Accents and Dialects

Question 1

Malcolm Petyt/Trudgill

Answer 1

• Non-standard language and social class is linked. Conducted an experiment in Norwich and Bradford, asking people a question which would require answer beginning with H.
• In Norwich and Bradford, it is widely percieved as good to pronounce the ‘h’ in words such as ‘hill,’ ‘hammer,’ and considered bad not to pronounce the ‘h’. These attitudes are due to the fact that middle class accents (and RP) tend to pronounce h, whereas lower class regional accents do not.
• Lower working class dropped the sound statistically more than those in higher classes.
• The results indicated a clear example of the relationship between the usage of a grammatical feature and social class as 83% of the Upper Middle Class in Bradfordand 94% of the Upper Middle Class in Norwich pronounce h as opposed to 7% of LWC in Bradford and 40% of LWC in Norwich pronounced h.

Question 2

Peter Trudgill

of course they did

Answer 2

• Developed Petyt’s theory but focused on the ‘Ng’ sound. Men use less standard language than women.
• Men believe they used more standard language while women believe that they use less. The lower the class = the less standard English used.

Question 3

Labov’s New York Department store.

Answer 3

• Study of unconscious and conscious speech of different classes. Looked at 3 department stores (Saks, Macys, S.Klein) asking for directions to departments of the fourth floor and then to repeat their answer.
• There was an increase in the ‘r’ sound t in all of the stores final answer.
• Saks used the ‘r’ sound the most in both answers. Macy’s saw the greatest increase of using the sound.
• S.Klein used the rhotic sound the least.

Question 4

Labov Martha’s Vinyard

con vs diver

Answer 4

• Study on how people adapt to accents over time.
• Surveyed an island with a population of 6000 but had 40,000 visitors per year. Found Islanders adapted to the accent of the visitors over time.
• Younger generations spoke more like the visitors due to popularity and socio-linguistic maturation.
• Fishermen changed their vowel sounds in order to sound different from Visitors to seek solidarity and identity.

Question 5

Berstein

Language, Social class & codes of expression.

Answer 5

• Study of how social class can impact language use and how that can impact a person’a academic performance.
• Belief that people from various social classes have different degrees of exposure to and mastery of elaborated and restricted codes of communication.
• Theory argues that these two codes reflect the different experiences and cultural values of different social classes.
• The use of a particular code can affect a person’s social mobility and opportunities.

Question 6

Labov’s New York Department store.

Answer 6

• Study of unconscious and conscious speech of different classes.
• Looked at 3 department stores (Saks, Macys, S.Klein) asking for directions to departments of the fourth floor and then to repeat their answer.
• There was an increase in the ‘r’ sound t in all of the stores final answer.
• Saks used the ‘r’ sound the most in both answers.
• Macy’s saw the greatest increase of using the sound.
• S.Klein used the rhotic sound the least.

Question 7

Labov Martha’s Vinyard

Answer 7

• Study on how people adapt to accents over time.
• Surveyed an island with a population of 6000 but had 40,000 visitors per year.
• Found Islanders adapted to the accent of the visitors over time.
• Younger generations spoke more like the visitors due to popularity and socio-linguistic maturation.
• Fishermen changed their vowel sounds in order to sound different from Visitors to seek solidarity and identity.

Question 8

David Rosewarne Estuary English (1994)

Answer 8

• The Estuary English theory refers to the observation and analysis of a variety of English spoken in the estuary region of the River Thames in Southeast England.
• Theory proposes that this variety, known as Estuary English, is a distinct accent and dialect that has emerged as a blend of Received Pronunciation (RP) and local London accents.
• Estuary English is characterized by features such as the use of glottal stops, intrusive “r” sounds, and a more relaxed pronunciation of certain vowel sounds.
• It has gained recognition as a prominent accent in the UK since the 1980s.

Question 9

The Norwich study

Peter Trudgill

Answer 9

• An example of the usage of a grammatical feature and social class was evident in the study of third person inflections used by Norwich speakers. Researchers counted and calculated percentage scores for individuals (and then social classes) who used third person singular present tense verb forms with and without ‘s.’
• The results illustrated that there is a clear relationship between dialect and social class with 0% of the Upper Middle Class using third person singular present tense verb forms without ‘s’ and 97% of the Lower Working Class using third person singular present tense verb forms without ‘s.’
• E.G. ‘She goes, It gives, he thinks.’ versus ‘He think, she go, It give’

Question 10

Accent

Answer 10

The distinct pronunciation patterns of a group of people.

Question 11

Dialect

Answer 11

À non-standard variety of a language, including lexis and grammar, particular to a region.

Question 12

Idiolect

Answer 12

Your own individual way of speaking.

