CASE STUDIES Flashcards
What was the focus of the Milton Keynes study?
To investigate ten speech sounds that had different pronunciations.
What were the two variables of the speech sounds?
(ou) - the dipthong vowel
(u) - the long vowel
What are some examples of the (ou) pronunciation?
coat, moan, RP kite, RP mine etc.
What are some examples of (u) pronunciation?
move, shoe, RP tu, RP grun etc.
What was the sample used?
48 children, 16 four-year-olds, 16 eight-year-olds and 16 twelve-year olds, with one caregiver for each child. Each child had been born in Milton Keynes or had moved there by age two.
What were the two main sections of the recordings?
Elicitation tasks.
Spontaneous speech.
What are some examples of elicitation tasks?
Using quizzes, ‘spot-the-difference’ pictures and map-reading tasks.
What are some examples of spontaneous speech?
Interviewing the children about their school, friends and homes and by making recordings in the playground using radio microphones.
What were the findings?
Children on average ‘front’ their vowels considerably more than adults. The oldest girls have the greatest degree of fronting, with the younger ones having scores similar to those of the caregivers. The speech of older children (around 12) quite closesly represents the characteristics of the ‘new speech community’ which is developing in Milton Keynes.
What can we conclude from the findings?
The findings suggest the fronted vowel is likely to be a characteristic of the new Milton Keynes dialect, and that the patterns are not identical for each vowel. It is reasonable to conclude that the group of the older children (around 12) does most of the sociolinguistic work in new dialect formation.
