Unit 10 Topic 1

Topic 1

     It was interesting to hear some of the accents that are spoken around our country. One dialect that stands out in my mind is from California; a 21-year-old female student native to the area was telling a story about her brother, and she was using words and phrases that I associate with “Valley Girls” such as “totally”, “for sure”, and “like” (as in “we became, like, best friends”). We have learned in this unit about the various factors that affect one’s dialect and use of lexical items. I think in this case of the “Valley Girl” talk, it may be influenced by social factors and age. It seems that the younger generations (teenage to college age) of the population talks this way, as I do not recall hearing many adults talk in this manner. I know that social factors and age play a role in our area as well; I hear many students in junior high and high school using “like” as I mentioned above. I think sometimes we use certain words in phases of our life according to our age and who we are around at the time.

     Because of the various immigration routes spanning from east to west from several hundred years ago, I believe that many of the numerous dialects we hear today stem from that time. If there is no isolation, then there are no limits on how the English language can change throughout time. As we have more people emigrate from various countries to the U.S., I believe the dialects and lexical items used in areas will be altered. Also, as a new generation is growing up, old features of English may disappear and new ones will surface. For example, in our area (coal region) a known lexical item “henna” is used (It does not mean the ink used for a henna tattoo. It actually is used similarly to the questions “Right?” or “Isn’t that so?” An example is: “You’re going to the mall tomorrow, henna?”). However, I realize from talking to various people in my area that it seems to be only used by the older generation now because it was a term from long ago in our coal region; I think over time we may hear this word less and less often.

     I believe the IPA is beneficial to use to help students see how phonemes from each dialect are pronounced. For example, we cannot say that the letter “r” has the same sound in all areas of the United States. O’Grady (2010) talks about “r-lessness” in certain dialects of the U.S. (p. 492). I believe it is important to expose our students to a variety of dialects through listening and looking at the IPA, so they may become comfortable in communicating with and understanding people who speak differently than themselves.