Accent and Dialect Flashcards
1
Q
What is accent?
A
the distinct pronunciation a community of people use
2
Q
What is dialect?
A
the distinct words and grammar a community of people use
3
Q
What is RP?
A
- received pronunciation
- associated with respect, good education, and high social status
4
Q
What percentage of the UK population speak with an RP accent?
A
2% (guardian)
5
Q
what is adoptive RP?
A
when people pick up or optionally choose to speak with an RP accent
6
Q
What is upper crust RP?
A
When the older generation speak it due to tradition
7
Q
RP origins
A
used in public schools and universities in Oxford and Cambridge
8
Q
BBC and RP
A
in the 1920s, BBC adopted the accent, which exposed the accent to aspiring upper-class people
9
Q
What is SE
A
Standard English
10
Q
What is SE associated with?
A
- regarded as prestigious
- associated with the government, law, church and financial industry
11
Q
What percentage of the UK use SE?
A
12%
12
Q
What is overt prestige?
A
When you conform to the formal and linguistically “correct” way of speaking
13
Q
What is Covert prestige?
A
- When you don’t conform to the formal or linguistically “correct” way to speak
- more vernacular: expresses solidarity, community, and group identity more than authority
14
Q
what is a prescriptivist
A
someone who believes that traditional norms of language usage should be upheld
15
Q
What is a descriptivist?
A
someone who believes that views on language use should reflect the actual contemporary state of language
16
Q
What is Estuary English?
A
includes features of both RP and cockney
17
Q
what are the attitudes towards Estuary English
A
it is seen as fashionable and classless
18
Q
The future of Estuary English
A
there are predictions that It will replace RP overtime
19
Q
William Labov: Martha’s Vineyard study
A
- 1961
- a small island in Massachusetts
- he found the pronunciation of certain vowel sounds were subtly changing from standard American ones
- this was done subconsciously in order to establish and identify themselves as an independent social group
- example of covert prestige
20
Q
Howard Giles: accommodation theory
A
- 1973
- people will sometimes try to make their language resemble that of the people around them
- this is done as a social strategy and to improve communication
- example of overt prestige
21
Q
Choy and Dod: Judgments on students
A
- 1976
- teachers make judgments on students based on how they speak
22
Q
Peter Trudgill: RP
A
- 2000
- Non RP speakers assume that RP speakers are ‘haughty and unfriendly’
- children with working-class accents may be seen by their teachers as having less education potential
- prescriptivist approach
23
Q
Paul Kerswill: dialect levelling
A
- 2001
- increasing social mobility has led to the consequent breakdown of tight-knit working-class communities
- dialect levelling caused by social mobility
- descriptivist approach
24
Q
Dixon, Mahoney, and Cocks: accent and perceived guilt
A
- 2002
- subjects listen to dialogue between police officer and suspects
- the suspects with Birmingham accents were seen as significantly more guilty
25
Neulip and Speten-Hansen: Ethnocentrism
- 2013
- ethnocentrism = seeing ones own culture as the norm and any others as abnormal
- two groups watched the same speaker, he did the same things only had an American accent with one group and a 'non-native' accent in the other group
- as the 'non-native' speaker, the man had lower ratings on credibility, attractiveness, and similarity to the subject
- therefore suggests non-native speakers and how they are perceived can depend on the ethnocentricity of others
26
Alan Ross: U and non-U
- 1950
- u represents upper-class
- non-u represents aspiring upper-class
- 1954 paper 'linguistic class-indicators in present-day English'
- Nancy Mitford initiated a debate
- suggests the upper class have nothing to prove therefore don't attempt to achieve overt prestige
- middle-class people prefer fashionable words to seem more refined
- a reflection of the anxieties of the middle-class in Britain in the 1950s
27
Basil Bernstein
- 1924-2000
- presented ideas of restricted code and elaborated code
- restricted code: language use of the working-class, which was simple constructions
- elaborated code: language used by middle-class, wich was much more formal and in depth
- he suggested that this distinction is one of the factors that effects comparative performance in school
28
Basil Bernstein: CRITISISMS
- everyone uses both elaborated and restricted code
