Geographical location Flashcards
Les Parrott, professor at Seattle Pacific University
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
Joanna Thornborrow (2004)
‘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’
1961- Labov’s study in Martha’s Vineyard
Interviewed 69 people from different social groups like age, occupation and ethnic and focused on the pronunciation of the diphthongs /au/ and /ai/
Martha’s Vineyard main findings- who pronounced diphthongs like /eu/ and /ei/ but upside down e & why?
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
What backs up Martha’s Vineyard theory?
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
What is dialect?
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
What is accent?
Variation in pronunciation associated with a particular geographical region
What supports that different accents are to create identity
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
Lexical variation examples
‘Bap’- Scotland, may call it ‘morning roll’ or ‘softie’,
North East may say ‘bread bun’ or ‘stottie’
Yorkshire ‘bread cake’
Crumpet / pikelet
One of the most famous forms of dialectical variation
Cockney rhyming slang
Cockney rhyming slang examples
‘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
What accent shows people are using language to create some form of social identity?
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
Gary Ives 2014 studies in London and Bradford- what was the focus
Their language use and dialect
Cultural context for Bradford study
95% from Pakistani backgrounds
Majority from Mirpuri (Pakistan) large city surrounded by villages and farmland
South London study cultural context
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.
Bradford- How many teenage boys interviewed
8
When pushed why they spoke in a certain way, responses such as what showed that it was a more conscious choice?
‘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
What did the students in Bradford also distinguish themselves from?
‘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
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?
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
Why did a teenage girl never mix English with her second language
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
Conclusions drawn from Bradford study by Gary Ives in 2014
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
How does this Bradford school study link with Martha’s Vineyard?
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
South London- what words did students feel set them apart from other areas of the country?
Bare Calm- good, anything positive Bruv Hype Yard- one’s home Ends- from same area ‘she’s from my ends’
What does the South London study show?
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)
RP connotations
Evidence of good education- public schooling 19th century
Authority, status and power
Paul Kerswill MLE
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
Kerswill MLE findings
- 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!
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
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.
Belfast study results
She found that the people with higher network scores, so therefore those in a closed network, used more non-standard forms when speaking.
Howard Giles - ‘Capital Punishment’ experiment
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.
Capital punishments result
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.
Peter Tudgill - Norwich - What?
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.
Norwich results
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.
