Accent And Dialect/ Social Groups Flashcards
William Labov
NYC Department store
Found that high end stores pronouns post vocalic/r/ in forth floor, middle class stores when they were asked to repeat it, and low end never
William Labov
Martha’s Vineyard
The native fisherman tried to diverge their pronunciation away from the tourists to create a social divide (overt prestige)
Milroy 1977
Belfast
Found people in high density relationships used more non standard lexis, and their accents were more reinforced.
measured the /th/ in mother and /a/ in hat
Peter Trudgill
Norwich
Found women think they use the prestigious variant more than they do, and men think they use it less than they do.
Measured the use of the -ing velar nasal
Basil Bernstein
Claimed working class students use a restricted code and middle class use both restricted and elaborated as they are more geographically, socially and economically mobile.
Dr Samuel Johnson
1755
Promoted a dictionary with standardised meanings and spellings
David Crystal
Accent and Dialect
Identified 5 characteristics of standard English
1) Not regional
2) distinctive grammar, lexis and orthography but not pronunciation
3) most prestigious variant
4) promoted by educational institutions
5) commonly used in printed texts
Accent
The tone and pronunciation of words within a region
Dialect
A form of language that is spoken in a specific region
Accent levelling
Where differenced between regional varieties are reduced
Connotations of regional accents
good natured, humurous, kind
criminality, violence, unintelligent
Connotations of RP
Intelligent, ambitious, wealthy
cold, snobby, rude
Williams (Milton Keynes study)
Found a melting pot of accents (accent levelling with older children
Could be due to less family interactions and more with young people)
Restricted code defintion
Informal spoken English often featuring colloquialisms, idioms and non standard English
Social network theory
A ‘Web of ties’ research focuses on the relationship between individuals and a group
