the boundary of the lexicon. Some of them are so closely bound up with the way meaning is structured on the language that it would be difficult to exclude them from any superdictionary. Proper names are part of the learning of a language: there are rules of pronunciations which must be followed and rules of grammar which apply to proper names in special way.  There are names which form part of the idiomatic history of an English- speaking community, such as The Times, Billy the Kid, Phi Beta Kappa and Woolworth’s. The influence of Latin is strong, especially after the arrival of Christianity (church, school, giant, plant). 5. Other borrowings As a result of empire and trade contacts, the lexicon of English continued to acquire from other languages including:  American: racoon, coyote, wigwam.  Australian: wallaby, kangaroo, boomerang.  Italian: paparazzo, pizza, dolce vita.  Arabic: saffron, tamarind, alchemy.  Persian: naphtha, chess, lilac.  Japanese: samurai, kimono.  Other Asian regions: yoga, karma, curry, ketchup. WORD FORMATION In linguistics, word formation refers to the ways in which new words are made based on other words. Word-formation can be viewed either diachronically (through different periods in history) or synchronically (at one period). Word formation is sometimes contrasted with semantic change, which is a change in a single word’s meaning. There are a few methods of word formation: 1. Abbreviations: a word or phrase is shortened (e.g. Dr.). 2. Calque or loan translation: a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal, word-for-word or root-for-root translation (e.g. It goes without saying). 3. Morphological derivation: the process of forming a new word from an existing word, often by adding a prefix or suffix (e.g. unhappy). It’s different from inflection. 4. Compounding: a lexeme that consists of more than one stem (e.g. cupcake). 5. Conversion: change of a word from one-word class to another (e.g. to friend someone). 6. Neologism: forming a new word by coining (e.g. quark). 7. Back-formation: we remove part of a word - suffix or prefix (e.g. to enthuse). Nonce word: is a lexeme created for temporary use, to solve an immediate problem of communication. CHAPTER 11 – THE STRUCTURE OF THE LEXICON SEMANTIC STRUCTURE When we talk about the “structure” of the lexicon, we are referring to the network of meaning relationships which bind lexemes together: known as semantic structure. As soon as we think of a lexeme (uncle), a series of others come to mind: some of these help to define it (brother, father), other relates to it closely in meaning (aunt, cousin), others have a looser semantic connection (relatives, family). There may be figurative or literary use, as well as a few personal or idiosyncratic associations (birthday, funeral). SEMANTIC FIELDS A fruitful notion in investigating lexical structure is the semantic or lexical field: a named area of meaning in which lexemes interrelate and define each other in specific ways. Assign all the lexemes in English to a semantic field is not as straightforward as it might appear: some lexemes seem to belong to fields which are very difficult to define, or which are vague (does “orange” belong to “fruit” or “colour”?). A very large number of lexemes can be grouped together into fields and subfields in a clear-cut way. DICTIONARY AND THESAURUS The Thesaurus is an alternative to the traditional approach to lexicography using alphabetical order. Thesauri are based on the notion of grouping lexemes thematically: a notion which can be traced back to 16th century. Francis Bacon and John Wilkins wrote essays which outlined a way of dividing everything into a small number of major areas, each being progressively subclassified until all concepts are dealt with in their appropriate place. Roget’s Thesaurus, first published in 1852, divides the lexicon into six main areas: abstract relations, space, the material world, the intellect, volition and sentient/moral powers. Each area is then progressively subclassified, giving a total of 1.000 semantic categories. LEXICAL STRUCTURE Ferdinand De Saussure has developed a two-dimensional model of language structure:  On the horizontal dimension (syntagmatic), we sense the relationships between lexemes in a sequence. Es.: It writhed on the ground in excruciating pain The lexeme excruciating tends to occur with pain or agony and not with joy or ignorance. Expectancies of this kind are known as collocations or selectional restrictions (we can say excruciating “select” or “collocate” with pain).  On the vertical dimension (paradigmatic), we sense the way in which one lexeme can substitute for another and relate to it in meaning. Es.: My auntie has bought a red automobile We might replace bought by a lexeme of similar meaning (a synonym), such as purchased; or by one of contrasting meaning (an antonym), such as sold. We might replace automobile by a lexeme of more specific meaning (a hyponym), such as Ford; or by one of more general meaning (a hypernym), such as vehicle. The predictable links between lexemes are called sense relations and they are the core of any account of lexical structure. COLLOCATIONS A collocation is formed by a central lexeme, or node, surrounded by a fixed amount of language, the span, within which the search for collocations takes place. For common lexemes, we need to examine quite a wide span and to look at many examples of use, for clear lexical patterns to emerge. LEXICAL PREDICTABILITY Often, a sequence of lexemes is governed by chance or by factors which are controlled by an individual speaker and not by tendencies in the language. Such sequences as I like films are said to be “free combinations” of lexemes: they are not collocations, because there is no mutual expectancy between the items. By contrast, the lexical item involved in a collocation are always to some degree mutually predictable, occurring regardless of the interests or personality of the individual user. Collocations may occur with apparent disregard for the observable situation to which they relate. Collocations cannot be predicted from a knowledge of the world. Sometimes the predictability is weak (heavy collocate with quite a diverse range of items) and sometimes is strong (auspicious collocate only with occasion and a few other closely related items). IDIOMS Two central features identify an idiom: Example: the sentence I am thinking of an object which is painted in a single colour, and it is red and yellow fail to make sense, because red and yellow are both hyponyms under the same hypernym (colour). OTHER SENSE RELATIONS There are other kinds of meaning relationship much less widespread, applying to restricted sets of lexemes.  Parts and wholes: wheel and car; sleeve and jacket; door and house.  Hierarchies: a lexical hierarchy is a graded series of lexemes in which each item holds a particular rank, being “higher” or “lower” than adjacent items. Es.: corporal – sergeant – lieutenant.  Series: the days of the week; the month of the year. They are cyclical in character, we reach the end of the series then we start again. MAKING SENSE A definition is the linguistic mechanism which brings everything together. It is a special type of sentence which relates all the relevant aspects of a lexeme’s meaning, enabling us to understand it. Definitions are listed in dictionaries, sometimes using a full sentence, sometimes in an abbreviated form. Basic structure of a definitional sentence: there is a general category to which a word belongs, and the specific features or attributes which distinguish that word form related words. CHAPTER 12 – LEXICAL DIMENSIONS A single lexeme simultaneously contains information relating to several linguistic dimension:  Historical dimension: when it came into English.  Structural dimension: how it is formed.  Regional dimension: whether it is in standard use or restricted to a dialect.  Social dimension: whether it carries resonances of gender, class, formality or ethnicity.  Occupational dimension: whether it has special status in such domains as science, religion or law.  Much more. The lexicon is a particularly sensitive index of historical, social and technology change. LOADED VOCABULARY  A denotation is the objective relationship between a lexeme and the reality to which it refers: identifies the central aspect of lexical meaning, which everyone would agree about (the dictionary meaning of lexemes is often called their denotation).  By contrast, connotation refers to the personal aspect of lexical meaning, often the emotional associations which a lexeme incidentally brings to mind. Connotations vary according to the experience of individuals and they are to some degree unpredictable. On the other hand, because people do have some common experience, many lexemes in the language have connotations which would be shared by large groups of speakers. When a lexeme is highly charged with connotations, we commonly refer to it as “loaded”. The language of politics and religion is full of such loaded expressions: capitalism, fascism, radical, dogma, pagan, heresy. The language of science and law, on the other hand, attempts (not always successfully) to avoid vocabulary which is highly connotative. The more a domain or topic is controversial, the more it will contain loaded vocabulary. TABOO Taboo language comprise items which people avoid using in polite society, either because they believe them harmful or feel them embarrassing or offensive. The possibility of harm may be genuinely though to exist, in the case of notions to do with death and the supernatural, or there may be merely a vague discomfort deriving from a half-believed superstition. Embarrassment tends to be associated with the sexual act and its consequences. Offensiveness relates to the various substances exuded by the body, and to the different form of physical, mental and social abnormality. The prohibition on use may be explicit, as in the law courts (“contempt of court”) and the broadcasting media (words officially banned until after a certain time in the evening, so that children are less likely to be exposed to them). More commonly, it is a tacit understanding between people, which occasionally becomes explicit in the form of comment, correction or sanction. There are various ways of avoiding a taboo item: one is to replace it by a more technical term (as commonly happens in medicine). The everyday method is to employ an expression which refers to the taboo topic in a vague or indirect way: a euphemism. SWEARING Swearing refers to the strongly emotive use of a taboo word or phrase. Is an outburst, an explosion, which gives relief to surges of emotional energy. It is a substitute for an aggressive bodily response and can be aimed either at people or at objects. Its forcefulness is reflected in its use of short, sharp sounds and emphatic rhythms. Its function is to express a wide range of emotions, and not to make sense: if we look closely at swearing formulae, we may find no meaning at all (fucking hell). Swearing has important social functions: it can mark social distance (as when a group of youths display their contempt for social convention by swearing loudly in public) and it can mark social solidarity (as when a group develops identical swearing habits). Swearing is universal and contagious.  Social swearing is the commonest swearing pattern: always depended for its effects upon an audience being present.  