Finegan 10 & 11 Read & Retell

I found chapters 10 and 11 of Finegan quite interesting. They both dealt with various aspects of language variation due to context, whether that be the setting or the people involved in using the language.

Chapter 10 focused on register or style of language, which varies depending on the speech situation (setting, purpose and participants). Depending on the speech situation, a person uses different registers or styles of speech, which can be characterized by various linguistic features such as lexical, phonological, grammatical and semantic. In a monolingual community like I have experienced most of my life, I can apply this to how I might speak to friends versus meeting an academic advisor at a university for the first time. My speech with friends will be much less formal than my speech with the advisor. In a multilingual situation, other kinds of situations arise. For example, I lived in Marburg (Germany) for a year. My adult friends could speak high German (a standard form or school form of German) or Hessisch, a local dialect from Hessen, which was like a different language that I could not understand. When we were in a group, they needed to speak high German so I could understand, but it was very difficult for them to speak high German with native speakers in the same group. They were almost compelled to speak Hessisch. I was reminded of this by the discussion on the top of page 318 in regards to difficulty communicating in one language versus another depending on the setting.

Slang is another aspect of register. As a teacher I'm always trying to learn the newest adolescent slang. I want to know what "kids" are saying, but I'm not a big fan of older adults using what is considered an adolescent type slang.

Jargon is another style of language that each of us in the professional world comes to know. In education, one of the most frequently used words that signals working in the field is the word "piece." At conferences it almost becomes ludicrous as to how many times one may hear it used.

Chapter 11 of Finegan dealt with dialects. A dialect is a variety of language based upon a particular region or social group. As mentioned above, Germany has many dialects...Bavarian, Hessisch, Platt, and so forth. A person from Bavaria has a difficult time understanding a person from Hannover if they are speaking in their particular dialects. I'm glad the chapter pointed out the difference between dialect and accent; I sometimes confused those terms. It was interesting reading about British versus American forms of English as well as the African American English or Black vernacular. I am definitely guilty of sometimes judging people on the usage of language that is different from my Upper Midwestern dialect, which closely resembles the standard English we hear on television and radio. One major fact I have learned in this class is that languages of various kinds are legitimate and complex in composition.