Attitudes To Accent And Dialect

Question 0

Trudgill and Hudson on some accents being ‘uglier’ than others.

Answer 0

Accents are not ‘uglier’ etc. There is no inherently ugly accent, certain accents just gain connotations of ugliness.

Question 1

Trudgill and Hudson on the loss of ‘h’ and ‘k’ sounds in English.

Answer 1

‘H’ likely to do the same as ‘k’. Some accents just don’t use ‘h’ - to do with geographical variation. It is not lazy!

Question 2

Giles and Trudgill (1970s).

Answer 2

Attitude in UK mean accents judged by social connotations, not by aesthetics of accents - top = BBC, middle = Geordie, bottom = Cockney. Same experiment with America with no bias as they don’t understand the social connotations - top = RP, middle = Cockney.

Question 3

Mugglestone.

Answer 3

The values and connotations associated with RP are changing - not valued as highly.

Question 4

Honey.

Answer 4

Prescriptivist. Believes that having a regional accent/dialect limits employment opportunities. Advised a girl on the radio that her strong Cockney accent would disadvantage her in later life.

Question 5

Harrington.

Answer 5

Studies all of the Queen’s speeches and found that even the Queen’s RP is changing - e.g. ‘thet cet’ is now pronounced ‘that cat’.

Question 6

Giles.

Answer 6

Study on capital punishment. Found that RP was the most impressive, but that regional accents were more persuasive.