Geographical location

Question 1

Les Parrott, professor at Seattle Pacific University

Answer 1

Wearing the right clothes does help form teen identities by ‘expressing affiliation with specific groups’
How teen identities are found:
- forbidden behaviours like smoking and drinking
- ‘through rebellion’ which seperates them from adults but gains acceptance of their peers
- ‘through idols’ celebs as role models
- ‘through cliquish exclusion’ where teens exclude those who they believe have unacceptable or unattractive characteristics

Question 2

Joanna Thornborrow (2004)

Answer 2

‘One of the most fundamental ways we have of establishing our identity, and of shaping other people’s views of who we are, is through our use of language’

Question 3

1961- Labov’s study in Martha’s Vineyard

Answer 3

Interviewed 69 people from different social groups like age, occupation and ethnic and focused on the pronunciation of the diphthongs /au/ and /ai/

Question 4

Martha’s Vineyard main findings- who pronounced diphthongs like /eu/ and /ei/ but upside down e & why?

Answer 4

In a small group of fishermen between ages of 31 and 45 & Up-islandrs (original inhabitants in western end not popular with tourists)
Done to establish identity of themselves as Vineyarders, distancing themselves from tourists. This was to retain a social identity and propagate a ‘them and us’ mentality.

Using lng to create an identity

Question 5

What backs up Martha’s Vineyard theory?

Answer 5

Although various pit villages along the coal seam of South Yorkshire were only a couple of miles apart, participants in study claimed there were differences in accents

In biggest coal seam (Barnsley) accent viewed as ‘stronger’ and the further you travelled away from this seam, the ‘weaker’ the accent became

Question 6

What is dialect?

Answer 6

A way of speaking influenced by geography. Includes lexical variations and grammatical deviations from Standard English.

Variation jn words and structures associated with a particular geographical region

Question 7

What is accent?

Answer 7

Variation in pronunciation associated with a particular geographical region

Question 8

What supports that different accents are to create identity

Answer 8

Newcastle and Sunderland only 10 miles apart but distinct differences in their dialect. Your dialect can be very specific to where you live so can be linked to a sense of belonging and pride

Question 9

Lexical variation examples

Answer 9

‘Bap’- Scotland, may call it ‘morning roll’ or ‘softie’,
North East may say ‘bread bun’ or ‘stottie’
Yorkshire ‘bread cake’

Crumpet / pikelet

Question 10

One of the most famous forms of dialectical variation

Answer 10

Cockney rhyming slang

Question 11

Cockney rhyming slang examples

Answer 11

‘Joanna’ to mean ‘piano’
‘Pork-pies’ to mean lies
‘Plates of meat’ to mean feat
‘Ruby murray’ curry

First used by petty criminals

Newer phrases like ‘Calvin Klein’ to mean wine

Question 12

What accent shows people are using language to create some form of social identity?

Answer 12

Paul Kerswill MLE
A lot of the core speakers are in the East End of London, where they have low opportunities, and so one of the mechanisms when people find themselves unable to make progress in life is to speak differently as an exclusionary strategy

Question 13

Gary Ives 2014 studies in London and Bradford- what was the focus

Answer 13

Their language use and dialect

Question 14

Cultural context for Bradford study

Answer 14

95% from Pakistani backgrounds

Majority from Mirpuri (Pakistan) large city surrounded by villages and farmland

Question 15

South London study cultural context

Answer 15

Students came from a wide range of ethnic, religious and cultural backgrounds.
% of students who speak eng as a second language and from minority ethnic backgrounds significantly above national avg.
Highest proportion of these students came from an Afro-Caribbean background.

Question 16

Bradford- How many teenage boys interviewed

Answer 16

8

Question 17

When pushed why they spoke in a certain way, responses such as what showed that it was a more conscious choice?

Answer 17

‘We mix Punjabi and English’
‘It’s all about our area’
‘We use a different language so [other people] don’t know what you’re saying’
‘We might speak English to mum and dad but with our friends we add in Punjabi

Question 18

What did the students in Bradford also distinguish themselves from?

Answer 18

‘Freshies’ who were born in Pakistan and moved to Eng
They identified themselves as ‘British Asians’
They didn’t look down on freshies but didn’t feel connected to them or their accents

Question 19

In another interview, a boy felt that all his peers used similar slang and identified several key words snd phrases that unified the group, what are some examples?

