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Document Details : Title: Dialect and Accent Revisited Author(s): NEWBROOK, Mark Journal: Orbis Volume: 34 Date: 1985-1987 Pages: 116-128 DOI: 10.2143/ORB.34.0.2013009 Abstract : Catford (1957) and Hill (1958) suggested that the established distinction between differences of dialect and differences of accent was unsatisfactory, and offered in its place a new criterion for the distinction which, they claimed, corresponded more closely to that used by ordinary native speakers. After a period during which their proposal has not been widely known, it has recently been taken op by Petyt (1980), where it is defined at some length. I propose to argue here that this new criterion for the distinction leads to decisions as to the status of some well-known differences between varieties which are clearly counter-intuitive, and/or to decisions which are unsatisfactory in other ways. These unsatisfactory decisions are, I will claim, more serious and more numerous than those resulting from the adoption of the established distinction (those which the new criterion was aimed at reversing); furthermore, the intuitions to which they run counter, are more likely to include those of linguists, as well as those of ordinary speakers, than those to which allegedly unsatisfactory decisions resulting from the established distinction run counter. |
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