Accent and Dialect Flashcards
1
Q
What is an accent?
A
How we say words.
2
Q
What is a dialect?
A
Words unqiue to that area.
3
Q
What % of the population speak RP?
A
2%.
4
Q
What is Dixon, Mahoney and Cocks study?
A
- Used a ‘matched guise’ approach.
- Explored the correlation between accent and perceived guilt.
- Suspects were perceived to be guilty if they had non-standard Birmingham form.
5
Q
What is Harringtons Study?
A
- Investigated Queen’s accent over 50 years of her Christmas speeches.
- Found that her accent was moving towards a general Southern English accent – due to interactions with non-RP speakers and gradual reduction on her language.
6
Q
What is Kerswills study?
A
- Studied dialect in Hull, Reading and Milton Keynes.
- The more people mix in different networks + more people moving in from elsewhere (social contact) = influences on accent variation.
7
Q
What is Labov’s Martha’s Vineyard study?
A
- Locals resisted dialect levelling due to ‘summer people’, claiming their identity as residents.
- Divergence was used to make change.
8
Q
What is Giles Matched Guise Experiment?
A
- Participants listened to a speaker using a guis and rated that accent on various features.
9
Q
What were Giles Matched Guise findings?
A
- RP = most intelligent and prestigious.
- Regional accents = friendly and honest.
- Brummie ranked least intelligent.
10
Q
Provide an contemporary example?
A
George Osbourne – during role of chancellor he seemed to drop his RP and move more to Estuary English, using ‘kinda’ compared to ‘kind of’.
