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Accent and Dialect (seneca) - Coggle Diagram
Accent and Dialect (seneca)
Introduction
one of the most obvious ways we can tell differences in language is by listening to how people pronounce things
how you speak (generally) indicates where you were raised
e.g. you can tell if someone is from Newcastle because they will (generally) speak with a Geordie accent and use terms like "pet"
in linguistics, we use the terms accent and dialect
we say that dialect is the words that are fairly unique to an area
accent describes how words are said. Everybody speaks with an accent, even if they think they don't
Giles' Matched Guise Experiment
one way that linguists investigate accent is by performing a matched guise experiment in which participants will listen to a speaker using a guise (an accent put on by the speaker) and rate that accent on various features
Giles' research details that received pronunciation (RP) was seen as the most intelligent and prestigious, whereas regional accents were seen as friendlier and more honest
the Brummie accent was ranked bottom for intelligence
Received Pronunciation
RP is the very posh sounding accent spoken by the Queen. The Oxford English Dictionary defines it as being a "standard accent" of Southern English
phonological features of RP
(we call these features shibboleths, which means they are a feature of a group)
use of the trap/bath split - the long a (/a:/) in words like "bath"
H-retention - /h/ is always pronounced in initial positioning in words like "house"
non-rhoticity - not pronouncing the /r/ at the end of words like "mother"
conservative vowels - sounds like they "ought to"
yod-coalescence - includes the /j/ (pronounced "y") sound in words like "rain", "Spain" and "Tuesday"
ways of looking at RP
RP is prescriptivist (prescriptivism is all about there being right and wrong uses of English. Prescriptivists believe we should promote the right uses and shun the wrong uses) - it is associated with Standard English (SE)
RP carries overt prestige (a very open form of status) - it has high status due to association with "The Establishment" and is labelled "The Queen's English"
RP is an artificial construct - it doesn't offer any clues about background (and so is regionless)
RP is outdates - only about 2% of the population use it
RP is universally recognised - it is about the most widely recognised "English" by foreigners
theories
Jonathan Harrington
's study
Harrington has investigated the Queen's accent over 50 years of her Christmas speeches and believes that her accent has started to move towards a general Southern English accent
this has been done via her interaction with people who don't speak RP and a gradual reduction in her accent
study about
George Osbourne
whilst in his role as Chancellor, Osbourne was seen to drop his RP accent and use an accent closer to Estuary English when speaking to workers
he used things like "kinda" instead of "kind of" and "Briddish" instead of "British"
he was seen to be using his RP again in Parliament
AC Gimson
's study
Gimson argued in 1962 that there were times that RP could be a decided disadvantage, especially in social situations where empathy and affection are needed
this is backed up by Linda Mugglestone who believes that RP's prestige is on the wane
Giles and Powesland
Giles and Powesland had a speaker who delivered a talk about psychology to 2 sets of students
one set had the talk performed with an RP accent and the other had the talk performed with a Brummie accent
the group voted the RP speaker as higher, saying that Brummie was less intelligent
Howard Giles
in Giles's Capital Punishment experiment, 5 groups of students were given the same script (4 oral and 1 written)
all were spoken in a different accent: RP, Somerset, Welsh and Brummie
RP was rated highly in competency and reliability, but was rated low in persuasiveness and was seen as "posh and snobby"
Brummie Accent
Brummies don't have the most flattering qualities attributed to them
Peter Trudgill
investigated variations in relationships to show variations in class and regional forms of accent
the triangle shows that as social class decreases, regional variation increases
Worcester College
Worcester College played participants clips from a police interview
Brummie suspects were significantly more likely to be labelled as guilty
participants labelled the Brummie accent as more likely to be poor and working class
University of Aberdeen
the University of Aberdeen conducted a study of jokes, and found that Brummie was often the funniest accent and RP was the unfunniest
dialectal variations
one of the easiest ways to map dialectal variations is to look at what names people give to things
e.g. bread rolls can be called a barm cake, bap, cob, roll or bun
Peter Trudgill
believes that we can classify dialectal words into 2 categories
traditional dialects use "old" and often rural lexemes and grammatical constructions
mainstream dialects are the more common lexical and grammatical constructions, used by a majority within a geological area
through a process called lexical attrition, traditional dialectal words are dying out
London Case Study
London is brilliant to talk about for accent and dialect. It is an area that has changed its accent and dialect a number of times over the past 200 years. There are 3 main varieties
Cockney Rhyming Slang
(CRS)
origins
a dialectal variation found in London (not really anymore though) that originated from the criminal underworld in the 1800s as a way of communicating without the police understanding
e.g. "brown bread" meaning "dead" and "trouble and strife" meaning "wife"
CRS stopped being used by criminals when it was adopted into common usage by non-criminals - it stopped being deictic
spreading
you can see how CRS has spread through the fact that most people know "telling porky pies" means "telling lies"
in media
while the dialectal terms of CRS are rarely used now, a weakened version of the Cockney accent is still in use, propelled by the popular TV soap "Eastenders"
Estuary English
origins
linguist David Rosewarne coined the term "Estuary English" to describe the variation of English that arose from around the Thames Estuary
this is defined as a mixture of RP and Cockney
features
glottal stop - missing out the "t" in the middle of words like "butter"
the dark l (/ɫ/) - pronouncing "l" sounds with an "ulll" sound
the /aʊ/ (ow) pronunciation in words like mouth closer to /eə/ (air) in words like hair
TH-fronting - pronouncing the "th" words with an "f" sound. e.g. "thing" becomes "fing"
spreading
Estuary English acts, as Paul Coggle suggests, as a bridge between Cockney and RP speakers and so serves as a bridge between the classes in South East England
in addition, Estuary English has spread all over the UK with there being speakers with EE elements spotted as far away as Glasgow
Multicultural London English
(MLE)
origins
MLE is a variation that has arisen from migration bringing in speakers of English from areas where English isn't their first language
these groups of speakers have led to MLE being spoken very broadly in diverse inner-London areas (like Hackney)
Paul Kerswill believes that within 30 years, MLE will replace Cockney completely
spreading
MLE has spread and is now becoming a part of the speech of teenagers up and down the country, spread mostly by grime music, as exemplified by Stormzy
an issue for linguists comes when we have to draw the line between what is an idiolect (your personal language), sociolect (the language of a social group) and dialect (the language of a region)
many news publications use the term "Jafaican" (fake Jamaican) to describe MLE
features
indefinite pronoun "man" - e.g. "man's not hot"
"why ... for?" question frame - e.g. "why you revising English for?"
/h/ retention - keeping the "h" sound in words like "house"
Jamaican slang - e.g. "blood" for "friend"
TH-stopping - creating a harsh stopped "t" sound instead of a "th" sound e.g. "ting" instead of "thing"
