eye dialect
- noun
- /ˈaɪ ˈdaɪəˌlɛkt/
- Literature
:
dialecto visual
- The author used eye dialect to convey the character's Southern accent in the novel.
Examples
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Mark Twain often used eye dialect in his novels.
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Critics argue that using eye dialect can reinforce negative stereotypes about certain groups.
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When writers employ eye dialect, they often intend to give characters a sense of authenticity.
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Writers use eye dialect to capture regional accents.
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The author used eye dialect to convey the character's Southern accent in the novel.
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When writers employ eye dialect, they often intend to give characters a sense of authenticity.
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Writers use eye dialect to capture regional accents.
Surface Forms
Morphology
The parts 'eye' (visual/seeing) and 'dialect' (a regional language variety) give a clue that the term concerns a visual representation of speech, so a learner might infer a connection to how dialect appears in writing. However, the precise technical meaning—deliberately nonstandard spelling used to represent colloquial or uneducated speech—is a specialized, stylistic notion not fully predictable from the constituents, making the phrase only partially transparent.
Etymology
The noun eye dialect comes from the idea that writers make spellings for the reader's eye: they write words oddly so you can 'see' a character's dialect, even when the sound is almost the same. That's why it means 'using nonstandard spelling to show how someone speaks'.
