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People often get confused between accent and dialect because they are similar terms, both describing how our speech changes in relation to where we live.
Accent is a broad term that dialect falls under. Accent refers to how voices sound as a result of geographical location. Accents have developed throughout history by people conversing in isolated communities and adopting their speech habits. This took place before it was easy to travel around the country, meaning everyone in a particular community only had contact with other people who sounded like them, thus developing regional accents.
Dialect derives from accent, but rather than describing how our voices sound it refers to how where we live impacts our grammar and lexical choices. Dialect is a mode of speech that differs from standard English. Our dialects are dependent on our geographical location, as where we live impacts the words we use.
For example, 'chuddy', and 'chewy' both mean chewing gum in various Northern dialects. These words derive from the standard English term 'chewing gum'.
Slang is a specific type of colloquial language featuring abbreviations such as 'innit' or 'ain't'. It also encompasses phrases predominantly used by young people that are not in the dictionary, such as 'peng' (meaning something highly appealing) and 'bare' (to have or be something in vast quantities).
Sociolect is a dialect dictated by your class/position in society. Examples include school jargon used between school children, criminal jargon, office jargon, etc.
Jargon describes particular words and expressions used by groups of people (generally in the context of the workplace) that are difficult for others to understand. For example, most people would find legal jargon difficult to understand unless they work in the legal sector.
| Similarities | Differences |
| Both accent and dialect are influenced by location | Accent describes how our voices sound |
| They both deviate from standard English | Dialect dictates word and grammar choices |
| Both accent and dialect influence speech patterns | Dialect can change over time |
| Accent and dialect can be detected both audibly and in writing | Accents are more set in stone |
| Understanding both accent and dialect can help a non-native person speak the language better | Accents are more widely understood, whereas dialects can often be more cryptic because of the words they involve, such as 'barm' meaning bread roll in a Manchester dialect |
| Accents help with the pronunciation of words. For example, to speak a language well you must speak it in an accent |
We can tell the difference between accent and dialect by observing how far the words deviate from standard English, looking at the grammatical/lexical choices, and the way the voice sounds (or we can imagine how it sounds if the words are written phonetics). If the sentence would be understood by most people in the country it is likely a result of an accent. If the meaning of the sentence is hard to decipher it is likely a dialect. This is because different dialects use different words to say things which can be confusing for people from a different region, whereas accents only influence how we sound.
Task: These two sentences mean the same thing. Can you work out which one is spoken in dialect and which one is an accent?
'Ay up duck can ya bring me some chuddy?'
'Ello luv can ye bring mae some chewing gum?'
Both these sentences are instances of people asking for some chewing gum. One is spoken with a Sheffield dialect, indicated by the phrase 'Ay up duck' used in place of a friendly greeting, and 'chuddy' meaning chewing gum. The dialect causes the speaker to choose alternative words to the standard English: 'hello, can you bring me some chewing gum?'.
The second example is written in a northern accent. The phrase itself is the same as standard English in that none of the words used are different words for 'hello, can you bring me some chewing gum?', but rather just alternative ways of speaking standard English.
Whilst slang and dialect are very similar because they are both versions of non-standard English that dictate your lexical and grammar choices, they are also different from each other:
Let's compare some examples of slang from the 21st century and the 90's to highlight just how much slang changes.
Task: Next time you watch Friends (1993-2003), Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (1990-1996), Seinfeld (1989-1998), or any other 90s TV show, see if you can notice these 90's slang terms being used .
Now we have looked at some examples of slang, let's have a look at some examples of dialect to see how they differ from each other.
Newcastle - goon oot on tha toon - going out on the town
Notice how this sentence contains variations of English words such as 'toon' meaning town, and 'goon' meaning 'going', rather than entirely made-up words like 'peng', or words used in completely different contexts to their original meaning, such as 'bare'. This is the difference between slang and dialect. Whilst dialect and slang are variations of English language, slang is more inventive and strays further from Standard English.
Let's have a look at some differences between slang and accent.
People with a scouse accent would pronounce 'what's that?' as 'woss tha?'.
The Essex dialect (like many Northern dialects) involves missing out words. For example, they might say 'let's go shops' instead of 'let's go to the shops'.
We can tell that the first example is an example of an accent because the actual words they say sound different from standard English, whereas the dialect example doesn't change how the words sound but instead the word order (grammatical choices).
Dialect is important for a number of reasons:
Accents are important too:
Whilst both are specific to particular regions, accent refers to how a voice sounds, dialect influences the word and grammar choices of the speaker.
The difference between accent and dialect is that accent refers to how a voice sounds and dialect describes the grammar and lexical choices made by the speaker.
We naturally adopt the speech and sound patterns of those around us as we are growing up, manifesting our 'accent', as we develop our independent voice.
Accents have developed throughout history. They were established when people lived in more isolated environments, as there were fewer connections between cities, so the number of people that people interacted with was limited.
Similar to accents, dialects are developed in isolated communities between people who develop their own speech habits.
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