« Dialect | Main | Dialects »
November 13, 2005
Dialects
1) I have lived in Massachusetts all of my life and so have my parents. Both of my parents grew up in the surrounding towns of the town where I was raised. Therefore, we all definitely have eastern New England dialects. I think I speak fast, but I am definitely not as fast as others in the area. I definitely use the word "wicked" a whole lot. I have known nothing else. One of my friends that spent three years in Massachusetts adapted to using "wicked" and then she moved to Michigan and she told me that no one understood what she meant. And now when I go to visit her, she doesn't say it anymore. I find it so fascinating that we can adapt our language to our new surroundings over time. I spent six weeks in Germany, speaking German pretty much the whole time there. When I came back to the United States, it was weird to go back to speaking English the whole time again, and I was only abroad for six weeks!
2) I agree with the comment that social groups are a factor in different dialects. I know that in my case, I speak differently with different people. For example, with one of my friends, we have an inside joke that we call each other "man" and say "man" in basically every sentence we say to each other. With another friend, we basically do the same thing, except with "dude." In general though, I speak differently to my friends than I do with my parents or professors. With my friends, and sometimes with my parents, I speak more casually and I usually don't use any "big" words. In the classroom setting however, I try and speak a little more formally and intelligently. In addition, when I am using Instant Messenger, nothing really applies. I "speak" even more casually than in person, although I still care about spelling because that's who I am. However, normally I am just trying to get my message across, sometimes rather quickly, so I don't really care as much how it sounds, I just keep typing. Although, now that I think about it, if I don't know someone as well, even on Instant Messenger, I try to speak a little less casually than I would normally with my closer friends on Instant Messenger because you never know how someone will really interpret what you write. So I guess I "speak" many different dialects and it just depends on the situtation for when I use each dialect.
-Jessica F.
Posted by lcisfaria at November 13, 2005 02:12 PM