Accent & dialect Flashcards
what is overt prestige
the obvious type & use language associated w education, wealth & power
e.g) dialect= standard English, accent= RP
what is covert prestige
secret type & use language associated w coolness & authenticity
e.g) MLE
what is geographical mobility
how ppl migrate over time (causes accent & dialect change)
what is social mobilty
movement of ppl between social strata in society (causes accent & dialect change)
what is code-switching
the ability to move between different languages/dialects depending on context
what is upward convergence
move to a more overtly prestigious form of language
e.g) SE in a job interview
what is downward convergence
move to a more covertly prestigious form of language
e.g) MLE
what is accentism
prejudice against ppls way of speaking
what is classism
prejudice agaisnt ppls belonging to a social class
what did Giles’ accomodation theory suggest
Convergence: ppl make their language resemble that of their audience to improve communication
Divergence: use language to distinguish & distance themselves from others
e.g) Martha’s Vineyard
what happened in Labvo Martha’s Vineyard study
- found that locals created a sense of group identity through accent to differentiate themselves from tourists to maintain own distinct social identity
- subconciously converged accent w each other & diverged from tourists (them & us mentality)
Features of Bristolian
- rhotic r e.g) carrr
- terminal l e.g) concrete noun Asdal
- noun phrase ‘me babber’
- adjective phrase ‘gert lush’
- standardisation of the verb ‘to be’ e.g) I am= I be, she is= she be
features of MLE (multi-cultural London English)
- slang nouns ‘yard’ ‘mandem’ ‘ends’
- adjective ‘peng’
- tag ? ‘innit’
- new quotatives e.g) clauses ‘this is me…this is him’ (I said…he said)
who uses MLE & what prestige does it have
- black, white & Asian teens use it as a marker of social identity
- has covert prestige due to association w musicians, celebs etc.
what critiscms about MLE have been made
- quite new
- used by young ppl
- associated w wc communities
- associated w ethnic minorities & immigrant populations
features of Cockney
- th fronting pronouncing ‘th’ as ‘f’ & ‘v’
- glottal stop (wa? er)
- h dropping e.g) (h)appy
- Cockney rhyming slang e.g) apples & pears=stairs, mince pies=eyes
which RP speaker downwardly converged to Estuary English in their speech
Politician George Osborne
what is recieved pronunciation (RP)
a social accent associated w authority, power & wealth
-can evoke a hostile response b/c seen as elitist
explain Giles’ capital punishment study (1970s)
- 5 groups of students were presented w identical set of arguements against capital punishment
- 1 written & 4 oral presentations
- RP & written presentations deemed most impressive (more professional?)
- Birmingham presentation least impressive
what did the 2014 survey on accents show
in the UK Brummie accent voted least attractive (-53)
what did Choy & Dodd (1976) find out
teachers judged students’ abilities & personalities based on the way they speak
what did Dixon, Mahoney & Cocks (2002) find
- 119 pps listened to an exchange between a criminal & policeman
- 1 w an RP accent & 1 w a Brummie accent
- suspect rated more guilty when employing a Birmingham accent
who propsed the idea of social snobbery
Steven Thorne
- Uni of Birmingham found that the 2nd city’s much-maligned accent is highly favoured by foreign visitors
- see it as lilting & melodious rather than ugly & inferior
what did Julia Snell mean by accent solidarity
- in the face of powerlessness, wc communities turn to group solidarity
- vernacular forms which lack status within dominant sociolinguist economy may be used to assert status within local interactional use
