Accent and Dialect Theorists Flashcards
What did Jonathan Harrington track in 2000?
Tracked changes in the Queen’s speech over a thirty year period. Certain aspects of her speech have moved towards a more general southern British English variety, rather than RP.
What is an Anti-Language and who coined it?
A minority dialect, or method of communicating, within a minority speech community which excluded members of the main speech community. Identified by Michael Halliday.
Define indexicality.
The process by which pronunciations are attached to social meaning.
What is dialect levelling?
Linguistic varieties gradually become more similar, or levelled out, across a region or geographic area. Dialect levelling happens because of the movement of people and resultant dialect contact, the growth of universal education and literacy, and people engaging with the idea that there is a correct or standard way of speaking. Dialect levelling is happening in England, but not at the same rate or in the same way for all linguistic variables and not evenly in all geographical areas.
What did Britain, Blaxter and Leemann identify using the English Dialects App (EDA) and the Survey of English Dialect s App (SED)?
Found a considerable amount of dialect levelling, and a dramatic loss of traditional dialect forms that were well entrenched at the time of SED. This loss was more dramatic in the South than the North. Dialect levelling was more common among the young, the educated and the more mobile.
What was Rob Drummond’s study ‘Manchester Voices’ findings?
Although accents are always changing different accents and dialects are still well and truly alive in the region. Many people are extremely proud of the way they speak, creating a strong sense of identity and belonging to particular places and social groupings. People’s perceptions of the way they and other people speak don’t always match the reality.
What is General Northern English (GNE)?
Refers to a linguistic variety spoken across the North which has come about due to dialect levelling. Even though GNE might include some southern features, it also includes many typically northern features such as not having a trap-bath split or a foot-strut split, which are not from any specific place in the north.
What did Strycharczuk, Lopez-Ibanez, Brown and Lehman identify within dialect levelling and General Northern English?
Some young, educated, middle-class people in the North speak GNE which includes some general, northern linguistic features and has influences from southern accents, but does not have features linked to any single place in the North of England. This isn’t to say that everybody speaks GNE or that there is no linguistic variation in the North, however it can be shown that dialect levelling has happened to some degree in the north.
What is style shifting?
Style shifting refers to a linguistic variation in the speech of a person, style shifting is when a person speaks differently in different contexts. A person may style shift depending on who they are talking to, the topic of conversation or emotional state.
What does Sandow’s research suggest on the style shifting of speech?
People often use more standard linguistic features when they pay attention to their speech because they want to speak in a way that is seen as prestigious and correct. However, according to the research, some Cornish people use fewer standard linguistic features when paying attention to their speech because they want to reflect their Cornish identity and links to the local area.
What were the key findings within Sandow’s research of Cornish identities?
Lexical variation is highly structured in terms of the variation between speakers, in relation to strength of local identity and age, as well as between individuals in different contexts. Vocabulary is a tool through which speakers do a lot of social identity work, they use words to create identities for themselves that they deem desirable.
What does Amanda Cole identify with the ‘Essex accent’?
The accent of young people was becoming more standard and more similar to other accents in the South East, perhaps moving closer to Estuary English. Dialect levelling is happening in several different parts of South East England. The accent spoken by young people in Essex is built on the foundations of Cockney but has changed subtly overtime. Cole has shown that what many people now think of as an ‘Essex’ accent is actually very close to Cockney.
What do Cole and Strycharczuk identity within Estuary English and Standard Southern British English?
The speakers of both EE and SSBE tended to be White British, and women were more likely to speak SSBE than men. However it is important to note that the link between the speakers social, characteristics and the accent they were classified as was only a trend. People who speak the same accent share linguistic features and there are also some trends in the social characteristics of speakers.
What did Amanda Cole identify with accent bias in South East England?
Non standard accents in Britain typically have low social status, meaning they are not seen as prestigious or correct, but they have relatively higher social attractiveness, meaning they sound warm, appealing and friendly. Accent bias reflects existing biases and prejudices in a society and therefore disadvantages people from less privileged backgrounds, therefore social class was the factor that most affected how positively or negatively a person was judged.
What were Sharma, Levon and Ye’s findings from replicating Howard Giles study 50 years later?
Over the last 50 years there has been very little change in how accents are evaluated in Britain. The accents which were evaluated most harshly were ‘working-class varieties’, those from less privileged groups continue to be disadvantaged by accent bias.
What did McKenzie and McNeill find on positive attitudes towards accent?
Younger people were more positive about northern accents than older people were. Young women, especially those who had a strong northern identity, had particularly positive attitudes towards northern accents. Despite northerners implicitly thinking that southern accents were more socially attractive than northern accents, they were still more favourable about northern accents than southerners were.
What did Snell and Cushing find on grammar?
They did not find any evidence that non-standard grammar is actually appearing in students writing, despite Ofsted suggesting that the way a person speaks influences how they write.
What does ‘accent acquisition’ refer to?
When a person pick up a new accent and begins to speak differently to how they did previously, normally after relocating to a new place.
What does ‘accent attitudes’ refer to?
A persons judgements, ideas and opinion about an accent or people with that accent.
What does ‘accent bias’ refer to?
Any situation in which an accent is viewed more positively or negatively than another or when an individual has been judged, treated in a certain way or commented on because of their accent.
What is African American English?
A linguistic variety of English spoken by some African American people in the US. AAE is spoken in many different parts of the US and is often describes as an ethnolect.
What is careful speech style?
A content in which a person is playing close attention to their speech. In careful speech styles, people are normally more likely to use standard linguistic features than in casual speech styles.
What is a causal speech style?
A content in which a person is speaking casually and informally and is not playing close attention to their speech, for example, if they are chatting freely and openly with friends or family.
What is cockney?
A linguistic variety typically considered to be spoken by working-class people in East London.
