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LECTURE 7
VARIANTS AND DIALECTS

1. General Characteristics of the English Language
2. Lexical Differences of Territorial Variants
3. Local Dialects in the British Isles

Key terms: variant, dialect, briticism, Americanism, realia

1. General Characteristics of the English Language
Modern linguistics distinguishes territorial variants of a
national language and local dialects.
Variants of a language are regional varieties of a standard
literary language characterised by some minor peculiarities in the
sound system, vocabulary and grammar and by their own literary
norms.
Dialects are varieties of a language used as a means of oral
communication in small localities, they are set off (more or less
sharply) from other varieties by some distinctive features of
pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary.
It is over half a century already that the nature of the two
main variants of the English language, British and American (Br
and AE) has been discussed. Some American linguists, H. L.
Mencken for one, speak of two separate languages with a steady
flood of linguistic influence first (up to about 1914) from Britain to
America, and since then from America to the British Isles. They
even proclaim that the American influence on British English is so
powerful that there will come a time when the American standard
will be established in Britain. Other linguists regard the language
of the USA as a dialect of English.
Still more questionable is the position of Australian English
(AuE) and Canadian English (CnE).
The differences between the English language as spoken in
Britain, the USA, Australia and Canada are immediately

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