Dialects and accents in American and British English

1. DIALECTS & ACCENTS
Ahmad Faiz
Veri Hardinansyah Dja’far

2. INTERMEZZO
What is dialect?
What is accent?
Are they same or different?
Let’s watch this video first 

3. DIALECT
• A variety of a language spoken by a group of people that is
characterized by systematic features (e.g., phonological,
lexical, grammatical) that distinguish it from other varieties
of that same language.
• Everyone speaks a dialect.
• Idiolect: the speech variety of an individual speaker.

4. DIALECT (CONT’D)
Language = a continuum of dialect
Dialect = a continuum of idiolect Language
dialect dialect
idiolect idiolect idiolect
dialect

5. MISCONCEPTION ABOUT DIALECT
• Dialect ≠ ‘substandard’
• Dialect ≠ ‘incorrect’
• Dialect ≠ ‘slang’
FACT: everyone speaks a dialect

6. FACTORS AFFECTING DIALECT
VARIATION
Dialect can vary because:
1. Geographical Locations
2. Social Class
3. Educational Background or Occupation
(Yule, 2010:241-256)

7. GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATION
• People coming from different places
may have different dialects. For
instance, American people speak
different dialects such as New England
English, Inland Northern American
English, Mid-Atlantic dialects and so
forth. These dialects are due to the
geographical locations.

8. SOCIAL CLASS
Middle class
(upper)
Working class
(lower)

9. EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND OR
OCCUPATION
Well educated
•Formal
•Appropriate
•Grammatically correct
•Talk like a book
Less educated
•More casual
•Free
•Sometimes ungrammatical

10. WAYS DIALECT VARY
• Phonological (accent)
• Morphological
• Syntactical/Grammatical
• Semantic/Lexical
Click this link to see more!

11. PHONOLOGICAL (ACCENT)
There are obviously many American English accents. For reference, here is a list of only the most common classifications in
the United States and United Kingdom.
General American
This refers to the spectrum of ‘standard’ English spoken by newscasters, TV actors, and a large percentage of middle-class
Americans.
Prominent Features:
• The short-a (as in cat) is raised and diphthongized before nasal consonants. Hence man and can’t are pronounced
something like IPA meən and keənt (“meh-uhn” and “keh-uhnt.”)
• Rhotic, meaning the r is pronounced at the end of words like car and mother.
• Words like lot and rod are pronounced with an unrounded vowel, as lɑt and ɹɑd (“laht” and “rahd”).
• The diphthong in words like boat and rode is pronounced relatively back: i.e. IPA boʊt and roʊd
Accent Samples:
Actor, Topher Grace (as Eddy Brooke in Spiderman 3). Click this link for the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PB5zHtdMDPo

12. Eastern New England English
This describes the classic “Boston Accent.” It also refers to related accents in Eastern Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maine,
Eastern New Hampshire and Eastern Connecticut. The most important feature of this is non-rhoticity: unlike other American
accents, New Englanders drop the “r” at the end of syllables. Hence the famous phrase “pahk yuh cahr in hahvuhd yahd”
(Park your car in Harvard Yard).
Prominent Features:
• Non-rhoticity, as mentioned above.
• Fronted pronunciation of words like father and palm, so these are pronounced IPA faðə and pa:m (i.e. this vowel is close
to the vowel in words like “cat” and “mad” in General American).
• Unlike most other American accents, the vowel in lot and rod is rounded as in most British dialects, pronounced IPA lɒt
and ɹɒd (“lawt” and “rawd”). Note that this feature is less prevalent in some sub-dialects, such as Rhode Island.
Accent Samples:
Boston Mayor, Thomas Menino. Visit this link for the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LabuH1PnUoo

13. Received Pronunciation
Received Pronunciation is the closest to a “standard accent” that has ever existed in the UK. Although it originally derives
from London English, it is non-regional. You’ve probably heard this accent countless times in Jane Austen adaptations,
Merchant Ivory films, and Oscar Wilde plays. It emerged from the 18th- and 19th-Century aristocracy, and has remained the
“gold standard” ever since.
Prominent Features:
• Non-rhoticity, meaning the r at the ends of words isn’t pronounced (mother sounds like “muhthuh”).
• Trap-bath split, meaning that certain a words, like bath, can’t, and dance are pronounced with the broad-a in father.
(This differs from most American accents, in which these words are pronounced with the short-a in cat.
• The vowels tend to be a bit more conservative than other accents in Southern England, which have undergone
significant vowel shifting over the past century.
Speech Samples:
Actress, Dame Judi Dench (as M in James Bond). Visit this link for the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwhvJU2JMT4