Answer 19

Sick
Heavy much
Swag
Bare
Killed it

Included Punjabi when speaking with friends and referred to ‘Punjabi’ as the ‘secret language’ - idea that using language to create a group identity

Question 20

Why did a teenage girl never mix English with her second language

Answer 20

She felt she was in the the minority at school whereas if there were more Indian people in her social group she would be more likely to use it

Question 21

Conclusions drawn from Bradford study by Gary Ives in 2014

Answer 21

The subjects use language to create a well-defined social identity
They comment how they speak differently from their parents and ‘elders’.
They all agree that as a teenage British Asian they all use the same diverse forms of language to be part of a social or friendship group.
The students felt their lexis was influenced by a wide mixture of influences like popular culture and their postcode, being born in eng and their age

Question 22

How does this Bradford school study link with Martha’s Vineyard?

Answer 22

They differentiate themselves from others with Pakistani backgrounds and will use language to exclude those people from this social group.

Definite attempt to use language to exclude others and to feel included with peers
Language acts as a unifying mechanism

Question 23

South London- what words did students feel set them apart from other areas of the country?

Answer 23

Bare
Calm- good, anything positive
Bruv
Hype
Yard- one’s home
Ends- from same area ‘she’s from my ends’

Question 24

What does the South London study show?

Answer 24

Language synonymous with group identity regardless of ethnicity or cultural background. Teens are immersed in particular aspects of that culture which consciously influences their use of language (several of subjects white British teens but used lexis from a Jamaican/ Afro-Caribbean origin)

Question 25

RP connotations

Answer 25

Evidence of good education- public schooling 19th century

Authority, status and power

Question 26

Paul Kerswill MLE

Answer 26

Found it came from young people from different backgrounds trying to communicate (over 300 languages spoken in London)
Focused on how MLE was received by others- negative view ‘Jhadi John’ saw as a threat to cockney, gangster culture

Question 27

Kerswill MLE findings

Answer 27

• Some slang words are from Jamaican backgrounds like ‘bare’ but there is also a lot of slang that has originated from England like ‘my ends’. Therefore, Jamaican patois has nOt intruded England.
• In areas where less than 50% people are white British and there is a lack of funding, people are more family orientated and community based due to being unable to travel away. This is how words from different cultures mix in with English and create a new language.
• Young people of different ethnic and cultural backgrounds use MLE so it is less about race, ethnicity or culture and more about age!

Question 28

Milroy - Belfast Study

Closed Network - When one’s contacts know each other/a close-knit group of friends
Open Network - When one’s contacts don’t tend to know each other

Answer 28

She gave every individual that she studied a number from 1-5 based on their ‘network strength’. 5 meant that they had a very high network strength (i.e a closed network), and 1 meant that they had a very low network strength (i.e an open network). She then studied each person on several linguistic variables, like, for example, how they pronounced the ‘th’ in mother.

Question 29

Belfast study results

Answer 29

She found that the people with higher network scores, so therefore those in a closed network, used more non-standard forms when speaking.

Question 30

Howard Giles - ‘Capital Punishment’ experiment

Answer 30

He presented five groups of students with an identical set of arguments against capital punishment. One group were given a written presentation, and the other four were given an oral presentation. Within the oral presentations, one was presented by an RP speaker, one by a Somerset speaker, one by a South Welsh speaker and the last by a Birmingham speaker.

Question 31

Capital punishments result

Answer 31

When asked how impressed they were with how successful the presentations were …

• The RP speaker and the written presentation were deemed the most impressive.
• The Birmingham presentation was deemed the least impressive.

When asked about their opinion’s on Capital Punishment before and after the presentations …

• Those hearing the regional speakers presentations were more likely to change their opinions
• Those who listened to the RP speaker or reading the written presentation didn’t seem as likely to change their opinion

Therefore, he concluded that RP is deemed more professional than the regional accents, but the regional accents were more persuasive.

Question 32

Peter Tudgill - Norwich - What?

Answer 32

He was interested in H-omission and the pronunciation of -ing. He believed that people who spoke with received pronunciation were immediately thought to be unfriendly and untrustworthy, and children who spoke with ‘working-class accents’ were seen as having less potential than other kids by teachers.

Question 33

Norwich results

Answer 33

The proportion of people in Norwich who dropped the ‘g’ in words ending with -ing (like walkin’) was higher in lower classes

People in all classes seemed to pronounce the -ing ending more when they were more focussed on their speech. Perhaps this is an attempt to sound like you belong to the upper class.