Transcript How Children Acquire Language

Ethnic , Gender and
Other Dialects
African American English
(AAE)
Phonological Differences
R-deletion
guard = god, sore = saw, poor = pa
L-deletion
all = awe, help = hep
Neutralization of [I and [E] before
nasals
(intermediate sound)
pin = pen, ten = tin
Loss of interdental fricatives
Ruth = roof
Brother = brover
This = dis
That = dat
Syntactic Differences
Double negatives
“he don’t know nothing”
“he don’t got none”
Deletion of the verb “to be”
He is nice. = He nice.
I am gonna do it. = I gonna do it.
Habitual “be”
Sarah is happy. = Sarah be happy.
( Sarah is a always a happy person)
He is late. = He late
He is always late. = He be late.
Latino/Hispanic/Chicano
English
Phonological Differences
Substitution of the Spanish 5 vowel system for the English 11 vowel
system
ship & sheep = sheep
rid and read = read
Interchangeability of sh and ch
show = cho
check = sheck
Devoicing some consonants
easy = isi
guys = gais
Final consonant cluster simplification
war and ward = war
star and start = star
Consonant substitution
th = t (thin = tin)
th = d (they = dey)
Addition of e sound at beginning of s words
school = eskool
start = estart
Latino/Hispanic/Chicano
English
Syntactic Differences:
Double negatives
“he don’t know nothing”
“he don’t got none”
Use of more for move often
Use of out from for away from
Styles and Registers
• Situational dialects that are used in
different roles and in differing social
situations.
• Informal vs formal
EG. Tu vs usted in Spanish
Motherese with young children
Slang
• An informal set of alternative vocabulary
and/or meanings
• Including:
– Recombining existing words in new ways to
create meanings (“spaced out”)
– Introducing new words (zonked)
– Attaching new meanings to existing words
(“to text”)
Jargon/Argot
• A set of vocabulary that is used in a
specified limited technical, professional or
occupational context.
• EG. The vocabulary that you have been
learning in this class that is used by
specialists in Linguistics: phoneme,
morpheme, phonetics, phonemics,
morphology, syntax, semantics, grammar,
etc.
Taboo Language vs
Euphemisms
Taboo = language that should not be used in
polite situations
Euphemism = a word that replaces a taboo or
unpleasant word
Class Exercise
Why Use Taboo Language?
Why Use Euphemisms?