Notfreelance. Typeset Dialect 1. December 15, 2008. Online Image. Flickr. February 7, 2009.
1. Describe a small speech community to which you belong to: What languages and/or dialects do you regularly use(=the code), and what are the social norms for their use? Note the kinds of interactions you all engage in over one "typical" day: What are the topics discussed, the settings, the purposes, the "key," the types or genres of speech, etc?
The Setting and Scene: I was with a group of my friends in one of our dorm rooms. The four of us all happen to be from different states. One from New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and I am from Massachusetts. We all have little things that we say differently. The type of conversation for the day was mostly about the super bowl that is taking place tonight.
Key: There was an all around positive tone until we started to talk about who we wanted to win the game. three of out of the four people wanted to same team to win, so the one person for the opposing team's tone started to change. They began to get all defensive, and they were not happy that the rest of the group was making jokes.
Instrumentalities: Sometimes when I start talking very fast a little bit of a Boston accent starts to come out, but when i am talking normal people say that I don't have one at all. One of my friends works at a restaurant and she started to talk about how the biggest seller there is a "hoagie". I had no idea what she was talking about. In MA and CT we call them subs. The girls from NY and PA say thing like "callage" and "psychalagy". They don't really pronounce their "o".
Genre: All of my friends have different sayings that they have learned from the places where they live. My friend from PA calls a funeral a viewing, and I have never heard anyone call it that. In Boston people use the word "wicked" to enforce that something was good or bad. The first time I said "wicked" a friend thought I was into the play wicked and it came from that.
Everyone has their own way of speaking. People have their own dialect depending on where they are from. From being with a group of people from different places and watching the films about the different dialects it is funny to see that even though we all speak the same language there are different dialects everywhere you go.
I call them "subs" too! What on earth is a "hoagie"?
ReplyDeleteI get the same reactions when I say "wicked". Haha.
Conversations can get interesting when people begin to argue about something that they are passionate about, like Superbowl teams. Grammar doesn't usual apply in normal conversation, but when someone is angered I feel as though nobody pays attention to what they say or how they say it.