dialect in novels

[Dennis R. Preston]

>Eye-dialect refers to spellings which do not indicate any actual
>change in  the way words are pronounced. The best example is "sez."
>Of course, everybody says "sez" (except people who haven't learned
>English yet, with apologies to those who speak dialects with minor
>variations in the mid-front lax vowel). Eye-dialect is there to
>simply give "flavor" to the speaker (and, as I have shown in several
>articles, that flavor is always status- and intellegence-lowering).

Unfortunately, some have started to use the term "eye-dialect" to
refer to respellings which attempt to capute some fact of
pronunciation (e.g., allegro speech forms such as "gonna" or actual
regional prpmunciaion "tahm' for "time"). I prefer to reserve
eye-dialect for the more limited territory outlined above (the
original sense), but that will just prove what a conservative old
codger I am.

>  dInIs




>What is "eye dialect"?  Dialect written for the eye?  I've never heard this
>term before . . . but my excuse, which I've trotted out many times in the
>past, is that I'm not a linguist.
>
>bob
>
>>  From: "James A. Landau" <JJJRLandau at AOL.COM>
>>  Reply-To: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>  Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 13:20:13 EST
>>  To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>>  Subject: Re: dialect in novels
>>
>>  I dislike eye dialect, feeling that it gives the reader, to use a Harris
>>  metaphor, an unnecessary tar baby to struggle with.  Discussion, anyone?

--
Dennis R. Preston
Department of Linguistics and Languages
Michigan State University
East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA
preston at pilot.msu.edu
Office: (517)353-0740
Fax: (517)432-2736