Summary

Dialects

Dialects are varieties of a language that contrast in pronunciation, grammatical patters, and vocabulary and that are associated with geographic area and social class. There are as many idiolects as there are speakers of English.

When there are systematic differences in a language because of geographical regions, social class, or political boundaries, but the same basic grammar and there is mutual intelligibility between two speakers, they are considered dialects. 

A) Regional Dialects 

When various linguistics differences accumulate in a particular geographic region (e.g., the city of Boston or the southern area of the United States), the language spoken has its own character. Each version of the language is referred to as regional dialect. 

1.  Phonological differences 

The r-less dialect and other dialects represent phonological differences related to the words’ pronunciation. Some readers pronounce Mary/Marry/Merry identically; others pronounced them as meri/maeri/mꜫri. In Southern area, Creek is pronounced with a tense I, but in the North midlands, it is pronounced with a lax [I]. 

2. Lexical differences

Regional dialects may differ in the words people use for the same objects, as well as in phonology.

3. Syntactic differences

Dialects can also be distinguished by systematic syntactic differences.

B) Social Dialects 

Social dialect is a variety of speech associated with a particular social class or occupational group within a society. Dialect differences that seem to come about because of social factors are called social dialects, as opposed to regional dialects, which are spawned by geographical factors. However, there are regional aspects to social dialects and, clearly, social aspects to regional dialects, so the distinction is not entirely cut and dried. 

1. The Standard (SAE)

The dominant, or prestige, dialect is often called the standard dialect. Standard American English (SAE) is a dialect of English that many Americans nearly speak; divergences from this “norm” are labeled “Philadelphia dialect,” “Chicago dialect,” “African American English,” and so on. SAE is an idealization. Nobody speaks this dialect; and if somebody did, we wouldn’t know it, because SAE is not defined precisely (like most dialects, none of which are easy to clarify). A standard dialect (or prestige dialect) of a particular language may have social functions. 

2. African American English (AAE)

This dialect, African American English (AAE), is spoken by a large population of Americans of African descent. The distinguishing features of this English dialect persist for social, educational, and economic reasons. The historical discrimination against African Americans has created the social boundaries that permit this dialect to thrive. In addition, particularly in recent years, many blacks have embraced their dialect as a means of positive group identification. AAE is generally used in casual and informal situations, and is much more common among working-class people. African Americans from middle- or upper-class backgrounds and with higher levels of education are now more likely to be speakers of SAE. 

3. Latino (Hispanic) English 

A major group of American English dialects is spoken by native Spanish speakers or their descendants. For more than a century large numbers of immigrants from Spanish-speaking countries of South and Central America, Mexico, and the Caribbean islands have been enriching the United States with their language and culture. Among these groups are native speakers of Spanish who have learned or are learning English as a second language. There are also those born in Spanish-speaking homes whose native language is English, some of whom are monolingual, and others who speak Spanish as a second language. One cannot speak of a homogeneous Latino dialect. In addition to the differences between bilingual and monolingual speakers, the dialects spoken by Puerto Rican, Cuban, Guatemalan, and El Salvadoran immigrants or their children are somewhat different from one another and also from those spoken by many Mexican Americans in the Southwest and California, called Chicano English (ChE).

3.1. Chicano English

Chicano English (ChE) is acquired as a first language by many children, making it the native language of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Americans. It is not English with a Spanish accent but, like African American English, a mutually intelligible dialect that differs systematically from SAE. Many of the differences, however, depend on the social context of the speaker. (This is also true of AAE and most "minority" dialects.) Linguistic differences of this sort that vary with the social situation of the speaker are termed sociolinguistic variables. For example, the use of nonstandard forms like double negation is often associated with pride of ethnicity, which is part of the social context. Many Chicano speakers (and speakers of AAE) are bidialectal; they can use either ChE (or AAE) or SAE, depending on the social situation.