- language is not as fixed as implied by the theory
- language is on a linguistic and social continuum
29
Peter Trudgill: Norwich Study
- 1974
- found that in all social classes, the more attentive people were to their speech, the less likely they were to use velar nasal, glottal stops, and h dropping
- found that the lower social classes used the most non-standard forms
- found that men used the most nonstandard forms, regardless of social class
- men were more likely to use overt prestige whereas men were more likely to use covert-prestige
- he did find that the middle class and upper class were the most inclined to impress and were aware of their accent
30
Jenny Cheshire: Reading Study
- 1982
- studies the relationship between grammatical variables and peer group culture
- focused on youth speech and how it correlated with their level of 'toughness'
- people in the toughest groups were more prone to using nonstandard forms
- measured this by asking the groups how they felt about petty crime and recorded and measured their reactions
31
MLE
- Multicultural London English
- a sociolect is predominantly spoken by young working-class people
- dialects such as Cockney, Jamaican, and Indian have influenced MLE
32
MLE: origins
- from the late 1940s onwards as part of a post-war drive to recruit workers for Britain's public services, there was large scale immigration from the Caribbean to the UK
- this birthed a second and third generation of London Jamaican
33
MLE: features
- no features of h dropping
- glottal stops
- Th fronting
34
MLE: opinions
people think its a lazy accent
- concerned on the job prospects
- don't think it presents people as an intelligent person
- Prescriptive example
35
MLE: David Starkey
- the white attempt to be black and the black attempt to be white
- they share fake Jamaican language so people feel they live in a foreign land
36
Cheshire: MLE
- 2011
| - economic deprivation leads to the maintenance of close kin and neighbourhood
37
Labov: New York Study
- 1966
- studied the post-vocalic /r/ in 'fourth floor'
- did study in three shops in New York, Klien, Macy's, and Saks
- it's not the persons own social group that controls their language, but the people around thems
- link to accommodation theory
38
Drew and Heritage: institutional talk
- 1993
- members of a community share implicit ways of thinking, communicating and behaving
- languages is used to aid communication and enhance discussion in a group e.g.: Jargon
- social groups influence the language you use
- there are hierarchies of power in organisations, demonstrating linguistic asymmetry (e.g. Miss Bickley and Mr Vissard, marked by language use)
39
Nik Coupland: travel agent study
- 1984
- focused on code-switching
- explored hoe travel agents in Cardiff speak differently to clients and colleagues
- found that your language adapts depending on the social group of the people you are talking to rather than your own
40
Penelope Eckert: Jocks and Burnouts
- 2000
- explored social practices of American students in Detroit
- attitudes towards school reflected in their language
- Jocks concerned with speaking in a socially prestigious way (reflecting middle-class backgrounds)
- individuals in their groups tended to speak more like those who they shared social practices and values with
41
Penelope Eckert (Jocks and Burnouts) and Jenny Cheshire (Reading Study) CRITICISMS
- both studies conducted with young people and cannot be attributed to our general society
- 20 years old: social standards and representations of youth have h=changed
- distinct social groups e.g. Jocks have become less relevant to our society now
42
Yorkshire accent: origins
- in the early 20th century, in factories across the north, velar fronting was used so that the workers could be understood better over the machinery
- e.g. saying 'dem' instead of 'them'
- therefore the Yorkshire accent tends to have more associations with the working class
43
Milroy: social network theory
- 1987
- explored a concept of a social network is a web of ties
- focused on the relationships between individuals and the contact patterns between group members
44
Joanne Thornbarrow
- 2004
- most fundamental way of establishing our identity is through use of language
- this is mainly through our lexical choices, grammatical constructions and variations in phonology
45
Norris
- 2007
- identity is constantly interactively constructed on a microlevel
- we have our own identity construction and we adapt this slightly depending on who we interact with
