"paralect" meaning in English

See paralect in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: paralects [plural]
Etymology: para- + -lect Etymology templates: {{confix|en|para|lect}} para- + -lect Head templates: {{en-noun}} paralect (plural paralects)
  1. An idiolect that closely approximates the dominant or most prestigious language form, but differs slightly, reflecting the speaker's original dialect, especially as regards to accent.

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for paralect meaning in English (2.8kB)

{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "para",
        "3": "lect"
      },
      "expansion": "para- + -lect",
      "name": "confix"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "para- + -lect",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "paralects",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "paralect (plural paralects)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English terms prefixed with para-",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English terms suffixed with -lect",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1970, Language, XLVI:ii, parts 2-4, page 684",
          "text": "One misses a theory of exceptions in this book, since this lack is what makes ‘marginal cases’ so upsetting for phonemic analysis. There is also no mention of the possibility that an investigation of the reductions found in Punti (leveled, but variable local mixed) paralects could contribute a great deal to a theory of language in general and to an understanding of the component varieties of Chinese in particular.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2010, Yves Talla Sando Ouafeu, Intonational Meaning in Cameroon English Discourse, page 60",
          "text": "Hyperlect represents the socially privileged marked RP accent, while paralect refers to the variety which is “very close to RP but [which] retains a few tiny non-standard features”.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2012, Andy Kirkpatrick, Roland Sussex, English as an International Language in Asia",
          "text": "Although this figure is not confirmed by sociolinguistic research, and it is not clear what are the speech practices of the other 47% (most probably vernaculars, dialects that are unintelligible to Putonghua speakers, and minority languages), it does sketch out the scale of Putonghua and its quasi-equivalent paralects within China and beyond.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2014, Katie Wales, A Dictionary of Stylistics",
          "text": "By analogy with CREOLE studies, John Honey (1985) posited a LECT continuum, ranging from the basilect (the broad regional accent) to the acrolect (RP), with many people reaching a paralect (i.e. an approximate acrolect) stage.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "An idiolect that closely approximates the dominant or most prestigious language form, but differs slightly, reflecting the speaker's original dialect, especially as regards to accent."
      ],
      "id": "en-paralect-en-noun-KsPIxrMu",
      "links": [
        [
          "idiolect",
          "idiolect"
        ],
        [
          "approximate",
          "approximate"
        ],
        [
          "dominant",
          "dominant"
        ],
        [
          "prestigious",
          "prestigious"
        ],
        [
          "original",
          "original"
        ],
        [
          "dialect",
          "dialect"
        ],
        [
          "accent",
          "accent"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "paralect"
}
{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "para",
        "3": "lect"
      },
      "expansion": "para- + -lect",
      "name": "confix"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "para- + -lect",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "paralects",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "paralect (plural paralects)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English countable nouns",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English nouns",
        "English terms prefixed with para-",
        "English terms suffixed with -lect",
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1970, Language, XLVI:ii, parts 2-4, page 684",
          "text": "One misses a theory of exceptions in this book, since this lack is what makes ‘marginal cases’ so upsetting for phonemic analysis. There is also no mention of the possibility that an investigation of the reductions found in Punti (leveled, but variable local mixed) paralects could contribute a great deal to a theory of language in general and to an understanding of the component varieties of Chinese in particular.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2010, Yves Talla Sando Ouafeu, Intonational Meaning in Cameroon English Discourse, page 60",
          "text": "Hyperlect represents the socially privileged marked RP accent, while paralect refers to the variety which is “very close to RP but [which] retains a few tiny non-standard features”.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2012, Andy Kirkpatrick, Roland Sussex, English as an International Language in Asia",
          "text": "Although this figure is not confirmed by sociolinguistic research, and it is not clear what are the speech practices of the other 47% (most probably vernaculars, dialects that are unintelligible to Putonghua speakers, and minority languages), it does sketch out the scale of Putonghua and its quasi-equivalent paralects within China and beyond.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2014, Katie Wales, A Dictionary of Stylistics",
          "text": "By analogy with CREOLE studies, John Honey (1985) posited a LECT continuum, ranging from the basilect (the broad regional accent) to the acrolect (RP), with many people reaching a paralect (i.e. an approximate acrolect) stage.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "An idiolect that closely approximates the dominant or most prestigious language form, but differs slightly, reflecting the speaker's original dialect, especially as regards to accent."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "idiolect",
          "idiolect"
        ],
        [
          "approximate",
          "approximate"
        ],
        [
          "dominant",
          "dominant"
        ],
        [
          "prestigious",
          "prestigious"
        ],
        [
          "original",
          "original"
        ],
        [
          "dialect",
          "dialect"
        ],
        [
          "accent",
          "accent"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "paralect"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-06 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.