Annoyance swearing was different: this occurred as a reaction to stress, regardless of audience, and become more frequent as conditions become more difficult. JARGON Jargon is itself a loaded word. It can be defined neutrally as “the technical vocabulary or idiom of a special activity or group”, but this sense is almost completely overshadowed by another: “obscure and often pretentious language marked by a roundabout way of expression and use of long words”. Jargon is said to be a bad use of language, something to be avoided at all costs. The reality is that everyone uses jargon: it is an essential part of the network of occupations and pursuits which make up society. The phenomenon turns out to be universal and valuable. Jargon can add pace, variety and humour to speech. The most important reason why jargon has it had such a bad press stems from the way it can exclude as well as include. We may not be too concerned if we find ourselves faced with an impenetrable wall of jargon when the subject matter has little perceived relevance to our everyday lives. But when the subject matter is one where we feel implicated and the speakers uses words which act as a barrier to our understanding, we unreservedly condemn it. Advertising, political and military statements have been especially criticised in recent years: in these domains, the extent to which people are prepared to use jargon to hide realities is a ready source of disbelief. They often have a balanced structure, especially if they get at all lengthy: “Make love, not war”. There can be striking use of figurative language: “Switch on the sunshine” (Kellogg’s cereal). Frequent use is made of alliteration and rhyme (“jingles”): “Drinka pinta milka day”. Several mimic a conversational style: “That’ll do nicely” (American Express). Slogans are used for far more than advertising commercial products but are an essential part of all campaigns. GRAFFITI The word “graffito” originally referred to a drawing or inscription scratched on an ancient wall. In the present century, the name has come to be used for any spontaneous and unauthorized writing or drawing on walls, vehicles and other public places. It is typically obscene or political in character, but a great of humour and popular wisdom can also be found. Graffiti are often occasional, responding to current events and preoccupations (such as an election or a famous scandal). However, most graffiti bear no relation to a particular time or place. The same themes recur, over the years, as do some of the favourite formulae of the graffiti-writers. Other general characteristics:  There is a great deal of straightforward praise or invective, for or against particular gangs, religious groups, political parties, etc. The group’s symbols or logos often play a prominent role in the design.  Likewise, a large amount of space is devoted to obscenity and dirty jokes in general, as is only to be expected from data which originates on lavatory walls.  A common tactic is to respond to a well-known quotation or slogan. Biblical quotations are frequently used as are commercial slogans.  Graffiti dialogues also exist, as writers react to each other.  Puns and word play abound. These are usually of the category that might charitably be described as execrable, but they are sometimes highly ingenious (playing with the words of a once popular song). SLANG The Oxford English Dictionary defines slang as “language of a highly colloquial type, considered as below the level of educated standard speech, and consisting either of new words or of current words employed in some special sense”. In a related definition, it also describes slang as “language of a low or vulgar type” and “the special vocabulary or phraseology of a particular calling or profession”. There is upper-class slang alongside lower-class slang (for example, the slang of doctors and the slang of footballers). The complexity of slang is immediately apparent when we examine its varied functions. According to the British lexicographer Eric Partridge, people use slang for any at least 15 reasons: 1. Just for the fun of the thing. 2. As an exercise either in wit and ingenuity or in humour. 3. To be different or novel. 4. To be picturesque. 5. To be unmistakeably arresting, even startling. 6. To escape from clichés or to be brief and concise. 7. To enrich the language. 8. To lend an air of solidity, concreteness, to the abstract. 9. To lessen the sting of or to give additional point to. 9b. To reduce the excessive seriousness of a conversation. 9c. To soften the tragedy or to mask the pity of profound turpitude. 10. To speak or write down to an inferior or to amuse a superior public. 11. For ease of social intercourse. 12. To induce either friendliness or intimacy of a deep or a durable kind. 13. To show that one belongs to a certain profession, artistic or intellectual set or social class. 14. To show or prove that someone is not “in the swim”. 15. To be secret, not understood by those around one. Slang is one of the chief markers of in-group identity. As such, it comes very close to jargon. QUOTATIONS A quotation is a fragment of socially embalmed language. It is language which is freely available for anyone to use but readily sensitive to abuse. An error (misquotation) may not always be noticed, but if it is, there is a real risk of peer group derision. Anything which someone has said or written can be a quotation, but the term usually refers to those instances which have become “famous” over the years. Catch phrases are a species of quotation, but there are important differences: catch phrases tend to be of spoken origin, very short, subject to variation, relatively trivial in subject matter and popular for only a short period; quotations tends to be of written origin, indeterminate in length, highly restricted in the contexts where they may be used, semantically more profound and capable of standing the test of time. There is a colloquial tone to the former and a literary tone to the latter. Sometimes, especially with political utterances, it is possible to see shifting between the categories. But when an utterance finally settles down as a quotation, there is no longer any capability for change. PROVERBS Proverbial expressions have been given a variety of labels: adages, dictums, maxims, mottoes, precepts, saws, truisms. The terms all convey the notion of a piece of traditional wisdom, handed down by previous generations. In most cases the origin of a proverb is unknown. The effectiveness of a proverb lies largely in its brevity and directness. The syntax is simple, the images vivid, the allusions domestic and thus easy to understand. Memorability is aided through the use of alliteration, rhythm and rhyme. ARCHAISMS An archaism is a feature of an older state of the language which continues to be used while retaining the aura of its past. The clearest cases are those which are separated by a substantial time-gap, notably those dating from Middle and Early Modern English.  Lexical items include “behold”, “damsel”, “unto”, “wight”, etc.  Grammatical features include present-tense verb endings (-est, -eth) and their irregular forms, contracted forms (‘gainst), past tenses (“spake”), pronouns such as “thou” and “ye” and vocative constructions beginning with “O”. Archaisms are used in many historical novels, plays, poems and films. They can be found in religious and legal settings, in nursey rhymes and fairy tales, and in trade names and commercial advertising. Rural dialects often retain words which have gone out of use in the standard language. Many older elements are preserved in place names (such as “lea” = “wood”). CLICHÉS In clichés we see fragments of language apparently dying, yet unable to die. Clichés emerge when expressions outlive their usefulness as conveyors of information. They are dying not from underuse, but from overuse. Such phrases as “at this moment in time” have come to be so frequently used that they have lost their power to mean. And yet they survive because people continue to use them, despite complaints and criticisms. NOUNS: NUMBER Most nouns have both a singular and plural form and are known as variable nouns. A small group of cases do not have a number contrast and are known as invariable nouns. Most variable nouns change from singular and plural simply adding an -s. This is the regular plural form. In speech: the -s ending is pronounced in any of three possible ways, depending on the nature of the sound at the end of the singular noun.  If the noun ends in an /s/-like sound, it is followed by an extra syllable (as in “phrases”).  All other nouns ending in a voiceless consonant add /s/ (as in “cups”).  All other nouns ending in a voiced consonant or a vowel add /z/ (as in “bags”). In writing: the spelling rules are more complex. The regular plural form includes those nouns where the singular form ends in a “silent -e” (such as “plate”). But there are several types of exception.  The ending is -es if there is no silent -e, and the nouns end in -s, -z, -x, -ch and -sh.  If the nouns ends in -o, the plural is spelled -os in most cases, but there are a few nouns which require -oes (as in “heroes”) and some allow both (as in “cargo(e)s”).  If a common noun ends in -y, with a preceding consonant, the -y is replaced by -i and -es is added. If there is only a preceding vowel, the -y stays.  There are several unusual cases, such as consonant doubling, the use of apostrophes after a letter name or a number and doubling a letter in some writing abbreviations. There are several groups of native English words which display exceptional plural forms:  Seven nouns change their vowel (a process known as mutation): “man” – “men”, “foot” – “feet”, “goose” – “geese”, “mouse” – “mice”, “woman” – “women”, “tooth” – “teeth”, “louse” – “lice”.  Four nouns add -en, in two cases changing the vowel sound: “ox” – “oxen”, “aurochs” – “aurochsen”, “child” – “children”, “brother” – “brethren”.  A few nouns change their final fricative consonant as well as adding /z/. Some change /-f/ to /-v/ (as in “wives”). Nouns which have been borrowed from foreign languages pose particular problem: some have adopted the regular plural ending, some have kept the original foreign plural and some permit both. There are no rules. NOUNS: CASE There are only two cases left in Modern English:  The common case: where the nouns has no ending at all.  The genitive case: formed by adding an -s to the singular form of the noun. In writing this appears with a preceding apostrophe (the “apostrophe s”). With most plural forms, an -s ending is already present, so the written form just adds a following sign (The “s apostrophe”). In speech there is no difference in pronunciation. The chief meaning of the genitive case is possession. But the case is used to express several other meanings too: origin, description, period and can express the idea of the noun either doing the action or receiving the action. There is a close similarity between a noun in the genitive case and the same noun preceded by “of” (the “of-genitive”). The choice is largely based on factors of gender and style. Personal nouns and the higher animals tend to take the genitive ending; inanimate nouns take the of-genitive. The genitive case is also used with many nouns of special human relevance; but the of- form is used for titles. THE APOSTROPHE The apostrophe was introduced into English from French in the 16th century, but there was much uncertainty about its use, even until the middle of the 19th century. Not only did it mark the omission of letters (as in “can’t”), it was often used before a plural ending. By the 18th century it was being regularly used as a genitive marker in the singular; later the usage extended to the genitive plural. Later the 19th century, printers and grammarians tried to lay down rules saying when the apostrophe should be used, but they were arbitrary and incomplete. Today in the UK, it is always omitted in shop signs, placards and other notices. It varies greatly in place names. Many modern sign-writers and typographical designers leave the apostrophe out because they think it looks fussy and old-fashioned; and in most cases its omission causes no ambiguity. However, there are undoubtedly many occasions when the availability of the apostrophe express a valuable written distinction. Some people nowadays feel unsure about the correct use of the apostrophe, as a result of the long and confused history of this punctuation mark in English. PRONOUNS Personal pronouns have a genitive form and also an objective form (which nouns no longer have). Genitive forms of personal pronouns are traditionally described as the possessive pronouns: my/mine, your(s), his, her(s), its, our(s), and their(s). The objective form is chiefly used when the pronouns is the object of a clause (as in “he saw me”) and when it is governed by a preposition (as in “he gave it to me”). Five pronouns show this distinction: I/me, he/him, she/her, we/us and they/them. “Who” also has an objective form (“whom”) as well as a genitive form (“whose”). When a pronoun is the subject of a clause, it is said to be in the subjective form. VERBS The forms of a regular lexical verb can be predicted by rules. An irregular lexical verb is one where some of the forms are unpredictable. There are thousands of regular verbs in Modern English, but less than 300 irregular ones. Regular verbs appear appears in four forms, each playing a different role in the clause: 1. The base form (or infinitive form) → a form with no ending, as listed in a dictionary: “see”. 