End of ADS-L Digest - 11 Aug 1994 to 12 Aug 1994 ************************************************ There is one message totalling 25 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. eye dialect ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 14 Aug 1994 15:57:12 -0700 From: THOMAS L CLARK 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