Accent and Dialect

Question 1

Accent

Answer 1

The way in which people pronounce sounds

Question 2

Dialect

Answer 2

Vocabulary and grammar choices

Question 3

Received Pronounciation

Answer 3

Accent associated with education, prestige and upper-class speakers. Unlike other accents, it doesn’t not indicate a speaker’s regional origin, although it is widely associated with Southern England

Question 4

Standard English

Answer 4

Dialect associated with educated users that is considered to be formally ‘correct’ and is used in written texts. Like RP, SE does not indicate regional origin; it can be spoken with a regional accent

Question 5

Distribution

Answer 5

A features used within the language inventory of an individual or group

Question 6

Estuary English

Answer 6

A recent accent variety used in south east England which combines RP with some aspects of regional southern accents. ‘Estuary’ refers to the Thames Estuary area

Question 7

Dialectal levelling

Answer 7

This term refers to the standardisation of dialect that we are now seeing. Traditional rural dialects are dying out and more complex urban varieties are on the rise (e.g. Estuary, Posh Scouse)

Question 8

Isogloss

Answer 8

A geographical boundary indicating where certain items of language are used

Question 9

Slang

Answer 9

Language used in informal contexts that is widely recognised and not restricted to a particular region

Question 10

Prescriptivism

Answer 10

Prescriptivists favour rules that identify ‘correct’ language usage. They disapprove of uses of language that break these rules.

Question 11

Descriptivism

Answer 11

Descriptivists seek to describe, as accurately and objectively as possible, how a language is used. They do not attach value to a particular use of language

Question 12

Multicultural London English (MLE)

Answer 12

A sociolect of English that emerged in the late 20th century: spoken authentically by working-class, mainly young people in London (certain features are spreading further afield); has elements of Caribbean, South Asian and African American English

Question 13

Creole

Answer 13

Variety that has developed from a ‘pidgin’ or trade language to become a stable language used by speakers as their mother tongue

Question 14

Patois

Answer 14

An alternative term for creole, sometimes spelt ‘patwa’ to distance the language from apparent connections to Europe, and to suggest how it should be pronounced

Question 15

Pidgin

Answer 15

Grammatically simplified form of a language, typically English, Dutch, or Portuguese, some elements of which are taken from local languages; used for communication between people not sharing a common language

Question 16

Code-switching

Answer 16

Describes how speakers move from one language to another for more extensive periods of time

Question 17

Code-mixing

Answer 17

Refers to the occasional insertion of vocabulary items from one language into another

Question 18

Rhotic

Answer 18

Accent where speakers produce the post-vocalic /r/, such as in many rural accents in the south-west region of the UK

Question 19

Glottal stop

Answer 19

A closure of the vocal chords. This can be used to replace /t/ in some regional accents

Question 20

Resistance identity

Answer 20

An identity that goes against mainstream culture

Question 21

Labov - New York Department Store study

Answer 21

• Looking for social stratification of post-vocalic ‘r’
• Believed that the higher the social class of a speaker, the more frequent the occurrence of rhotic /r/ in their speech
• Looked at the speech of sale assistants in three Manhattan stores and ranked them according to social class
• SAKS (Upper Class), Macy’s (Middle Class), Klein’s (Lower Class)
• Each sales assistant was asked directions to a certain department up on the 4th floor of the store (expecting to get the answer ‘fourth floor’) and asked them to repeat this in order to see if they used ‘careful speech’
• Found SAKs used rhotic accent the most - standard NYC accent favoured rhoticity as it was used by a higher social class
• When using careful speech, the employee used the rhotic accent more than during spontaneous speech

Question 22

Labov - Evaluations

Answer 22

• What constitutes to being a social class? Labov merely assumed that the stores he conducted his observation in were lower, middle and upper class respectively; lowers validity and generalisability
• Only conducted in American department stores so may not generalise to department stores worldwide

Question 23

Giles - Matched guise experiment

Answer 23

• RP was seen as the most intelligent and prestigious
• Regional accents were seen as friendlier or more honest
• Brummie was ranked bottom for intelligence
• CONCURRENT VALIDITY W. AZIZ INDEX

Question 24

Giles - Capital punishment experiment

Answer 24

• 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’

Question 25

Gimson

Answer 25

• There are times where RP could be a disadvantage such as social situations where empathy and affection are needed
• This is backed up by Mugglestone, who believes that RP’s prestige is on the wane

Question 26

Brummie Accent

Answer 26

• Dixon et al. - played ps clips from a police interview and Brummie suspects were significantly more likely to be labelled as guilty, poor and working class
• University of Aberdeen - Brummie was deemed the funniest accent

Question 27

Trudgill - categories of dialectal words

Answer 27

• Traditional dialects - use ‘old’ and often rural lexemes and grammatical constructions
• Mainstream dialects - more common lexical and grammatical constructions, used by a majority within a geographical area
• Through a process called lexical attrition, the traditional dialectal words are dying out

Question 28

Dialect levelling - Estuary English

Answer 28

• An English variation that arose from around the Thames Estuary
• Paul Coggle suggests that it acts as a bridge between Cockney and RP speakers and so serves as a bridge between classes in SE England