2. The -s form → made by adding an –(e)s ending to the base (often with a spelling change), used for the third person singular in the present tense: “he/she/it sees”. The pronunciation of this ending varies, depending on the preceding sound. 3. The -ing form (or -ing participle) → made by adding -ing to the base (often with a spelling change): “seeing”. 4. The -ed form → made by adding -ed to the base (often with a spelling change). This ending is found in the past form and in the -ed participle form. The past form has just one use: to express the past tense. The -ed participle form has four uses: to help express a past aspect; to help express the passive voice; in certain types of subordinate clause and to begin a clause; and as an adjective. There are two main features of irregular verbs:  Most irregular verbs change the vowel of the base to make their past or -ed participle forms.  The words are the same syntactically: they show which class they belong to by being used in the same way within a sentence. The task of word class identification is an interesting one for linguists, as it is not always obvious which are the best criteria to use. For example, when trying to decide what can be called a noun in English, there are several possible criteria, each of which identifies a particular group of words (one criterion is the use of a plural ending, but this excludes many words which do not have a plural form). At the same time, we sense that certain criteria have nothing to do with nouns at all (for example, the use of comparative or superlative ending). There are several important groups of words in English which are syntactically so distinctive that they demand separate recognition. Three examples of these “new” word classes:  Determiners: a group of words which can be used instead of “the” and “a” in the noun phrase, expressing such notions as quantity, number, possession and definiteness. Examples: “some”, “much”, “that”. Traditional grammars would call these adjectives.  Conjuncts: a group of words whose function is to relate (or conjoin) independent grammatical units, such as clauses, sentences and paragraphs. Example: “however”, “meanwhile”, “otherwise”. Traditional grammar would call these adverbs.  Auxiliaries: a group of words whose function is to assist the main verb in a clause to express several basic grammatical contrasts, such as of person, number and tense. Examples: “have”, “can”, “do”. Traditional grammar sometimes recognized these as a separate class of “defective verbs”. All the words in a proposed class are seen to be sharing some features. For example, there are four important features often suggested for nouns: a) They are words which can be the head of a noun phrase. b) They are words which can be the subject of a clause. c) They are words which can have a plural form. d) They are words which display a suffix. The more criteria a word satisfies, the more “noun-like” it is. THE CLASS OF NOUNS When we look at the way nouns behave, we find that are involved the following factors:  Syntactic structure: a noun is the chief item (or “head”) of a noun phrase. It is often preceded by one of a small class of determiners.  Syntactic function: a noun functions as the subject, object or complement of a clause.  Grammatical morphology: a noun can change its form to express a contrast in singular/plural number or to mark the genitive case.  Lexical morphology: a noun can be formed by adding one of a small list of suffixes to a verb, an adjective or another noun. THE MAIN SUBCLASSES Nouns can be grouped into six main classes. The first division is into: 1. Proper nouns. 2. Common nouns. Common nouns can be divided into: 3. Count nouns. 4. Noncount nouns. Both count and noncount nouns can be divided into: 5. Concrete nouns. 6. Abstract nouns. PROPER VS COMMON NOUNS Proper nouns are names of specific people, places, times, occasions, events, publications and so on. They differ from common nouns in three main ways:  Proper nouns can stand alone as a clause element, whereas only certain common nouns can.  Proper nouns do not usually allow a plural, whereas most common nouns do.  Proper nouns are not usually used with determiners, whereas common nouns are. In some circumstances, proper nouns can behave like common nouns. Proper nouns are written with an initial capital letter. But not all words with initial capitals are proper nouns. A proper noun is a single word, but many proper names consist of more than one word: in these cases, the words work together as a single unit. COUNT VS NONCOUNT NOUNS Common nouns can be divided into two types:  Count nouns refer to individual, countable entities.  Noncount nouns refer to an undifferentiated mass or notion. There are clear grammatical differences between them:  Count nouns cannot stand alone in the singular; noncount nouns can.  Count nouns allow a plural; noncount nouns do not.  Count nouns occur in the singular with “a”; noncount nouns with “some”. Both types can occur with “the”. Some nouns can be either count or noncount, depending on their meaning. Many noncount nouns have an equivalent countable expression using such words, as “piece” or “bit”. ABSTRACT VS CONCRETE NOUNS Both count and noncount nouns can be divided into abstract and concrete types.  Concrete nouns refer to entities which can be observed and measured.  Abstract nouns refer to unobservable notions. Nouns such as “structure” and “music” permit both abstract and concrete interpretations. GENDER English has no grammatical gender. But it does have ways of identifying natural gender. We can distinguish animate beings from inanimate entities, personal from nonpersonal beings and male from female sexes. It is chiefly done by using pronouns, which correlate with nouns in precise way:  Inanimate nouns pattern only with “it” and “which”.  Animate nouns make varying use of “he/she” and “who”. Animate nouns are divided into personal and nonpersonal types:  Personal animate nouns refer to males and females. Pattern with “he/she/who” and also in such pairs as “host/hostess” where the noun ending makes the gender clear; some nouns can be either “he” or “she” (they have dual gender).  Nonpersonal animate nouns refer to animals. Most take “it/which”, but those with a special place in human society take “he/she/who”; some even have distinct male/female forms. In British English, collective nouns (such as “team”) can take either “it/which” or “they/who”, depending on the point of view involved. The adverb is the most heterogeneous of all the word classes in English grammar. Over the years, words have been assigned to it which perform a wide variety of functions within the sentence. Adverbs have two chief use:  Most can act as an element of clause structure (an adverbial), usually relating directly to the meaning of the verb but often to some other element of the clause or the clause as a whole.  Some adverbs affect the meaning of an adjacent word or phrase by attaching themselves to it. Types of adverbs:  Most adverbs are fairly easy to recognize because they are formed by adding an -ly suffix to an adjective.  Adverbs which have no distinctive element (such as “just”) or compound adverbs (such as “somehow”).  A few other endings which mark a word as an adverb, used especially in informal speech: “new-style”, “clockwise”, “sideways”. Coinages such as “physics-wise” are very common in American English. THE CLASS OF VERBS A sentence may contain a single verb, or it may use a cluster of verbs which work together as a verb phrase. The main verb can be accompanied by up to four auxiliary verbs, all going in front of the main verb, though constructions using all four are unusual. Three classes of verb can occur within the verb phrase:  Lexical verbs (also called full verbs) are those with a meaning that can be clearly and independently identified. They act as main verbs: “run”, “jump”, walk”, etc.  Modal verbs convey a range of judgments about the likelihood of events. They functions only as auxiliary verbs, expressing meaning which are much less definable and independent than those of lexical verbs. There are nine verbs in this subclass: “can”, “could”, “may”, “might”, “will”, “would”, “shall”, “should” and “must”; “dare”, “need”, “ought to” and “used to” have a very similar function.  Primary verbs can function either as main verbs or as auxiliary verbs. There are just three of them: “be”, “have” and “do”. FINITE VS NONFINITE The forms of the verb and the phrases they are part of, are usually classified into two broad types, based on the kind of contrast in meaning they express. The notion of finiteness is the traditional way of classifying the differences:  The finite forms are those which limit the verb to a particular number, tense, person or mood. For example: when the -s form is used, the verb is limited to the third person singular of the present tense. If there is a series of verbs in the verb phrase, the finite verb is always the first. The finite forms of the verb are the -s form, the past form and some used of the base form.  The non-finite forms do not limit the verb in this way. For example: when the -ing form is used, the verb can be referring to any number, tense, person or mood. There are three non-finite forms of the verb, the -ing participle, the -ed participle and the base form used as an infinitive. AUXILIARY VERBS Auxiliary (or helping) verbs assist the main verb in a clause to express several basic grammatical contrasts. They must be considered as a separate class because they do not follow the same grammatical rules as main verbs.  Auxiliaries can be used before the word “not”; main verbs cannot.  The contracted form “n’t” can be attached to almost all auxiliaries; this is never possible with main verbs.  The first auxiliary in a verb phrase has a distinctive role, as it can be used before the subject in order to ask a question; this is not possible with main verbs. The auxiliary class can itself be divided into two subclasses:  The primary verbs have -s forms; the modals do not.  The primary verbs have non-finite forms; the modals do not. TRANSITIVITY The choice of the verb actually determines, to a large extent, what other elements can be used in the clause.  Verbs which require an object are traditionally known as transitive verbs.  Verbs which can be used without an object are known as intransitive verbs. MULTI-WORD VERBS Some verbs consist of more than one word. The most common type consists of a verb followed by one or more particles: “come in”, “sit down”, “drink up”. The particles are either spatial adverbs, prepositions or words which in other contexts can act either as adverbs or as prepositions.  