Accent and Dialect

Question 1

Martha’s Vineyard (William Labov-1961)
What?

Answer 1

-Labov was interested in phonological variation and investigated the vowel sounds /au/ and /ai/ (in words like mouse and mice)
-These are called diphthongs

Question 2

Labov- Where?

Answer 2

-Researched this on an island called Martha’s Vineyard
-It’s heavily populated by summer tourists

Question 3

Labov- How?

Answer 3

-He interviewed 69 people of different ages and social groups from the island
-He encouraged them to say certain words with the diphthongs that he was studying
-This way, the people he was interviewing found the conversation more natural and wouldn’t necessarily guess what he was trying to research

Question 4

Labov- What he found?

Answer 4

-Fishermen pronounced the /au/ and /ai/ vowel sounds more prominently than any other group
-He concluded that this meant that they were trying to subconsciously distinguish themselves as Vineyarders and distance themselves from the tourists as they believed that they infringed on their traditional island lives
-Young people between the ages 31-45 centralised around these vowel sounds more than other age groups- this may be because the fishermen are seen as the desired social group and many wanted to reject the speech style of the mainland
-The islanders distanced themselves from the tourists by adjusting their language. This might suggest that social groups have a big influence on language variation and language change

Question 5

Code Switching (Gary Ives-2014)
What?

Answer 5

-Code switching os where people mix their first and second languages
-For example, English and Punjabi

Question 6

Code Switching-How?

Answer 6

-Ives carried out two studies (one in London and one in Bradford) and questioned people about their language use and dialect

Question 7

Code Switching-His Results
(Bradford, 8 teenage boys, school A)

Answer 7

-When they were originally asked why they spoke this way, they gave responses such as ‘it’s where we leave’, and ‘everybody speaks like this’.
-When questioned further, they hinted that it was a conscious choice for them to code-switch
-Some of them said it was because other people who aren’t Pakistani won’t understand what they’re saying and some said that with their parents they’ll speak English but they add in Punjabi when talking to friends
-A student added that they especially code-switch when it came to swearing as it was like a ‘secret language’

Question 8

Code Switching-His results
(London, school B)

Answer 8

-Interviewed many teenagers from a school in south London and found that MLE was heavily influenced by Afro-Caribbean and Jamaican culture e.g. ‘hype’ and ‘bruv’ have roots in these cultures
-These students came from a wide variety of backgrounds and the % of children spoke English as an additional language and who are from a minority ethnic group was significantly higher than the national average
-The highest proportion of these students come from an Afro-Caribbean background, some of the other students were white British but still use lexis from Afro-Caribbean and Jamaican cultures which shows that MLE is more about group identity than social identitiy