Re: accents

From: Nathan Sanders (nsanders.DIE.SPAM_at_wso.williams.edu)
Date: 03/29/05 

Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 17:22:57 GMT

In article <1112108011.915368.159090@l41g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>,
 "Iain" <iain_inkster@hotmail.com> wrote:

> Don't you think that if Standard Written English didn't exist, spoken
> English would have evolved further beyond recognition? Or perhaps the
> "recognition" in question is provided by writing.

This is a common gut intuition. Like many gut intuitions, it's wrong,
but understandable.

The short explanation is that all speakers learn to speak before they
learn how to read (if they ever learn how to read), and their spoken
language is basically already set by the time they learn to read.

Literacy only makes minor random changes in a speaker's spoken
language (hyperarticulation, spelling pronunciations, etc.), not the
kind of major systematic changes needed to keep the spoken language
wedded to the written language.

Just look at Chinese, which has a writing system in use by different
spoken varieties of the language (to some extent; like English, the
written language varies), some of which (e.g. Cantonese and Mandarin)
are not mutually intelligible. (I believe Arabic is in a similar
situation, but I don't know which varieties are not mutually
intelligible. I'd guess a pair like Moroccan and Lebanese.)

English hasn't reached that point yet (though I bet a Scotsman and a
Mississippian would have a hell of time having a conversation), but
it's on its way.

> Writing is an axiom reminder than the /t/ sound at the end of "chased"
> has the same semantic function as a written "-ed" -- our mental image
> of the "-ed" distinguishes "chased" from "chaste" in our minds.

And writing used to be a reminder that the "e" in "peek" and in "peck"
were pronounced essentially the same, differing only in length ([e:]
and [e]). Now, the two vowels have a completely different
pronunciation from each other ([i] and [E]), and in the US, they are
changing even more in the Northern Cities ([i] and [@]) and in the
South ([@I] and [e@]).

The spelling hasn't hindered these changes at all, nor has it hindered
any of the changes that distinguish other English dialects:
r-dropping, low back vowel merger, loss of interdentals, mergers of
various vowels before nasals or liquids, debuccalization of
glottalized stops, etc.

> I always feel, when listening to linguists, that they underestimate how
> integral text is to spoken English. Even an illiterate person may be
> speaking a language kept in check by writing, via school curricula,
> publishers, etc.

Intuitively, it seems like writing (and mass media in general) should
keep speech in check. But all evidence shows that literacy and mass
media have little or no systematric impact on the spoken language.
Linguists aren't underestimating anything here---they've done the
work, and all of the data point to the opposite conclusion that
conventional wisdom has come up with.

This isn't a new phenomenon in science. Conventional wisdom used to
tell us that the earth was flat (just look at it---how can this flat
surface not be flat!) and that heavier objects fell faster than
lighter objects.

And don't even think about rotational mechanics... that stuff makes no
sense at all to the layman!

Nathan 

-- 
Nathan Sanders
Linguistics Program       nsanders@wso.williams.edu                           
Williams College          http://wso.williams.edu/~nsanders
Williamstown, MA 01267

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