Verbs which use adverb particles are often called phrasal verbs.  Verbs which taking prepositional particles are called prepositional verbs. THE CLASS OF PREPOSITIONS A preposition express a relationship of meaning between two parts of a sentence, most often showing how the two parts are related in space or time. Most of the common prepositions consist of only one word; they have no distinctive ending and do not vary. Several prepositions consist of more than one word.  Single-word prepositions include: “about”, “at”, “by”, “for”, “from”, “with”, etc.  Multi-word prepositions include: “because of”, “due to”, “instead of”, “as far as”, “by means of”, “in accordance with”, etc. The word in these prepositions do not vary freely, as they would in other circumstances. Several prepositions are restricted in their frequency of use, especially such foreign borrowings as “anti”, “circa” and “versus”. There are also some dialect uses, such as “towards” (British) vs “toward” (American). Most prepositions can be used in several different ways and can express different meanings include space, time, cause, method and possession. In addition, there are many figurative uses involving prepositions. THE CLASS OF CONJUNCTIONS Conjunctions are items which join clauses or parts of clauses together. There are two types of conjunctions:  Coordinating conjunctions link units which have the same status in the sentence (such as two clauses or two adjectives). The chief items are “and”, “or” and “but”; and there are a few “pairs”, such as “neither.. nor”. These conjunctions signal such meanings as addition and sequence, the expression of alternatives and contrast. Coordination with “and” and “or” could continue indefinitely.  Subordinating conjunctions join units which do not have the same grammatical status in the sentence. The typical case is when one clause is subordinated to another. Subordinating conjunctions far outnumber coordinating ones, and several consist of more than one word. 2. Phrase level: the level of structure between the word and the clause; words can be combined into larger units (phrases). 3. Clause level: the level of structure between the phrase and the sentence; phrases can be joined to form a clause. 4. Sentence level: the level of structure between the clause and the discourse; it would be possible to make the sentence bigger by linking it to a similar sequence of words. The sentence now consists in two clauses. 5. Discourse level: there is the possibility of a level which is larger than the sentence; several aspects of grammar can be used to connect sentences. SENTENCE FUNCTIONS Traditional grammars recognized four types of sentence function: statement, question, command, and exclamation. 1. Statement: is a sentence whose primary purpose is to “state”, to convey information. These sentences are said to have a declarative structure, a structure which “makes something known”. Two criteria usually apply:  The clause contains a subject. Though in informal conversation this is sometimes omitted.  The subject precedes the verb. Here too there are a few exceptions (such as when the clause begins with “negative” words). 2. Questions: are sentences which seek information. They fall into three main types, depending on the kind of replay they expect and on how they are constructed. Sentences of this type are said to have an interrogative structure, a structure which “interrogate”.  Yes-no questions: allow an affirmative or negative reply, often just “yes” or “no”. The subject follows the auxiliary verb. A questioning tone of voice can turn a statement into yes-no question. Only the question-mark shows their function in writing.  Wh-questions: allow a reply from a wide range of possibilities. They begin with a question word, such as “what”, “why”, “where”, etc.  Alternative questions: require a reply which relates to the options given in the interrogative sentence. They always contain the connecting word “or”. Exclamatory questions: these sentences resemble questions in their structure but are actually used as exclamations. They express the speaker’s strong feelings and ask the hearer to agree. Rhetorical questions: these sentences also resemble questions in their structure, but they are used as if they were emphatic statements. The speaker does not expect an answer. Tag questions: sometimes the interrogative structure is left to the end of the sentence, in the form of a tag question, which expects a yes/no kind of reply. 3. Directives: are sentences which instruct someone to do something. They are also called commands. Commanding is just one of the many uses of directive sentences. Other uses:  Inviting  Warning  Pleading  Suggesting  Advising  Instructing  Permitting  Requesting  Meditating  Expressing good wishes  Expressing an imprecation In each case the verb is in its base form and there is usually no subject element present. Structure of this type are called imperatives. 4. Exclamations: are sentences which show that a person has been impressed or roused by something. They often take the form of a single word or short phrase (minor sentence). But they can have a major sentence status too:  Their first element begins with “what” or “how” and is followed by a subject and a verb, in this order.  They also occur frequently in a reduced form, using only the first element. Sentences of this kind are said to possess an exclamative structure. 5. The traditional classification of major sentences ignores one other type of sentence: the echo sentence. It is used only in dialogue and its purpose is to confirm, question or clarify what the previous speaker has just said. The essential feature of an echo utterance is that reflects the structure of the preceding sentence, which it repeats in whole or in part. All type of sentences can be echoed. CLAUSE ELEMENTS AND TYPES A sentence can be broken down into smaller chunks: clauses. All clauses are made up out of elements, each expressing a particular kind of meaning. A clause element is not the same as a word: an element may be a single word or several words. Traditional grammar recognized two main elements in a clause: the subject and the predicate. But we can recognize five types of clause element: 1. Subject: it usually identifies the theme or topic of the clause. 2. Verb: it expresses a wide range of meanings, such as actions, sensations, or state of being. 3. Object: it identifies who or what has been directly affected by the action of the verb. 4. Complement: it gives further information about another clause element. 5. Adverbial: it usually adds extra information about the situation, such as the time of an action or its location. VOCATIVES A vocative is a name used for the person(s) to whom a sentence is addressed. It may be there to attract attention, or to express a particular social relationship or personal attitude.  The vocative is an optional element: it can be added to or removed from a sentence without affecting the rest of the construction.  It may occur in various positions in a sentence.  It is not an element of a clause structure. Vocatives can be of several kinds: names, family labels, markers of status or respect, labels for occupations, evaluative labels, etc. COMPOUNDS Compounds can be usefully classified into types based on the kind of grammatical meaning they represent.  The definite article (“the”): a) Can refer to the immediate situation or to someone’s general knowledge. b) Can refer back to another noun. c) Can refer forward to the words following head noun. d) Can refer to human institutions.  The indefinite article (“a” or “an”): a) Does not presuppose that a noun has been mentioned already. b) Often expresses a general state of affairs or a notion of quantity.  The absence of an article: the article is often omitted in idiomatic usage when talking about human institutions and routines, means of transports, periods of time, meals, and illnesses. The use of these forms affects the meaning of the noun phrase, in particular allowing us to think of nouns in a specific way. VERB PHRASE With only a few verb endings to take into account and a very limited range of auxiliary verbs and sequences, the possible patterns of verb phrase constituents can be described quite quickly, but the meanings which each pattern can convey are extremely difficult to state, being influenced by what else is happening in the sentence. TENSES One of the most important functions of the verb is to indicate the time at which an action take place. The term “tense” is used to refer to the way verbs change their form to express this meaning. English has only two tenses: present and past. PRESENT TENSE Three uses refer to present tense:  The state present is used for timeless statements or “eternal truths”.  The habitual present is used for repeated events; there is usually an accompanying adverbial of frequency.  The instantaneous present is used when the action begins and ends approximately at the moment of speech. Three uses refer to other times:  The historic present describes the past as if it were happening now.  In jokes and imaginative writing, a similar use promotes dramatic immediacy.  With some time adverbials, the present tense helps to refer to a specific course of action in future time. PAST TENSE Most uses refer to an action or state which has taken place in the past, at a definite time, with a gap between its completion and the present moment. Specific events, states, and habitual actions can all be expressed with this tense. The past tense is also used for present or future time.  The attitudinal past reflects a tentative state of mind, giving a more polite effect.  The hypothetical past expresses what is contrary to the speaker’s beliefs; it is especially used in if-clauses.  In indirect speech, a past tense used in the verb of “saying” allows the verb in the reported clause to be past tense as well, even though it refers to present time. FUTURE TENSE English has no future tense ending. Future time is expressed by a variety of other means. There are six main ways of referring to future time:  “Will”, “shall”, or “’ll” followed by the infinitive without “to” or the progressive form. This is by far the commonest use.  “Be going to” followed by the infinitive. This common informal use usually suggests that the event will take place very soon.  The present progressive, stressing the way a future event follows on form an arranged plan.  The simple present tense, often implying definiteness.  The use of “be to”, “be about to”, “have to”, and a few others, all expressing a future action at various removes from the present.  The modal verbs, which also convey a future implication. ASPECTS Aspect refers to how the time of action of the verb is regarded, such as whether it is complete, in progress, or showing duration. English uses two types of aspectual contrast, which it expresses with auxiliary verbs:  The perfective aspect: is constructed using forms of the auxiliary verb “have”. It is used to express specific events, states, and habitual actions. a) The present perfective is chiefly used for an action continuing up to the present. This meaning of “current relevance” contrasts with the past tense. b) The past perfective also expresses “anterior time”, but in an earlier time frame.  