are not legislated by a tribunal but emerge as an implicit consensus within a virtual community of writers, readers, and editors. That consensus can change over time in a process as unplanned and uncontrollable as the vagaries of fashion.’ It is also often recognized that there are regional standards in US English; for example, while r‐lessness may be considered standard in Boston or Atlanta, it is not in Chicago; /ai/ monophthongization (e.g., the pronunciation of the vowel in the pronoun ‘I’ to sound more like ‘Ah’) is heard by newscasters in southeastern parts of the United States but not farther north or west.
Of course, there are many other varieties of English spoken around the world, in countries where English is the majority language in all or some regions (e.g., Canada, Australia, New Zealand) or in multilingual countries where it is one of several languages in widespread use (e.g., India, South Africa, Malaysia). In these contexts there are also accents which are considered standard.
As a final observation we must reiterate that it is impossible to speak English (or any other language) without an accent. There is no such thing as ‘unaccented English.’ RP is an accent, a social one rather than a regional one. However, we must note that there are different evaluations of the different accents, evaluations arising from social factors not linguistic ones. Matsuda (1991, 1361) says it is really an issue of power: ‘When … parties are in a relationship of domination and subordination we tend to say that the dominant is normal, and the subordinate is different from normal. And so it is with accent… . People in power are perceived as speaking normal, unaccented English. Any speech that is different from that constructed norm is called an accent.’ We will return to such matters in the next chapter in our discussion of language attitudes and ideologies. Further, we will address the use of English as a lingua franca (i.e., non‐native Englishes) in chapter 9.
Exploration 2.3 The Standard and Accents
Drawing on this discussion of English accents, discuss accents of other languages you are familiar with: is there a prestigious accent associated with a particular region or is it seen as regionally neutral? Are there different ways of speaking the Standard in different regions? Have there been changes or developments in what is considered Standard? Give specific examples where possible.
Social Dialects
The term dialect can also be used to describe differences in speech associated with various social groups or classes. An immediate problem is that of defining social group (see chapter 3) or social class (see chapter 5). Proper weight needs to be given to the various factors that can be used to determine social position, for example, occupation, place of residence, education, income, ‘new’ versus ‘old’ money, racial or ethnic category, national or cultural background, caste, religion, and so on. Such factors as these do appear to be related to how people speak.
Whereas regional dialects are geographically based, social dialects originate among social groups and are related to a variety of factors, the principal ones apparently being social class, religion, and race/ethnicity. In a study of the role of religion in variation in Arabic across Arabic‐speaking countries, Germanos and Miller (2015, 96) note that ‘even tiny sociolinguistic variation (including salutations and terms of address) will often be enough to identify a speaker as Muslim, Jew or Christian in the same way that he will also be identified as urban or rural, as coming from such and such region, as belonging to popular or middle‐class etc.’
Such studies in social dialectology, the term used to refer to this branch of linguistic study, examine how ways of speaking are linked to social differences within a particular region. Socioeconomic class is a main factor which will be addressed in chapter 5. Another factor in social dialectology which has received a great deal of attention is race/ethnicity; later in this chapter we will focus on African American Vernacular English, a variety which has been studied extensively by sociolinguists. First, however, we will introduce a German social dialect which is controversial both in German society and among linguists, a case which brings to the forefront the concerns inherent to social dialectology.
Kiezdeutsch ‘neighborhood German’
The term Dialekt, ‘dialect’ in German, as mentioned above, has historically been used solely to refer to regional varieties. While sometimes stigmatized, these dialects are at the same time integral to regional identities and seen as deeply, essentially German. While a body of literature on Gastarbeiterdeutsch (‘guest worker German’) emerged beginning in the 1970s, this variety was identified as a second language or a ‘pidginized’ variety of German, and very clearly spoken only by immigrants (e.g., Keim 1978; Pfaff 1980), and thus, not a German Dialekt. Subsequently, a body of research about multilingual language practices of multiethnic groups of urban youths in Germany showed that multilingual practices were common among urban youths of many backgrounds, including those whose families had long been in Germany (e.g., Auer and Dirim 2003; Kallmeyer and Keim 2003). While this research did show that such practices were not unique to children of immigrant background, it also did not suggest that multilingual discourse was something quintessentially German. However, when Kiezdeutsch, a way of speaking associated with multiethnic neighborhoods, was described as a German dialect (Wiese 2010, 2012), resistance to the idea of recognizing this way of speaking as a variety of the German language became apparent. The controversies surrounding this work, both in academic circles and in public discourses, exemplify the issues in social dialects in general. These issues include the label applied to the variety, identifying the features of the variety, correlations with demographic factors, and the process of the development.
In the case of Kiezdeutsch, this term was chosen by researchers because other terms used to refer to the variety in everyday speech were inaccurate (e.g., Türken‐deutsch, ‘Turks’ German’) and potentially offensive (e.g., Kanak Sprak, derived from a derogatory term for foreigners [Kanak or Kanaker] and nonstandard spelling/pronunciation of German Sprache ‘language’). However, as this case illustrates, no term is perfect. The term Kiez varies regionally in how it is used; in Berlin it is commonly used in a positive manner to refer to one’s neighborhood, indicating it is where one feels at home, but in Hamburg the term is used to refer to one particular neighborhood, the so‐called red light district. (As we will see in our discussion of African American Vernacular English and Latino Englishes below, labels for varieties are often problematic and sites of controversy; this issue will also be discussed further in the next chapter as we attempt to define social groups.)
While certain features of Kiezdeutsch do not seem to be disputed, the development and status of these features are. Wiese (2010, 2012) argues that although Kiezdeutsch does include some lexical items from languages other than German (often, Turkish), it is not a mixed language (see chapter 9 for a definition of this term); instead, the grammatical features have their roots in the German language. She refers to Kiezdeutsch as a German dialect. Auer (2013, 36) disputes this, saying it is simply a youth style of speaking which is not used consistently enough to be considered a dialect, and suggests that there are features indicating ‘unsichere Beherrschung der deutschen Morphologie’ (‘uncertain mastery of German morphology’); Glück (2017) also dismisses Wiese’s findings as the transitional speech of children and not a dialect, social or regional. Similarly, Jannedy (2010) calls Kiezdeutsch a ‘multi‐ethnolectal youth language,’ and not a social dialect.
Popular opinion about nonstandard social dialects is often that these ways of speaking are lazy, sloppy, and degenerate. Wiese (2012) aims
