Accent Flashcards
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet)
Used to represent the different sounds of English, there is some overlap between this and the actual alphabet but some symbols are unique to it.
Northern vs Southern Pronunciations
‘bath’, ‘glass’ Northern vowel = /æ/ Southern vowel = /a:/
‘put’, ‘cup’ Northern vowel = /ʊ/ Southern vowel = /^/
Estuary English
Combines RP and cockney to get the over prestige of RP and the covert prestige of cockney.
Features: glottalised ‘t’ = /?/ in ‘water’
Velarised ‘f’ = /ɫ/ in ‘football’
William Labov - Department Store Study
Investigated use of post-vocalic /r/ in ‘fourth’ and ‘floor’ in NYC
The sales assistant from Saks, the highest class store, used the post-vocalic /r/ the most
The sales assistant from Klein’s, the lowest class store, used the post-vocalic /r/ the least
Accent is dependent on class as well as region.
William Labov - Martha’s Vineyard Study
Chilmark Fishermen - Lived there for generations, working class
Islanders - Moved as adults, rich
Summer People - Tourists, regular Americans
The Islanders changed their accent to be more like the Chilmark Fishermen to differentiate themselves from the Summer People
/aʊ/ vowel in ‘out’ and ‘house’ became /əʊ/
Identity and prestige affects accent as does region.
Social Networks
The people you know and the relationships between them.
Closed - Everyone knows each other
Open - No one knows each other
Uniplex - You know people in 1 context - Friend only
Multiplex - Multiple contexts - Brother, Friend, colleague
James Milroy and Lesley Milroy
Belfast features - consonant in ‘mother’ /ð/ becomes /d/, vowel in ‘hat’ /æ/ becomes /ɔ:/
More closed your network, more Belfast features
Men typically have more closed networks than women but this was changing because of male unemployment and increase in female employment
Peter Trudgill
Studied g-dropping in Norwich. Velar nasal /ŋ/ vs alveolar nasal /n/.
The upper middle class use the /ŋ/ 29% in casual chat, 100% when reading a word list. The lower working class use the /ŋ/ 0% in casual chat and 28% when reading a word list.
Class and style affects accent as well as region.
Howard Giles - Accommodation Theory
People change how they speak according to interlocutor.
Convergence - Speaking more like your interlocutor. Decreases social differences.
Divergence - Speaking less like your interlocutor. Emphasises social differences.
Desire for closeness or distance with interlocutor affects accent as does region.
Nik Coupland
Cardiff travel agent style-shifted to be more like her clients.
When her client used the stigmatised flapped /t/ more, she did as well. The class and accent of our interlocutor affects our accent.
