Dialects.

There exist numerous varieties of pronunciation in any language, the English language as well. The pronunciation of almost every locality in the British Isles has peculiar features that distinguish it from the pronunciation of other localities. Besides, pronunciation is socially influenced. It reflects class distinctions, education and upbringing. The varieties that are spoken by a socially limited number of people and used only in certain localities are called dialects. There are therefore local dialects and social dialects. Moreover, there are innumerable individual differences, called idiolectal differences. At the same time all these varieties have much more in common than what differentiates them. They are varieties of one and the same language, the English language, which is a means of communication for all those who speak it.

Dialects have some peculiarities in pronunciation, vocabulary and grammatical structure. Every dialectal pronunciation is characterized by features that are common to all the other dialects of the language, and by a number of specific peculiarities of its own, that set it apart from all the other dialects. Due to mass media (radio, TV, cinema), the increased mobility of the population, concentration of the population in the cities, the dialectal differences are becoming less marked. That, of course, does not mean that the pronunciation of a Manchester dialect speaker does not differ from the pronunciation of a London dialect speaker. Among the most well—known dialects one should mention Cockney (spoken by the less educated part of the Londoners) , Geordie (heard in Newcastle—on—Tyne}, Scouse (the Liverpool dialect), Cornish dialect (in Cornwall) and others.

Dialect speakers are, as a rule, the less educated part of the population. With the more educated people pronunciation generally tends to conform to a particular standard. But the English language would lose a lot if its dialects disappeared. Dialects enrich the language and make it more lively and fresh. They stimulate the development of language, supply it with new lexical and syntactic means, cause modifications in its phonetic system.

In present—day English the number of local dialects is being reduced to a fewer, more or less general, regional types. Every regional type of pronunciation is characterized by features that are common to all the dialects used in the region. The regional types of pronunciation, in their turn, are marked one from another by a number of pecularities specific to each of them. In British English phoneticians generally distinguish three main regional types of pronunciation: Southern, Northern and Scottish regional types of English pronunciation. Besides, there may a non—regional type of pronunciation that is not native to any particular locality in the country.

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