The progressive aspect: forms of “be” can be used along with the -ing form of the main verb to express an event in progress at a given time. This aspect is also called “continuous”. It is used with both tenses and with both perfective aspects. With the progressive, the implication is that the activity is taking place over a limited period and is not necessarily complete. Non-progressive forms are known as “simple forms”. TWO VOICES The action expressed by a clause can often be viewed from two points of view. This kind of contrast is referred to as voice:  The active voice  The passive voice Most verbs which take an object (transitive verbs) can appear in both active and passive constructions. The passive in infrequent in speech. In writing, it is more common in informative prose. MULTIPLE SENTENCES Multiple sentences form the majority of the sentences in formal writing and are common in everyday conversation too. These constructions are often classified into two broad types:  Compound sentences: the clauses are linked by coordination, usually by the coordinating conjunctions “and”, “or”, or “but”. Each clause can in principle stand as a sentence on its own. They act as independent clauses, or main clauses.  Complex sentences: the clauses are linked by subordination, using such subordinating conjunctions as “because”, “when”, and “since”. One clause, called the subordinate clause, is made dependent upon a main clause. The subordinate clause cannot stand as a sentence on its own. MULTIPLE STRUCTURES Both compound and complex sentences can contain several instances of coordination or subordination.  With multiple coordination, the analysis is simple. The continual use of “and” to build up a long sentence is by no means unusual.  With multiple subordination, we must take special care to keep the different “levels” of subordination apart.  Several instances of subordination may occur “at the same level”.  One part of the sentence tells us something new. New information provides the point where we expect people to pay special attention, or focus. The part of the sentence containing the focus is always spoken in a prominent way.  The other part tells us something that we were aware of already, its information is given. Given information tells us what a sentence is about; it provides the sentence theme. This part of the sentence is not likely to be spoken with any extra prominence. In most sentences, the theme appears first and the focus of the message last. But it is possible to bring the focus forwards, so as to emphasize an earlier part of the sentence. This especially happens when we want to state a contrast. There are several ways in which special attention can be drawn to the theme of a sentence:  Fronting: occurs when we move to the beginning of a sentence an item which does not usually belong there. This items then becomes the theme and in such cases it carries extra prominence.  Inversion: here the subject and verb appear in the reverse of their normal order. The verb must be in its simple form.  Cleft sentences: another way of altering the normal emphasis in a simple sentence is to split the sentence into two clauses, giving each its own verb. The first clause consists of the pronoun “it” and a form of the verb “be”. The second clause begins with a pronoun such as “that” or “who”.  Extraposition: where the subject or object element is a clause, it is possible to change the sentence around so that the clause comes later. The original element is then replaced by the pronoun “it” which anticipates the following clause.  Existential: occurs when we want to bring the content of a whole clause to the attention of our listener or reader, making it all new information. To do this, there is a construction in which the first words have no meaning. They seem to act as a theme, because they appear at the beginning of the sentence, but it is a dummy theme. The main means to achieving this effect is to use the word “there” followed by the simple present or past tense of “be”. BEYOND THE SENTENCE In real life, sentences (whether spoken or written) appear in a sequence, such as a dialogue, a speech, a letter, or a book. Any set of sentences which cohere in this way is called text, a term which applies to both spoken and written material. The coherence is achieved through the use of a wide range of features which connect sentences, some of which fall well outside the domain of grammar.  General knowledge: we often make a link between sentences because of our general knowledge or expectations about the way the world functions. Such techniques as inference, deduction, and presupposition are used in these circumstances.  Vocabulary: often the choice of words is enough to connect two sentences.  Punctuation and layout: graphic and graphological features of a text may be enough to show that sentences, or even paragraphs, are to be connected in a specific way. The use of panels, headings, special symbol, and colours within a text to show how the meaning is organized, provides a particularly clear example.  Prosody: variations in pitch, loudness, speed, rhythm, and pause combine to provide the spoken equivalent of the visual organization of a written text. Features of speech, such as question-answer sequences, parenthetic utterances, and rhetorical climaxes, which involve a sequence of sentences are usually signalled through the use of prosodic effects. CHAPTER 17 – THE SOUND SYSTEM PHONETIC AND PHONOLOGY Pronunciation can always be studied from two points of view: the phonetic and the phonological.  Phonetic: is the study of the way humans make, transmit, and receive speech sounds. It is divided into three main branches: 1) Articulatory phonetics: is the study of the way the vocal organs are used to produce speech sounds. 2) Acoustic phonetics: is the study of the physical properties of speech sounds. 3) Auditory phonetics: is the study of the way people perceive speech sounds.  Phonology: is the study of the sound systems of languages, and of the general properties displayed by these systems. By contrast with phonetics, which studies all possible sounds that the human vocal apparatus can make, phonology studies only those contrasts in sound (the phonemes) which make differences of meaning within language. To help separate the two ways of looking at pronunciation, the practice has grown up in linguistics of using different kinds of brackets:  Square brackets [] are used when sounds are being discussed from a phonetic point of view (purely as sounds).  Slant brackets // are used when sounds are being discussed from a phonological point of view (purely as part of the sound system). VOWELS There are some 20 or so vowels in most accents of English and their sound qualities can vary enormously from accent to accent. With only five (or six) vowel letters available in the traditional alphabet, extra symbols, combinations of symbols, and diacritic marks are needed to capture all the units in the system, as well as all the variations in vowel quality which distinguish different accents. Types of vowel:  Monophthongs (or pure vowels): are vowels with a single perceived auditory quality, made by a movement of the tongue towards one position in the mouth.  Diphthongs: are vowels where two vowel qualities can be perceived.  Triphthongs: are vowels in which three vowel qualities can be perceived. All vowels have certain properties in common, which distinguish them from consonants:  From a phonetic point of view, vowels are articulated with a relatively open configuration of the vocal tract.  From a phonological point of view, vowels are units of the sound system which typically occupy the middle of a syllable.  Vowels typically involve the vibration of the vocal cords (voicing), and their distinctive resonances are made by varying the shape of the mouth, using the tongue and lips. In English, there are no vowels whose chief characteristic is the use of nasal resonance (nasal vowels), all the vowels are oral vowels. THE CARDINAL VOWEL SYSTEM It was devised by Daniel Jones, to provide a set of reference points for the articulation and recognition of vowels. Its dimensions correspond to the “vowel space” in the centre of the mouth where these sounds are articulated. Based on the width of the pharyngeal cavity and the position of the tongue on a vertical axis, the vowels are divided into:  Open or low vowels  Close or high vowels Es.: the word “despite” has two such nuclei, so there are two syllables. However, there are several types of word where it can be difficult deciding just how many syllables there are: regional accent, speed of speech, level of formality, and context of use can all influence the decision. Syllable structure:  A syllable consists of a vowel, or a vowel-like sound, which acts as the nucleus, centre, or peak of the syllable (“I”, “or”). Very rarely a syllable can consist of a consonant (“shh”).  Many syllable have one or more consonants preceding the nucleus. These make up the syllable onset: “me”, “so”. They are called open syllables.  Many syllables have one or more consonants following the nucleus. These make up the syllable coda: “am”, “ants”. They are called closed syllable.  Many syllable have both an onset and a coda: “cat”, “jump”.  The combination of nucleus and coda has a special significance, making up the rhyming property of a syllable: “cat”, “sat”. In analysing syllable structure it is important to look for the pronunciation behind a word’s spelling. Es.: “all” is VC not VCC; “jumped” is CVCCC not CVCCVC. SYLLABIC CONSONANTS There is one exception to the role that a syllable must have a vowel as its nucleus. This occurs when certain vowel-like consonants (/l/, /r/ or a nasal) act as the centre of the syllable (as in “bottle”). SYLLABLE BOUNDARIES It is one thing to be able to count the number of syllables in a word and it is another to decide where the boundaries between the syllables should go.  There are two syllables in “standing”, but we have to choose of a division on phonetic grounds (“stan” and “ding”) or on grammatical grounds (“stand” and “ing”), preserving a semantic link with “stand”. CONNECTED SPEECH Vowel and consonant segments combine into syllables; syllables combine into words; and words combine into phrases and sentences. The process of producing connected speech affects the pronunciation of several of these segments. These pronunciations are those of Received Pronunciation, or RP.  Assimilation: adjacent sounds often influence each other so that they become more alike or assimilate. These effects are more common in rapid speech, but some degree of assimilation will be found in all spoken styles. a) In anticipatory (or regressive) assimilation, a sound is influenced by the sound which follows it. b) In progressive assimilation, a sound is influenced by the sound which precedes it. c) A third possibility is coalescence, a reciprocal influence, where two sounds fuse into a single new segment.  Elision: as speech speeds up, sounds are likely to be left out or elided. This is especially so when clusters of consonants occur; indeed, some sequences are impossible to articulate naturally without elision. a) Vowels in weak syllables are often elided in informal speech. b) Consonants in clusters are commonly simplified. c) Whole syllables may be elided, especially when there is a repeated consonant. d) Some words are especially prone to elision, such as “of” before consonants.  Liaison: a sound may be introduced between words or syllables to help them run together more smoothly. The chief example of this in English is the pronunciation of word-final /r/ in RP. RP speakers pronounce the /r/ in such words as “clear” only when there is a following vowel (this is usually called “linking r”). Similarly RP speakers regularly link adjacent vowels with an /r/ even when there is no “r” in the spelling.  Strong and weak forms: nearly 50 words in English can be pronounced in two distinctive ways, depending on the degree of force with which they are uttered. They are all words which perform a grammatical function. a) Strong (or full) forms are used when the word is said in isolation or is being emphasized. b) Weak forms are normal in connected speech: peripheral vowels are replaced by those of a more central quality and some consonants may be elided. PROSODY The sound system enables us to express meaning in speech in both verbal and non- verbal ways.  Verbal meaning (“what we say”) relies on vowels and consonants to construct words, phrases, and sentences.  