REGIONAL VARIANTS OF ENGLISH

REGIONAL VARIANTS OF ENGLISH

It is common knowledge that any national language has two material forms:
written and spoken. The written form of a national language is usually a generally
accepted standard and is uniform throughout the country. Spoken language on the
contrary is not so uniform because it varies from locality to locality. Such distinct
spoken forms of a language are called local dialects. Dialects may be defined as
language varieties that are spoken by a socially limited number of people. In the
course of time the pronunciation of the dialects can become generally accepted or
standard. So we may say that the two polar varieties of the national language in its
spoken form are the standard literary pronunciation and dialects.

Standard pronunciation may be defined as the elaborated variety of the
national language which obeys definite norms, recognized as standard and
acceptable in all kinds and types of oral communication. Standard pronunciation
in other words is governed by the orthoepical norms (Greek orthos – straight,
correct; epic –> epos – speech).
So the standard pronunciation includes the pronunciation norms which reflect the main tendencies in the pronunciation which exist in the language. It is the pronunciation used by educated people typified by radio and TV announcers and recorded in pronunciation dictionaries as the proper
and correct pronunciation. The factual material testifies to the fact that each
national language may fall into several regional standards in terms of
pronunciation.

 These regional standards are considered equally correct and
acceptable and they can be described as varieties of national standard
pronunciation. Each regional standard of pronunciation is characterized by features
that are common to all the dialects used in that region. national language is defined as a unified complex of regional and dialectal varieties from the point of view of its pronunciation.

At present there may be distinguished three large regional types of cultivated
English in GB: Northern English pronunciation; Southern EP which is variously
known as the Standard EP, RP or public school pronunciation;