XIII Международная студенческая научная конференция Студенческий научный форум - 2021

This group of words is obviously opposed to the other groups of the non-literary English vocabulary and therefore its stylistic functions can be more or less clearly defined. Dialectal words are those which in the process of integration of the English national language remained beyond its literary boundaries, and their use is generally confined to a definite locality. Dialectal words are very powerful and common way of characterization, which elaborates the geographic and social background of any character. Dialects can be distinguished one from another by way of grammar, pronunciation, syntax, and vocabulary.

There is a definite similarity of functions in the use of slang, cockney and any other form of non-literary English and that of dialectal words. All these groups when used in emotive prose are meant to characterize the speaker as a person of a certain locality, breeding, education, etc.

There is sometimes a difficulty in distinguishing dialectal words from colloquial words. Some dialectal words have become so familiar in good colloquial or standard colloquial English that they are universally accepted as recognized units of the standard colloquial English. To these words belong “lass”, meaning “a girl or a beloved girl” and the corresponding “lad” – “a boy or a young man”, “daft” from the Scottish and the northern dialect, meaning of “unsound mind, silly”. Still they have not lost their dialectal associations and therefore are used in literary English.

Use of dialectal words can be found in “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee: “Reckon I have. Almost died first year I come to school and et them pecans — folks say he pizened ’em and put ’em over on the school side of the fence.”Characters that are less educated and less sophisticated are usually shown to be speaking with a much stronger dialect.

There is sometimes a difficulty in distinguishing dialectal words from colloquial words. Some dialectal words are easily recognized as corruptions of standard English words, although etymologically they may have sprung from the peculiarities of certain dialects: hinny from honey; tittie apparently from sister; cutty meaning a “testy or naughty girl or woman”, fash with the meaning of “trouble, cares”. Scotland has struggled to retain the peculiarities of her language. Therefore, many of the words fixed in dictionaries as dialectal are of Scottish origin.

Dialects have phonetic peculiarity that distinguishes it from other dialect as mentioned above. In this example Mark Twain uses exaggerated dialect to distinguish between the characters. Jim: “We’s safe, Huck, we’s safe! Jump up and crack yo’ heels. Dat’s de good ole Cairo at las’, I jis knows it.” Huck: “I’ll take the canoe and go see, Jim. It mightn’t be, you know.” (“Huckleberry Finn” by M. Twain).

Dialectal words are found in the style of emotive prose, very rarely in other styles. And even here their use is confined to the function of characterizing personalities through their speech. The unifying tendency of the literary language is so strong that language elements used only in dialect are doomed to vanish, except, perhaps, those which, because of their vigour and beauty, have withstood the integrating power of the written language.

Writers who use dialectal words for this purpose in a piece of emotive prose or drama, introduce them into the word texture in different ways. Some writers make an unrestrained use of dialectal words and also slang, jargonisms and professionalisms, not only in characterization, but also in their narrative. Other writers introduce dialectal words which are understandable to the average English reader, or they make use of units which they think will enrich the standard English vocabulary. Dialectal words, unlike professionalisms, are confined in their use to a definite locality.

List of references:

Galperin I.R. English Stylistics. Moscow: USSR, 2014. 333 p.

Dialectal words. Definition. https://literaryterms.net/dialect/

Dialectal words. Definition and examples. https://literarydevices.net/dialect/

Dialectal words. http://www.literarydevices.com/dialect/