paralect
paralect noun: 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.
Noun
paralect (plural paralects)
- 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.
- 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...1970, Language, XLVI:ii, parts 2-4, page 684
- 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”.2010, Yves Talla Sando Ouafeu, Intonational Meaning in Cameroon English Discourse, →ISBN, page 60
Forms of paralect
| plural | paralects |
|---|
Origin of paralect
From para- + -lect.
Questions about paralect
- What does paralect mean?
- Paralect means 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.
- What part of speech is paralect?
- Paralect is a noun.
- What is the plural of paralect?
- The plural of paralect is paralects.
Words near paralect in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: paralect (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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