Non-verbal meaning (“the way that we say it”) make use of such factors as intonation, rhythm, and tone of voice to provide speech with much of its structure and expressiveness. PROSODIC FEATURES The chief possibilities are dictated by the main auditory properties of sound: pitch, loudness, and speed. These properties used singly or in combination (in the form of rhythm) and accompanied by the distinctive use of silence (in the form of pause), make up the prosody or prosodic features of the language.  The most important prosodic effects are those conveyed by the linguistic use of pitch movement or melody, the intonation system. Different pitch levels (tones) are used in particular sequences (contours) to express a wide range of meanings  Loudness is used in a variety of ways. Gross differences of meaning, such as anger or excitement, can be conveyed by using an overall loudness level. English uses variations in loudness to define the difference between strong and weak syllables. The stress pattern of a word is an important feature of the words spoken identity.  Varying the speed (or tempo) of speech is an important but less systematic communicative feature. By speeding up or slowing down the rate we can convey several kinds of meaning, such as excitement and impatience or emphasis and thoughtfulness. THE FUNCTIONS OF INTONATION  Emotional: intonation’s most obvious role is to express attitudinal meaning.  Grammatical: intonation helps to identify grammatical structure in speech, performing a role similar to punctuation.  Informational: intonation helps draw attention to what meaning is given and what is new in an utterance.  Textual: intonation helps larger units of meaning that the sentence to contrast and cohere.  Psychological: intonation helps us to organize speech into units that are easier to perceive and memorize.  Indexical: intonation is an important marker of personal or social identity. RHYTHM Features of pitch, loudness, speed, and silence combine to produce the effect known as speech rhythm. Our sense of rhythm is a perception that there are prominent units occurring at regular intervals as we speak. In the main tradition of English poetry this regularity is very clear. All forms of spoken English have their rhythm, though in spontaneous speech it is often difficult to hear. Graphemes are abstract units and appear in a variety of forms known as graphs. DIGRAPHS When two letters represent a single sound, the combination is called a digraph. Consonant digraphs include “sh” in “ship” and “gh” in “trough”; vowel digraphs include “ea” in “bread” and “oa” in “boat”. Digraphs are an important part of the English writing system because they are far more phonemes in speech that there are letters in the alphabet. Trigraphs also exist (three letters representing a single sound). Examples include “tch” in “watch”. THE ALPHABET The letter-shapes of the modern alphabet in most cases are part of and alphabetic tradition which is over 3000 years old. The earliest-known alphabet was the 22-letters North Semitic and several alphabets were based on this model. The Christian era saw the emergence of new styles of writing throughout the Roman Empire, with scribes developing smaller scripts which could be written rapidly and smoothly. The distinctive shapes of several modern lower-case letters arose through the constraints imposed by the need for efficient handwriting. Old English was first written in the runic alphabet but the arrival of Christian missionaries brought the rapid introduction of the Roman alphabet. The 23 Latin letters were applied to the Old English sound system in a systematic way, with the addition of four new symbols to represent unfamiliar sounds: “ash”, “thorn”, “eth”, “wynn” and “g” appeared in a modified form as “yogh”). Following the Norman Conquest, the distinctively Anglo-Saxon symbols gradually disappeared, at first because the French scribes preferred more familiar letters and later because Continental printers did not have the sorts to print the earlier symbols. “Ash” was replaced by “a”, “thorn” and “eth” by “th”, “wynn” by a new letter, “w” and “yogh” by “gh”. To this alphabet of 24 letters were added “v” and “j”. The result is the 26-letters alphabet known today. PROPERTIES OF LETTERS The letters of the alphabet are the basic elements of the writing system. Like phonemes, they have no meaning in themselves: their primary role is to combine into linguistic units, each of the 26 letters or grapheme, playing a contrastive role. The need to maintain a distinctive graphic form has motivated many of the changes in latter shapes throughout the history of the alphabet. The history of the English spelling is littered with attempts made by well-meaning individuals to improve the way writing reflect speech. Because the language’s history is preserved in the spelling much more than it is in the pronunciation, non-native speakers who wish to gain only a reading knowledge of English find this relatively easy to achieve. And the semantic relationships between words are often better preserved in their written than in their spoken form. MORSE AND OTHER CODES The Morse Code, constructed by US artist and inventor Samuel Morse, is the best known of the signalling codes devised in the 19th century. It is a binary code, in which characters are assigned a distinctive combination of dots and dashes. Morse’s choice of individual letter codes was guided by a frequency count of the quantities of type found in a printer’s office: the more frequently occurring letters being assigned the shorter dot/dash combinations. This system is much more efficient than that used in braille, where dot combinations broadly increase in complexity as one “descends” the alphabet. LETTER SYMBOLISM As with the study of speech, there are an interesting number of cases where individual letters and the way they are presented in typography or handwriting, do permit some degree of semantic or psychological interpretation, analogous to that which is found in sound symbolism, though the element of subjectivity makes it difficult to arrive at uncontroversial explanations. For example, the letter “X” has more social and technical uses than any letter in the English alphabet. It can mean: “kisses”, “wrong”, “unknown”, “choice”, etc. ANALYSING HANDWRITING An interesting aspect of graphic symbolism is the extent to which individual variations in handwritten letter formation can be reliably interpreted. The psychological study of handwriting is called graphology. Graphologists are interested in finding out what handwriting can tell them about character and personality, as well as about a person’s suitability for different tasks. The subject plainly has the potential scientific development, as such variables as letter size, shape, angle, and connection, line direction and separation, thickness and consistency of strokes, and regularity of letter sequence are all capable of precise description. Graphology has however suffered from scepticism generated by the fortune-telling approach to handwriting. Current research is now much more involved with the handwriting practices of the general population and with carrying out properly controlled “blind” investigations. GRAPHETIC VARIETY The hierarchical structure of the writing system is most clearly displayed in the domain of typography. Each typeface is represented by several alphabets (bold, italic, upper-case, lower- case) and these consist of letter, punctuation marks and other symbols. The complex interaction of typeface, type size, letter and line spacing, colour and other such variables combine to produce what has sometimes been called texture, the dominant visual quality of the typeset text. It is at this level that lower-level decisions about choice of type will ultimately be judged. EXTRA GRAPHIC DIMENSIONS The choice of typography, including the way a text is laid out on the page, can provide additional dimensions to the meaning conveyed by the words and sentences. In a neutral presentation the typographic design adds nothing to the meaning of the words. If some typographical feature were to draw attention to itself, it would be a distraction and the design would have failed. The opposite situation is found when an author wants to make maximum use of the possibilities in graphic design to express a meaning, using features which the purely graphemic elements of the text cannot convey. These features (such as colour, type size and line direction) belong to different dimensions of expression and they permit more than one meaning to be expressed simultaneously, allowing such effects as emphasis, irony, atmosphere and humour. SPELLING There are two conflicting views about the spelling system:  To chaos theorists there is so little predictability in English spelling conventions that is unreasonable to think of them as comprising a “system” at all.  To order theorists there is indeed a highly predictable spelling system, with a small number of irregular forms causing a disturbance. Supporters of each view would condemn the other as irrelevant. We must not expect to arrive at a definite figure for the amount of irregularity in English spelling. If we include proper names of people and places, and rare foreign loan words, the proportion of irregularity will increase; if we include lengthy technical terms, the proportion will decrease. The features which identify a variety are not features of the language as a whole, they depend on the presence of certain factor in a social situation.  Sociolinguistic features relate to very broad situational constraints on language use and chiefly identify the regional and social varieties of the language. They are relative permanent background features of the spoken or written language, over which we have relatively little conscious control.  Stylistic features relate to constraints on language use that are much more narrowly constrained and identify personal preferences in usage or the varieties associated with occupational groups. They are relatively temporary features of our spoken or written language. SPEECH AND WRITING Spoken and written language display a number of important differences which are chiefly to do with language use, arising the fact that speakers and writers are operating in fundamentally different communicative situations. There are also several differences in language structure: the grammar and vocabulary of speech is by no means the same as that of writing, nor do the contrast available in phonology correspond to those available in graphology. MONOLOGUE AND DIALOGUE A factor which fundamentally influences the linguistic character of a use of language is the number of participants involved in the activity. The distinction in between:  Monologue: associated with the activities of writing and reading.  Dialogue: associated with speaking and listening. In a monologue only one person is involved but does not mean that is alone. It refers to an activity in which the language producer does not expect a response, even though an audience may be present. The language is conceived as a self-contained presentation. By contrast, it is of the essence of dialogue that the participants expect each other to respond and it contains many linguistic features which enable this to happen (such as question forms). a) Spoken monologue: a great deal of spoken monologue is written English read aloud. b) Written monologue: questionnaires and registration forms or a book’s page. MONOLOGUE VARIATIONS There are two possible situations in which someone may choose to engage in a monologue, whether spoken or written. There may be an audience present or there may be no audience.  