Regional Grammatical Variation

Dialect ‘Sorry I were late’ ‘its okay you was late yesterday too’ http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/sounds/regional- voices/grammatical-variation/ Non standard Commonplace in the North and Midlands Past tense form of ‘to be’ used in all grammatical constructions: I were, you were, he/she/it were. The verb is unmarked by person. Subject/ verb agreement is not met.

I was/you was/he/she/it was /we was/ South East England Unmarked version Singular form Though both these variations are non Standard (sound ‘wrong’), they are in fact closer to Standard English than the correct form – that is to say in the past tense of most regular and irregular verbs the

Key Terms/Concepts/Ideas Grammatical variation Standard/Non standard English Subject/Verb agreement/unmarked by person Suffix –ing or –ed after the auxiliary verbs need or want Multiple negation Use of ‘ain’t’ Never/not/didn’t Them as a demonstrative Absence of plural marking

Task Make a revision aid with the title ‘grammatical variation in dialect’

Homework Finish ‘grammatical variation in dialect revision aid. Source booklet-Four sources. How does each text create its meanings and representations? Four essays. Choosing two of the source texts, compare their similarities and differences in relation to how the language targets audience, purpose, tone etc. One comparative essay. Reading: Howard Giles and the matched guise approach. Highlight and write a summary of this. Then search for an article on the internet that discusses attitudes to accent in the news. Read and summarise the attitudes in this. Bring all your work to the first lesson after Easter.