Review on Dialectalization

The language of a community is usually united yet including in itself the diversity feature. The differences can be witnessed from the way vocabulary is employed, grammar is used and words are pronounced. In 2017, it is estimated that there are more than 7,000 living languages in the world and along with that number, above ten thousands of dialects are already being spoken (Simons &Fennig, 2017). In this essay, the question of how language dialectalization happens will be answered. Furthermore, this essay also digs deep to see if regional dialects have a positive or negative impact on one’s national standard language skills?

What is dialect? According to the Oxford Dictionary, the dialect is explained as “A particular form of a language which is peculiar to a specific region or social group.” (n.d). Strictly speaking, the term “dialect” refers to differences between kinds of language which are differences of lexis (vocabulary), grammar (structure) and phonology (pronunciation or accent) (Petyt, 1980; Variations in English, n.d.). For example, in South America, when people want to buy a carbonated drink, they would use the generic term “coke” while people from the North and Northwest would order a “pop”; interestingly, in California and the Northeast area, people would prefer the term “soda”.

Dialects are the various different forms of the same language. In other words, a language is a group of dialects. The English language itself has over one hundred variants across the world, such as Yorkshire, Bermudian English or Maori English which can often be difficult to interpret by speakers of other English dialects. The act of using a language involves using one of its dialects, therefore, everyone speaks at least one dialect.

So how dialects narrow down into regional scope? To explain for this, let us consider the “Wave Theory” introduced by Johannes Schmidt in 1872. When pebbles are tossed into a water pond, they will create waves on the surface. Waves may start at various locations (depends on where pebbles are thrown) with different strength (depends on sizes of pebbles); the farther the waves spread, the weaker they are. The result is that different areas of the pond are affected by a different combination of waves. The process of spreading linguistic changes is similar to how waves expand. Language inventions and modifications do not happen at the same pace in the same way at different geographic areas. A community, therefore, ends up being affected by dialects with varying degrees of similarity.

Linguistically, dialectalization is a part of the very natural process - language change. According to Petyt, time and distance are the two most basic factors influencing dialectalization (1980). To clarify the impact of factor time, he stated that “language is transmitted from one generation to the next, and in the course of time various innovations creep in”. The possibility is that young inheritors might inexactly comprehend the original language system and eliminate old-fashioned patterns. At the same time, language changes such as new words, ease of articulation are invented here and there, though some are quickly rejected for several reasons, some will be adopted and gradually extend their impact on the whole region.

A secondary component contributing to dialectalization process is distance: some linguistic changes could not spread over the whole community because of geographic boundaries. When people move away from each other, new experience is made, old ones might fade, resulting in languages diverging. In the past, people were geographically divided into areas by mountain ranges, rivers, oceans; long-distance communication at this distance of time mainly depended on rudimentary means such as hand-writing letters, which took a lot of efforts and time to dispatch and receive. As a consequence, those language diversities are not easily spread and updated. Differences in phonetics and grammar and vocabulary among provinces thus progressively take on the shape and are unavoidable.

Viewing from a social perspective, dialectalization is affected by two opposing forces simultaneously: “parochialism” and the “pressure of communication” (Saussure, 1916, cited in Petyt, 1980). On the one hand, parochialism, a synonym of localism, keeps members of a group faithful to its own tradition, narrowly restricts them in outlook. Parochialism happens the same way with language. Our speech habits are largely acquired in childhood when our circle of acquaintance is limited; we naturally adopted language features such as grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation of the local area in which we lived. Language then can be considered as a distinct feature, a sort of “badge of membership”. On the other hand, “pressure of communication” or “intercourse” forces people to interact and adapt. It eliminates new local language innovations and promotes unity by adopting and spreading others. The pressure of communication, therefore, reduces the impacts of parochialism, prevents the original language from separating into languages with their own dialects which caused by parochialism and enables neighboring groups to understand each other.