Audience present: the medium is speech. Many spoken monologues presented to an audience are uninterruptable, such as lectures and sermons; but there are several situations which do permit interruption, as in political speech, which often adopt a questioning style, in order to elicit the audience. An interesting category is the case of an audience which is present but in no position to respond, a “pseudo-audience”. Examples of these situations include the dentist who carries on a conversation while listener’s mouth is full of dental equipment.  Audience absent: living aside the case of literary expression, there is the common case of another kind of pseudo-audience, this time where no human being is present. There are, for example, people who talk to plants or to animals. Other examples include writing activities, such as the diary, making notes while preparing a talk and note-taking while listening to a talk being given by someone else. Some instances provide pseudo-audience for written language, such as written examination answers or party-games. There are also cases where we can write as if an audience is present, such as preparing a handout for a talk, writing an essay for a tutor or indexing a book. DIALOGUE VARIATIONS One way of classifying dialogues is to examine their symmetry, to see whether the participants are coequally involved.  Symmetrical dialogue: when people use language simultaneously, giving the impression of dialogue, as in the case of two groups of protesters, both carrying placards expressing their views. The juxtaposition of written texts would produce a kind of dialogue. In speech, any simultaneity is likely to be unintelligible, but this does not stop it to happening, as in political confrontations or dinner parties. A further variation is for a dialogue to depend on a third party, or intermediary. A common example is in foreign-language interpreting and translation. An interesting variant is for dialogue to be generated using the utterance of a third party, as when a loud-voice person in a restaurant cause a couple at another table to provide their own responses to what is said.  Asymmetrical dialogue: these are the most unusual dialogues of all, as they take place when the participant imagines someone else to be present. In some cases, the missing person is the one who should start the conversation, as in the case of a seance; in other cases, the missing person is the one who should respond, as when we call into the darkness “is there anyone there?”. Letters to the press or a radio station also fall into this category because there is only a remote chance that they will be used. CHAPTER 20 – REGIONAL VARIATION A variety, also called “lect”, is a specific form of a language or language cluster. This may include languages, dialects, registers, styles or other form of language, as well as a standard variety. Of all the sociolinguistic and stylistic factors which promote variety in language use, the one which people most commonly enquire about is geographical origin. A regional variety is not “only a dialect”, because it lacks the prestige of the standard language. Every dialect is a source of great linguistic complexity and potential.  A regional accent refers to features of pronunciations which convey information about a person’s geographical origin.  A regional dialect refers to features of grammar and vocabulary which convey information about a person’s geographical origin. Speakers who have a distinctive regional dialect will have a distinctive regional accent; but the reverse does not necessarily follow. It is possible to have a regional accent yet speak a dialect which conveys nothing about geographical origin, as in the case of Standard English. Within a country, there may be a prestige or neutral accent which conveys no information about geographical background, as in the case of Received Pronunciation (RP). Regional accommodation is the process by which participants in a conversation adjust their accent, diction or other aspects of language according to the speech style of the other participant.  When people with different regional (or social) backgrounds meet, there is a tendency for their speech patterns to become more alike or converge.  When people encounter others with whom they wish to maintain a distance, their language tends to become less alike, or diverge. INTERNATIONAL AND INTRANATIONAL  Clausal patterns sometimes differs; AmE also makes more use of subjunctive and prefers “were” to “was” in such sentences.  There are several differences in prepositions and adverbs, such as AmE “real good” vs “really good”. REGIONAL VARIATION IN AMERICAN ENGLISH There are three broad dialect areas:  Northern: historically, it is the area of New England but it now extends west in a narrow northern strip from western Vermont through New York and across all the northern states to the Pacific coast. To the east there is a distinctive accent, a major feature of which is the loss of final (postvocalic) -r.  Southern: the costal and piedmont areas of Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, the Gulf States and extending into the eastern part of Texas. In this area also there is frequent loss of final -r.  Midland: a very large area spreading into the whole of the western United States. Northern and Southern dialect subregions can be identified. The vast size of this area accounts for the impression of general uniformity in American English speech. DARE: The Dictionary of American Regional English in the official dictionary of the American Dialect Society. VARIATION IN BRITISH ENGLISH The dialect division recognized in Old and Middle English shows 13 traditional dialect areas. A major division is drawn between the North and everywhere else, broadly the boundary between the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of Northumbria and Mercia and a secondary division is found between much of Midlands and areas further south. If we use the distinguish features of modern dialects as the basis of classifications, a very different dialect map emerges, with 16 major division. The traditional North-South boundary turns out to be no longer in England, but on the border between England and Scotland and it is this division which gives rise to the most noticeable dialect dimension in modern British English. ESTUARY ENGLISH The term “estuary” was coined to identify the way features of London regional speech seemed to be rapidly spreading throughout the counties adjoining the river (especially Essex and Kent) and beyond. The spread of the variety has certainly been noticeable in recent years. London influenced speech can now be heard around three other estuaries (the Humber, the Dee and the Severn) because of the relatively easy rail and motorway commuting networks. The factors governing the spread of this variety are only partly explained by social mobility and new patterns of settlement. Estuary English may therefore be the result of a confluence of two social trends:  Un up-market movement of originally Cockney speakers (the dialect traditionally spoken by working-class Londoners).  A down-market trend towards “ordinary” speech by the middle class. The phenomenon has been perceived as more to do with accent than with dialect and has been described as a continuum of pronunciation possibilities, with Cockney at one end and Received Pronunciation at the other. But the variety is distinctive as a dialect, not just as an accent. Pronunciation features:  The glottal stop in certain positions, especially replacing /t/ at the end of a word or before a consonant.  The replacement of final /-l/ by a short [u] vowel. Grammar features:  The confrontational question tag.  Certain negative forms, such as “never” referring to a single occasion.  The omission of the -ly adverbial endings.  Certain prepositional uses, such as “I looked out the window”.  The generalization of the third person singular form. VARIATION IN SCOTLAND Scots language differs from the regional dialect of England in two crucial ways:  It was once the variety used when Scotland was an independent nation.  It has clearly defined history in its own, with a strong literary tradition beginning in Middle English, its own dialect variants, its own golden age and period of decline, a modern literary renaissance and a contemporary sociolinguistic stature which other dialects of BrE do not share. The identity of English in Scotland reflects an institutionalized social structure and raises problems of intelligibility that have no parallel elsewhere in Britain. For this reason, Scots as a language has not so far been able to make inroads into the use of Standard English as the language of power and public prestige and it has no official existence. Its public use tends to be restricted to literature and folklore, to a few programmes on radio and tv about local issues and jocular contexts. A further 19th century development was the rise, as in England, of urban dialects, resulting in a distinction between “guid Scots”, spoken in rural areas, and “gutter Scots”, spoken in the cities. The present century has seen the conscious creation of a “mainstream” variety of Scots (a standard literary variety). This “Scottish Renaissance” looked to previous literary and dialect usages form the Scottish Lowlands and now generally goes under the name of Lallans. This variety is noted for its distinctive vocabulary and in its grammar and spelling it shows the marked influence of Standard English, more so than other Scots dialect. WELSH ENGLISH Modern Welsh is the direct descendant of Celtic language which was spoken at the time throughout most of Britain. This language survived for a while but after the Middle Ages it remained only in Cornwall and Wales and from the 19th century it is found in Wales alone. IRISH ENGLISH The history of English involvement in Gaelic-speaking Ireland dates from the 12th century when the country was invaded by Anglo-Norman knights and English rule was imposed by Henry II. The new settlers were to adopt Irish ways of living and despite attempts to halt this trend, the area under English control was still relatively small by the end of the 16th century. Renewed efforts were then made by the Tudor monarchs to spread English power throughout the country. Further steps to quell Irish rebellion took place in the 17th century. The chief linguistic consequences of these events was a steady growth in the use of English and a corresponding decline in the use of Gaelic, expect among the poorer sections of the community. English become the dominant language in the 19th century and Gaelic was avoided in the home. Today, Gaelic can be found only in certain rural parts of the west. Since the 19th century there have been several attempts to encourage the spread of Gaelic. CANADIAN ENGLISH Because of its origins, Canadian English has a great deal in common with the rest of the English spoken in North America. Many British people identify a Canadian accent as American and many Americans identify it as British. The variety does display a number of unique features and Canadian themselves insist on not being identified with either group.  Studies of language attitudes in New Zealand show that British Received Pronunciation is still the most highly rated accent, in terms of such values as educatedness and competence.  US accents have been ranked highly is some attitude studies and there are signs of US influence in pronunciation and vocabulary.  The question of an emerging variety of Maori English is controversial and results of studies on listeners ability to recognize a Maori accent are mixed. SOUTH AFRICAN ENGLISH Of all of the country where English is spoken as first language, South Africa is the only one where the language is in a minority (used as a mother tongue by about 10 per cent of the population). In addition, historical, racial, tribal and political factors have combined to produce a sociolinguistic situation of stunning intricacy, a remarkable array of linguistic proficiency levels and an unparalleled range of popular stereotypes about English structure and use. The one factor which tends to unite the countries of southern Africa is the high status of English. It is the preferred language of public use, the media and school instruction throughout much of the region. There is a much greater degree of language shift towards English than towards the other traditionally co-official language, Afrikaans. NEW ENGLISHES English regional variation can be classified into three circles:  The “inner circle”: consisting of those countries where English has prominent first-language use.  