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Prestige dialect
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A prestige dialect is the dialect spoken by the most prestigious people in a speech community which is large enough to sustain more than one dialect. The study of prestige in language use is an important part of sociolinguistics.
Social prestige and the role of language
The most prestigious people are those with the greatest influence on the community. This influence may derive from economic, political, or social power. Prestige is not always overt; covert prestige may be significant too.
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Encyclopedia
A prestige dialect is the dialect spoken by the most prestigious people in a speech community which is large enough to sustain more than one dialect. The study of prestige in language use is an important part of sociolinguistics.
Social prestige and the role of language
The most prestigious people are those with the greatest influence on the community. This influence may derive from economic, political, or social power. Prestige is not always overt; covert prestige may be significant too. There may be a tendency to align one's own use of language (idiolect) to that of a favoured dialect (positive prestige), or to move away from a dialect of low esteem (negative prestige). Studies, particularly by Labov, have shown that positive prestige is more often overt, whilst negative prestige is more often covert (avoidance of the unmentionable). Sociologically, women of the lower middle-class are more likely to notice and adopt overt positive prestige. Among working-class men, there may sometimes be a covert preference for negative prestige.
In nations with a colonial history the prestige dialect is often close to the prestige dialect of the colonising community although it may fossilise at the point of secession.
Where creolisation has taken place, the superstrate language operates as an extreme prestige dialect, which may effect great influence, including, in extreme case, the decreolisation of the creole language into the prestige language. An acrolect may be more prestigious than a basilect.
When a prestige dialect is prescribed as the norm by dominant institutions it is also a standard dialect. Broadcast media have been particularly effective at defining standard dialects.
Particular prestige dialects
- Arabic Modern Standard Arabic is the H-Language of the Arabic-speaking countries in concepts of diglossia. In contrast to prestige dialects, it is not used in day-to-day conversation, but rather as a language of the media and as a written language. Prestige dialects differ from state to state, usually the dialect of the capital.
- Armenian Pre-20th century the prestige dialect of Western Armenian was spoken in Constantinople and the prestige dialect of Eastern Armenian was spoken in Tiflis. Currently, the Yerevan dialect of Eastern Armenian is considered the only prestige dialect of Armenian.
- Bengali Calcatian, the variety of Bengali spoken in Calcutta proper, is the prestige dialect.
- Bulgarian - the standard language is based almost entirely on the eastern dialects, nevertheless they are universally considered unprestigious. The dialect of the capital Sofia, which is a mixture of the local Shopski dialects and the standard language, is the prestige dialect. It has various deviations from the literary language (more than the eastern dialects) - phonological, lexical and especially grammatical, but it is erroneously perceived by people from all over Bulgaria as closer to the standard language than most other dialects (including the eastern). This paradox is due to the leading position of Sofia in modern Bulgaria, the mass media (especially the television where most speakers use the dialect of the capital), the fact that the western dialects have almost no vowel reduction in contrast with the eastern and thus are more clearly enunciated, and the fact that grammatical errors are more difficult to detect than phonological .
- French Educated Parisian French has generally been taken as the prestige dialect of Metropolitan France, though the position is less clear among speakers of other national dialects such as Quebec French.
- Greek The conceived Modern Greek form of Katharevousa was once considered as being the prestige dialect. Now, the standard Greek dialect with Athenian pronounciation is considered the prestige dialect. See also Greek language question.
- Hebrew In Israel, Hebrew was revived as a spoken language in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Israeli Hebrew is now regarded as the prestige dialect for the language, combining the traditional Ashkenazi (Eastern European) and Sephardi (largely Spanish/Portuguese) dialects, along with significant influence from various other Jewish dialects and languages such as Yiddish, Temani, and Ladino.
- Hindi Among the Hindi-speaking states of India, Khariboli is the prestige dialect (of Hindi).
- Korean In South Korea, South Korea's standard accent (Pyojuneo) is based on the Seoul dialect. However, there are a few (slight) differences among an accent that news readers speak with, one spoken by ordinary mid-aged people in Seoul, another spoken by younger generations in Seoul/Gyeonggi regions, since many local people migrated to Seoul throughout the 1960s to the 1980s. Other regional dialects in South Korea are sometimes humorously quoted in media or novels. In North Korea, the standard accent is based on the Pyongyang dialect, which is also called Munhwaeo.
- Portuguese In Brazil, the variants from the states of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro may be considered "prestige dialects" , especially for their being used in national news broadcasts; however, those variants used for television usually substitute the dental t and d of the São Paulo variant for the more widespread palatalised allophone and the post-alveolar fricative (written s) used in Rio de Janeiro for the more usual alveolar fricative /s/, both substitutions characteristic of the variant from cities such as Juiz de Fora, Volta Redonda and Vitória. Also, in Rio Grande do Sul the metropolitan regional accent is considered a prestige accent, and it is considered as such in most of Brazil, as it is the most correct form of speach when used correctly.
- Russian - the standard language is based on (but not identical to) the Moscow dialect, which is also the prestigious and universally understood and accepted dialect in Russia.
- Thai Standard language is based on Bangkok dialect.
- Turkish Standard language is based on Istanbul dialect.
- Ukrainian In Ukraine, quite a few dialects of Ukrainian are in common daily use and are considered to be equally prestigious, with a local dialect being favoured in certain areas. Surzhyk, on the other hand, is universally perceived as unprestigious.
Dialect and language
It is not uncommon for speakers of a particular dialect, especially a regional dialect which has historically not been regarded as a prestige dialect, to claim that their dialect is in fact a distinct language. This enables them to distance it from the dominant dialect, and to establish prestige and pride in their own variety of the language. Such moves have been made for Scots as distinct from English. Similar issues have affected perceptions of the language (or languages) commonly called Serbo-Croatian during the 20th century.
See Dialect
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