Question 13

Giles matched guise technique

Answer 13

• The matched guise test is a sociolinguistic experimental technique used to determine the views and feelings of people towards a certain dialect or accent.
• The experiment revolves around a procedure of a variety of different students, acting as judges, listening to what they believe are different people’s accents and dialects (social and regional), and then evaluating their personal qualities solely based on their voice.
• However, they do not know that the ‘different people’ is just a single person speaking in the different accents heard. The test was executed by the listeners not able to see the speaker, therefore allowing them not to know it was the same person.
• This focuses on the findings that the judges solely judge the person by their accent, as the way of speaking and everything else is the same bar the accent. The topic talked about in the different accents were arguments against capital punishment - the arguments were completely identical; this allowed Giles to understand how persuasive the listeners found the speakers, despite the fact each argument was identical.
• Giles tested responses to different accents using three main parameters:
  Status - how powerful and important the speaker appeared to be.
  Personality - testing what traits of character came across
  Persuasiveness - how believable the person seemed.
• Findings:
  His results showed a ranking order of this kind for status: RP, National Accents - E.G. Welsh, Scottish, Regional rural accents, Regional urban accents
• Personality - RP = self-confident, intelligent and ambitious but also cold and ruthless.
• Northern accents = honest, reliable, generous, sincere, warm and humorous.
  The students listening concluded that Received Pronunciation was the most impressive and influential, and the Brummie accent was the least imposing and convincing.
  The information found from this technique closely matches similar research done in recent times; in 2014 a survey found that the Brummie accent was the least attractive, showing similar results are found over 40 years on.

Limitations
The judges may eventually understand midway through the recording that the ‘different speakers’ are only in fact the single person. This may lead to their results being untrue and therefore unreliable.

Question 14

Downward convergence

Answer 14

Making your accent or lexis more informal.

Question 15

Intonation

Answer 15

• The pitch (how high or low you are in your vocal range)

Question 16

Inflection

Answer 16

• An ending such as -ed, -s or -ing added to change a tense or number, or in the case of nouns to make a plural.

Question 17

Idiom

Answer 17

A form of common non-literal expression (eg. ‘ was dead on my feet)

Question 18

Pace

Answer 18

The speed at which you talk

Question 19

Accomodation Theory

Answer 19

This is when an individual uses language that is similar to other interlocuters to ‘fit in’

Question 20

Covert Prestige

Answer 20

When an individual moves away from standard forms of English

Question 21

Overt Prestige

Answer 21

When an individual conforms to standard forms of English

Question 22

M.A.K Halliday, A McIntosh, P Strevens – The Linguistic Science and Language Teaching:

Answer 22

• Rural dialects are often tolerated and some are praised as ‘soft’, ’pleasant’ or ‘musical’.
• Urban dialects are frequently said to be ‘slovenly, ‘harsh’, or ‘degenerate’

Question 23

Allan Bell – Style and Audience:

NZ Radio Stations

Answer 23

• Bell developed a theory of audience design which suggests that the person of people you are speaking to will have the greatest effect on the type of language you use.
• He studied the varieties of English used by newsreaders on New Zealand radio stations and found that their pronunciation differed between stations.
• Bell investigated sociolinguistic variables such as how speakers pronounced /t/ (writer, better). In NZ, this may have a standard [t] pronunciation or may be voiced (rider, bedder).
• Bell discovered that what he termed as the more ‘formal’ pronunciation was used often on a mainly ‘educated’ station with a more ‘professional’ audience, less on ‘general audience’ stations and least on rock stations.
• In regards to this information, Bell claimed that it is the different audiences for each station that affect the newsreader’s speech, while factors such as the topic mix of news and studio setting remain constant.
• This supports the theory that in face-to-face interactions, speakers use different varieties of English depending on the person they are speaking to

Question 24

Joan Swann – Style Shifting and Code Switching:

Answer 24

• Speakers routinely draw on varieties of English when communicating with others.
• Looks at variation within English which has often been represented as a range of speaking styles associated with different contexts.
• Language variability serves as a social indicator, conveying certain information about you and also being a resource that can be drawn upon by speakers to represent different aspects of their identity.

Question 25

Allan Bell – Style and Audience:
The way that people talk will differ according to different contextual factors.

3 W’s

Answer 25

• Where speakers are
• Who they are speaking to
• What they are speaking about

A speaker’s speech style will differ along several linguistic dimensions:
- Pronunciation,
- Grammatical structures
- Lexical choices

Speech variation has often been related to the formality of the context, the degree of formality isn’t enough to explain variation and we must therefore use a distinctive regional variety of language when talking to people from the same geographical region for example.

Question 26

Code-switching

Answer 26

• The ability to move between different types of language in order to suit the needs of your interlocutor.

Question 27

Convergence

Answer 27

Where a speaker moves towards another speaker’s accent, dialect or sociolect

Question 28

Divergence

Answer 28

Where a speaker actively distances himself/herself from another speaker by accentuating their own accent or dialect

Question 29

Elaborated codes

Answer 29

• Language used in formal situations. Uses complex sentence structures, precise grammatical conventions and advanced vocabulary. Often associated with those in a higher social class with access and experience in an educational environment.

Question 30

Restricted code

Answer 30

• Language used in informal settings. Simpler vocabulary, fewer sentence structures and less precise grammatical conventions. Associated with lower social classes who may not have had access or experienced an educational environment.