Date: Sun, 14 Aug 1994 15:57:12 -0700

From: THOMAS L CLARK tlc[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]NEVADA.EDU

Subject: Re: eye dialect



On Mon, 8 Aug 1994 mftcf[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UXA.ECN.BGU.EDU wrote:



Question: When you encounter "what" in a text spelled "whut"--

is that eye dialect or does that have some sort of phonetic reality?

To me the "u" simply represents a schwa and hence its eye dialect. But

is that just my perspective?



Tim Frazer



Dennis Preston wrote the best article I saw on Eye/Literary dialect in

American Speech (tell us when, Dinnis). But I was brought up short a

couple of weeks ago when telling a group of British-taught ESL teachers

that "wuz" was simply a phonetic rendering of "was," and eye dialect

because both are pronunced the same. One teacher raised her eyebrows and

said both words, one with schwa and the other low-back. I was nonplussed

until I realized I should have regionally restricted my statement.

Cheers,

tlc[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]nevada.edu