14. Cockney
Cockney is probably the second most famous British accent. It originated in the East End of London, but shares many features with and influences other
dialects in that region.
Prominent Features:
• Raised vowel in words like trap and cat so these sounds like “trep” and “cet.”
• Non-rhoticity: see explanation above under Received Pronunciation, above.
• Trap-bath split: see explanation above under Received Pronunciation.
• London vowel shift: The vowel sounds are shifted around so that Cockney “day” sounds is pronounced IPA dæɪ (close to American “die”) and Cockney
buy verges near IPA bɒɪ (close to American “boy”).
• Glottal Stopping: the letter t is pronounced with the back of the throat (glottis) in between vowels; hence better becomes IPA be?ə (sounds to outsiders
like “be’uh”).
• L-vocalization: The l at the end of words often becomes a vowel sound Hence pal can seem to sound like “pow.” (I’ve seen this rendered in IPA as /w/,
/o,/ and /ɰ/.)
• Th-Fronting: The th in words like think or this is pronounced with a more forward consonant depending on the word: thing becomes “fing,” this becomes
“dis,” and mother becomes “muhvah.”
Speech Samples:
Actor, Ray Winstone. Visit this link for the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vP4f95AK8L4

15. MORPHOLOGICAL
Unlike British English, American English has always shown a marked tendency
to use nouns as verbs. Examples of ‘verbed’ nouns are,
interview, advocate, vacuum, lobby, pressure, rear-end, transition, feature,
profile, spearhead, skyrocket, showcase, service (as a car), corner, torch, exit
(as in “exit the lobby”), factor (in mathematics), gun (“shoot”).

16. SYNTACTIC/GRAMMAR
• Even British and American speak English, but both of them utilize different
aspects of grammar.
My team is winning.
Which team is losing?
The other team are all sitting down.
Which team are losing?

17. SEMANTIC/LEXICAL
AmE
•Truck
•Attorney
•Cookie
•Apartment
BrE
•Lorry
•Barrister
•Biscuit
•Flat

18. ACCENT
• An accent is a certain form of a language spoken by a subgroup of
speakers of that language which is defined by phonological features.
• Everyone has an accent, just as everyone speaks a dialect. It's not a
question of “having” or “not having” an accent or dialect, it's a question of
which accent or dialect you speak with.
• Note that you can speak the same dialect as someone else while using a
different accent (though frequently the two vary together). Thus people from
Boston and Brooklyn use about the same dialect, but their accents are
radically different. Click here for examples of accent.

19. DIALECT AND ACCENT IN ENGLISH
American English
1.Northern (Northern New England,
Boston, NY City, etc.)
2. Northern Midland (Philadelphia,
Pittsburgh, Ohio-Plains, etc.)
3. Southern Midland (Appalachia,
Arkansas-Oklahoma)
4. Southern (Virginia, Carolina, Texas, etc.)
5. Western (Montana, Wyoming, Idaho,
California, etc.)

20. DIALECT AND ACCENT IN ENGLISH
British English
1.Northern (Cheshire, Cumbrian, Geordie,
etc.)
2. East Midland
3. West Midland (Black Country, Brummie,
Potteries, Telford)
4. East Anglian (Norfolk, Suffolk)
5. Southern (RP, Cockney, Essex, etc.)
6. West Country (Anglo-Cornish)
7. Bristolian

21. POINTS TO PONDER
Dialects and accents are one of the variations in a language
i.e. English. These two terms are not exactly the same. However,
both of them are interwoven. Dialect is not a substandard of a
language, it is not slang either. Dialect is a variety of a
language spoken by group of people that is characterized
by systematic features (e.g. phonological, lexical, and
grammatical) that distinguish it from other varieties of that
same language. While accent is only variations in
pronunciation only. Thus, accent is a subset of
dialect.
language
dialect
accent