A quotation is the repetition of a sentence, phrase, or passage from speech or text that someone has said or written. In oral speech, it is the representation of an utterance that is introduced by a quotative marker, such as a verb of saying. For example: John said: "I saw Mary today". Quotations in oral speech are also signaled by special prosody in addition to quotative markers. In written text, quotations are signaled by quotation marks. Quotations are also used to present well-known statement parts that are explicitly attributed by citation to their original source; such statements are marked with quotation marks.
Sociolinguistics is the descriptive study of the effect of any or all aspects of society, including cultural norms, expectations, and context, on language and the ways it is used. It can overlap with the sociology of language, which focuses on the effect of language on society. Sociolinguistics overlaps considerably with pragmatics and is closely related to linguistic anthropology.
West Country English is a group of English language varieties and accents used by much of the native population of the West Country, an area found in the southwest of England.
In English, the word like has a very flexible range of uses, ranging from conventional to non-standard. It can be used as a noun, verb, adverb, adjective, preposition, particle, conjunction, hedge, filler, quotative, and semi-suffix.
The high rising terminal (HRT), also known as rising inflection, upspeak, uptalk, or high rising intonation (HRI), is a feature of some variants of English where declarative sentences can end with a rising pitch similar to that typically found in yes-or-no questions. HRT has been claimed to be especially common among younger speakers and women, though its exact sociolinguistic implications are an ongoing subject of research.
In sociolinguistics, a sociolect is a form of language or a set of lexical items used by a socioeconomic class, profession, age group, or other social group.
Gay male speech has been the focus of numerous modern stereotypes, as well as sociolinguistic studies, particularly within North American English. Scientific research has uncovered phonetically significant features produced by many gay men and demonstrated that listeners accurately guess speakers' sexual orientation at rates greater than chance. Historically, gay male speech characteristics have been highly stigmatized and their usage may be sometimes coded to a limited number of settings outside of the workplace or other public spaces.
A verbum dicendi, also called verb of utterance, is a word that expresses speech or introduces a quotation. English examples of verbs of speaking include say, utter, ask and rumble. Because a verbum dicendi often introduces a quotation, it may grammaticalize into a quotative.
California English collectively refers to varieties of American English native to California. As California became one of the most ethnically diverse U.S. states, English speakers from a wide variety of backgrounds began to pick up different linguistic elements from one another and also developed new ones; the result is both divergence and convergence within Californian English. However, linguists who studied English before and immediately after World War II tended to find few, if any, patterns unique to California, and even today most California English still exhibits a General or Western American accent.
Hella is an American English slang term originating in and often associated with San Francisco's East Bay area in northern California, possibly specifically emerging in the 1970s African-American vernacular of Oakland. It is used as an intensifying adverb such as in "hella bad" or "hella good". It was eventually added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2002, citing a 1987 first use in the Toronto Star. It is possibly a contraction of the phrase "hell of a" or "hell of a lot [of]", in turn reduced to "hell of", though some scholars doubt this etymology since its grammatical usage does not align with those phrases; or of "hellacious". It often appears in place of the words "really", "a lot", "totally", "very", and in some cases, "yes". Whereas hell of a is generally used with a noun, according to linguist Pamela Munro, hella is primarily used to modify an adjective such as "good".
In linguistics, intonation is the variation in pitch used to indicate the speaker's attitudes and emotions, to highlight or focus an expression, to signal the illocutionary act performed by a sentence, or to regulate the flow of discourse. For example, the English question "Does Maria speak Spanish or French?" is interpreted as a yes-or-no question when it is uttered with a single rising intonation contour, but is interpreted as an alternative question when uttered with a rising contour on "Spanish" and a falling contour on "French". Although intonation is primarily a matter of pitch variation, its effects almost always work hand-in-hand with other prosodic features. Intonation is distinct from tone, the phenomenon where pitch is used to distinguish words or to mark grammatical features.
Multicultural London English is a sociolect of English that emerged in the late 20th century. It is spoken mainly by young, working-class people in multicultural parts of London.
"Valley Girl" is a song by American musician Frank Zappa, released as the sole single from his 1982 album Ship Arriving Too Late to Save a Drowning Witch and featuring his then-14-year-old daughter Moon. Though Zappa intended it to mockingly satirize San Fernando Valley teen culture, the song's success inadvertently popularized the "valley girl" stereotype and its associated mannerisms. The song was also nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal at the 25th Annual Grammy Awards.
Colombian Spanish is a grouping of the varieties of Spanish spoken in Colombia. The term is of more geographical than linguistic relevance, since the dialects spoken in the various regions of Colombia are quite diverse. The speech of the northern coastal area tends to exhibit phonological innovations typical of Caribbean Spanish, while highland varieties have been historically more conservative. The Caro and Cuervo Institute in Bogotá is the main institution in Colombia to promote the scholarly study of the language and literature of both Colombia and the rest of Spanish America. The educated speech of Bogotá, a generally conservative variety of Spanish, has high popular prestige among Spanish-speakers throughout the Americas.
The vocal fry register is the lowest vocal register and is produced through a loose glottal closure that permits air to bubble through slowly with a popping or rattling sound of a very low frequency. During this phonation, the arytenoid cartilages in the larynx are drawn together, which causes the vocal folds to compress rather tightly and become relatively slack and compact. This process forms a large and irregularly vibrating mass within the vocal folds that produces the characteristic low popping or rattling sound when air passes through the glottal closure. The register can extend far below the modal voice register, in some cases up to 8 octaves lower, such as in the case of Tim Storms who holds the world record for lowest frequency note ever produced by a human, a G−7, which is only 0.189 Hz, inaudible to the human ear.
Perceptual dialectology is the study of how nonlinguists perceive variation in language—where they believe it exists, where they believe it comes from, how they believe it functions, and how they socially evaluate it.
"Sexy baby voice" is an English language speech pattern or sociolect, first described by U.S. media in 2013, in which young women affect the high-pitched voice of pre-pubescent girls. Actress Lake Bell popularized the term with her 2013 film In a World..., and subsequently gave various interviews on the speech pattern.
Basic is a slang term in American popular culture used pejoratively to describe middle class white people, especially women, who are perceived to prefer mainstream products, trends, and music. "Basic bitch" originated in hip hop culture and rose in popularity through rap music, songs, blogs, and videos from 2011 to 2014. Their male counterparts are usually termed "bros". Similar labels to "basic bitch" or "airhead" in other English-speaking countries include contemporary British "Essex girls" and "Sloane Rangers", and Australian "haul girls" known for their love of shopping for designer gear, and uploading videos of their purchases on YouTube.
Mock language is a way of using a language not spoken by or native to a speaker.
American Indian English or Native American English is a diverse collection of English dialects spoken by many American Indians and Alaska Natives, notwithstanding indigenous languages also spoken in the United States, of which only a few are in daily use. For the sake of comparison, this article focuses on similarities across varieties of American Indian English that unite it in contrast to a "typical" English variety with standard grammar and a General American accent.