The “outer circle”: consisting of those countries where English has come to play an important role as a second language through a history of colonial contact (such as India and Nigeria).  The “expanding circle”: made up of countries where the importance of English as an international medium has been recognized, but the language has received no special status (such as Japan and Brazil). NEW FORMS One reason why the use of English by non-native speakers is so important is that there are so many of them. Probably at least as many people speak English as a second language as speak it as a mother tongue. When large numbers of people are involved in speaking a language, there is an inevitable tendency to develop fresh local usage. The emergence of these non-native Englishes and the uneasy relationship which exists between them and Standard English is a major feature of the contemporary World English scene. It is possible to interpret the three-circle model of World English in terms of the way norms of usage manifest themselves:  The inner circle can be thought of as a “norm-producing”, in the sense that it has given rise to the two leading normative models of Standard English, British and American.  The outer circle is “norm-developing”, in the sense that the special role of English in these communities is fostering an internal standard of educated usage which has a status and dynamic of its own.  The expanding circle is “norm-dependent”, in that speakers of English as a foreign language in a particular country need to look elsewhere for criteria to judge their usage. CHAPTER 21 – SOCIAL VARIATION People acquire several identities as they participate in social structure. They belong to different social groups and perform different social role. Certain aspect of social variation seem to be of particular linguistic consequence. Age, sex and socio-economic class have been repeatedly shown to be of importance when it comes to explaining the way sounds, construction and vocabulary vary. All countries display social stratification and some have more clearly-defined class boundaries than others. Britain is usually said to be linguistically much more class-conscious that other countries where English is used as a first language. RECEIVED PRONUNCIATION In England, one accent has traditionally stood out above all others in its ability to convey associations of respectable social standing and a good education. This “prestige” accent is known as Received Pronunciation, or RP. It is associated with the south-east, were most RP-speakers live or work, but it can be found anywhere in the country. Accents usually tell us where a person is from; RP tells us only about a person’s social or educational background. The ancestral form of RP was well-established over 400 years ago as the accent of the court and the upper class. During the 19th century, it became the accent of the public schools and was soon the sign that a speaker had received a good education. It also became the voice of authority and power because it was a regionally “neutral” accent and was though to be more widely understood than any regional accent. Today, with the breakdown of rigid divisions between social classes and the development of the mass media, RP is best described as an “educated” accent. The variety most used is that generally heard on the BBC. RP is no longer as widely used today as it was 50 years ago. It is still the standard accent of the Royal Family, Parliament, the Church of England and other national institutions but less than 3 per cent of the British people speak it in a pure form now. PRESCRIPTIVE ATTITUDES Prescriptivism is the view that one variety of a language has an inherently higher value than others and that this ought to be imposed on the whole of the speech community. The favoured variety is usually a version of the standard written language, especially as encountered in literature or in the formal spoken language. Those who speak and write in this variety are said to be using language “correctly”, those who do not are said to be using it “incorrectly”. The alternative to a prescriptive approach is the descriptive approach. Its main aim is to describe and explain the pattern of usage which are found in all varieties of the language, whether they are socially prestigious or not. The approach also recognizes the fact that language is always changing and that there will always be variation in usage. Linguists do not deny the social importance of the standard language but they do not condemn other dialects which do not share the same rules. Appropriateness is the extent to which an utterance is perceived as suitable for a particular purpose and a particular audience in a particular context. Informal language on a formal occasion is inappropriate because it stands out, as does formal language on an informal occasion. GENDER ISSUES Today, there is a widespread awareness, which was lacking a generation ago, of the way in which language covertly displays social attitudes towards men women. English have been affected more than all of the main European language because of the early impact of the feminist movement in the USA. In vocabulary, attention has been focused on the replacement of “male” words with a generic meaning by neutral items. For example, “salesman” becoming “sale assistant” The linguistic effect of these changes in social attitudes has been far more noticeable in writing than in speech and in certain kinds of writing, in particular. When we apply the notion of a language variety to the media, we have to look within each product (a newspaper, a radio or TV channel) for uses of language which have been shaped by the nature of the medium. The reporting of news, whether in the spoken or written media, reflects one of the most difficult and constraining situations to be found in the area of language use. The chief constraint is the perpetual battle against the pressure of time and space. There is also the constraint imposed by a favoured conception of audience. The shared authorship of news reports is suggested by their reliance on preferred forms of expression, their lack of stylistic idiosyncrasy and their consistency of style over long periods of time. Once a publication or channel has opted for a particular style it tends to stay with it and imposes it vigorously on its material. This has particularly been the case with the press. JOURNALISM There are several distinctive linguistic features of news reporting.  The headline is critical, summarizing and drawing attention to the story. Its telegraphic style is probably the best-known feature of news reporting.  The first paragraph both summarizes and begins to tell the story. This paragraph is also the usual source of the headline.  The original source of the story is given, either in a by-line or built into the text.  The participants are categorized, their name usually being preceded by a general term and adjectives.  Other features include explicit time and place locators, facts and figures and direct or indirect quotations. BROADCASTING By contrast with most newspapers, only a small part of radio and television output is devoted to news and its discussion. It is much more difficult than in a newspaper to draw a clear boundary between a news item proper and its amplification, which can move in the direction of everyday conversation. Analysis of a typical day’s radio or television broadcasting brings to light, as with the press, several varieties of language which are in use elsewhere. If a use of language is important enough to develop predictable linguistic features, the situations to which they relate are undoubtedly going to be of regular interest to listeners or viewers. In addition, the domain of radio and television drama holds a mirror up to linguistic nature. The broadcasting media, like the press, have also been responsible for the emergence of varieties of their own. The commentary is probably the most famous and the most distinctive variety to have emerged form the world of broadcasting. SPORTS COMMENTARY Commentary is one of the most distinctive of all uses of English. The most frequent kinds of commentary are those associated with sports and games. Two elements need to be distinguished:  The “play-by-play” commentary  The “colour-adding” commentary The latter is important, for it provides an audience with pre-event background, post- event evaluation and within-event interpretation, but it is conversational in style and often in dialogue form. Stylistic interest in sports commentary lies chiefly in the play-by-play component. Because commentary is an oral reporting of ongoing activity, it is unlike other kinds of narrative. Its chief features is a highly formulaic style of presentation, which reduces the memory load on the commentator and thereby help fluency. There may also be genuine difficulties hindering the commentator from following what is taking place. At such times, the commentary cannot stop. Formulaic language provides a partial solution because it allows the commentator time to think. ADVERTISING ENGLISH Commercial advertising is the largest and most visible form of advertising. Apart from the major media outlets, advertising also employs a vast range of device and locations to get its messages across. Despite the many variations in content and location, advertising is a remarkably homogeneous variety. The most obvious variations, such as use of pictures, colour and prominence are of little stylistic consequence. However, size does have an effect in the amount of ellipsis and abbreviation used. Another common feature is the use of restricted range of vocabulary, including idiom, jargon and other lexical features. Lexically, it tends to use words which are vivid, concrete, positive and unreserved. Grammatically, it is typically conversational and elliptical and often vague. It uses highly figurative expressions, deviant graphology and strong sound effects, such as rhythm and rhyme, especially in slogans. RESTRICTED ENGLISH All linguistically distinctive uses of English are restricted, in that they are more likely to be found in some situations than in others. Only in literature, advertising and humour is it possible in principle to disregard all conventions. In the case of “restricted varieties” little or no linguistic variation is permitted. The rules control everything that can be said intelligibly or acceptably. Restricted varieties appear in both domestic and occupational situations. Internationally, we can observe restricted varieties in the international language of air traffic control. Other restricted varieties have emerged with the development of electronic systems of communication. NEW VARIETIES Electronic messages and e-mail are method of exchanging letter-like messages online. In the former, the messages occur in real time and in the latter, a message is left in a “mailbox” for later reading. E-mail is a type of delayed dialogue and the delay between typing, sending and receiving a message can cause unusual sequences of conversational turns. Because time is on the essence, errors in typing may not be corrected. Participants tends not to use “time-wasting” formulae such as greetings and farewells and messages are characterized by space-saving conventions such as ellipsis and abbreviations. Style is very close to that of conversation.