Accent, Language Ecology And Synonymy

Language is a rich structure which comprises of many aspects, and the way we speak can very often depend on our personal and cultural background. Even social groups can display similar language characteristics. Then, there`s our tools such as nouns and verbs which unpick a language for us so that we can analyse it further. This article takes a quick look at three areas, accent, language ecology, and synonyms.

Accent

Accent is a variety of language which describes pronunciation, contrasted with dialect which focuses on vocabulary and grammar to indicate someone`s background ( Seargeant, P, 2012 p. 13). I was raised in South-Warwickshire and pronounced castle as c/ &: /stle, whilst my friends from Manchester said c/ /stle due to historical invasions such as Danelaw in 878 (Beal, J, 2012, p., 59) producing harsher vowel sounds in northern England. Everyone speaks with an accent, and in labelling accents we are making generalisations and there are rarely sharp boundaries between different regional accents. People can modify their accents due to social movement, taking aspects of language from different geographical areas, and their cultural identity can be then formed by their personal identity (Seargeant, P., 2012, p.24).

Language Ecology

Language ecology describes the interactions between different languages when they exist within the same society ( Leith, D, and Seargeant, P., 2012, p.129). They cite the example of Cameroon having two official languages of French and English due to the history of colonisation. The demarcation between the two populations is not due to ethnicity but language which creates an important symbolic function for identity. Language evolution has been influenced by intermixing rather than colonisation processes, for example Camfranglais (French, English, Pidgin, indigenous languages) is now spoken by the urban youth ( Schneider, E.W., 2007, in Leith D Seargeant, P, 2012, p. 136-142. The language ecology of Wales has historical, religious, political and cultural roots due to the colonial process. The Welsh language forms part of a cultural identity due to its Celtic roots which preceded the Saxon invasion of Britain c. AD 449 ( Beal, J, p.50) which imposed English language. lt;/p>

Synonymy

Synonymy is used when two or more words have the sames sense (North, S, 2015, p.16), as opposed to `reference` which would then be indicated by the word`s use in an everyday context. North cites that `faucet` and `tap` show synonymy because they are both `a device for controlling the flow of water` (2015, p.16). `Diaper` and `nappy` both have the same sense because they are both ` a (square or shaped) piece of towelling..retaining urine...` (OED Online, 2015a, sense n.3). However, note there is a dialect difference with `diaper` used in USA and `nappy` used in UK. Bear in mind, `nappy` can have other senses, such as `horse, awkward, disobedient...` (OED Online, 2015a, sense adj.3). Synonyms are not interchangeable, but can vary depending on context, style, register and collocation. & Synonymy can be contrasted with antonymy which is used when one or more words have the opposite sense. Furthermore hyponymy is then used to describe a term in relation to a broader class, for example daises and roses are all classified as flowers.

In conclusion, there are evidently more aspects to language than merely accent, language ecology and synonymy. However, these provide a flavour of much more to come if we are only prepared to do more digging and research language in its structure, history, social movements and so forth, revealing treasure chests of colloquialisms that glitter with promise.

Bibliography

Seargeant, P., and SwannJ., (eds) (2012) `English in the world: History, Diversity, Change`, Abingdon/Routledge/Milton Keynes, OU

North, S., (2015) ` English: A linguistic toolkit,` 2nd edn, Milton Keynes, OU

Oxford English Dictionary (2015) online.