Essay On Dialect Quiz
Josh Katz dialect quiz was based on data from the Harvard Dialect Survey conducted by Bert Vaux and Scott Golder. Josh Katz narrowed 122 questions from the Harvard Dialect Survey into 25 questions to make the results more easily examined. With a total of 25 questions in this dialect quiz, the quiz can map out how different words are used more commonly in different regions. With only 25 questions it is said to predict a person’s dialect region. Looking closer at the phonology, syntax, and lexicon of each question given in the quiz, we can see the type of questions that Josh Katz picked. Looking at the phonology part in the dialect quiz, we can see that it is used quite often. The dictionary definition of phonology is, “the science of speech sounds, including especially the …show more content…
Lexicon is, “the words used in a language or by a person or group of people” (Lexicon, n.d). The first question that is shown in Josh Katz dialect quiz asked in “The New York Times” said, “How would you address a group of two or more people?” (2013). From the “Dialect Survey Results”, the most used word is “you guys” (42.53%) and least used word is “yins” (0.37%) (n.d). You guys are used widely in California, Upper Midwest, Upper North, and Lower North but yins are only used in Pennsylvania. Lexicons are used more commonly because words can be easily changed or influenced by many