Kerswill's Study Flashcards
What did Kerswill study?
The spread of features associated with Cockney and/or Estuary English
What features did Kerswill look for? Name 3
Multiple negation, th-fronting, t-glottalization
What did Kerswill use to show boundaries of linguistic features?
Isoglosses
What are Isoglosses?
Lines drawn on a map to show the limits of linguistic features
What 3 cities did Kerswill research in?
Milton Keynes, Reading, Hull
Who did Kerswill test his linguistic feature spread on?
4, 8, 12 year olds and their mothers usually
How did Kerswill test with the children and the parents?
Gave the children spot the difference games, directly interviewed the parents
Why were Milton Keynes and Reading chosen?
They had lots of social and geographical mobility in them, which would affect Dialect and accents and influence of social class on accents possibly
Why was Hull chosen?
Even though it was not as prosperous, it was chosen to observe the accent and linguistic features change for a geographically isolated city
What social class were most people from Hull in? What generation were the children?
Most were working class, children were 3rd generation locals
What was found in Milton Keynes with newcomers?
Newcomers spoke a variety of regional accents
What was found in Milton Keynes with children?
4 year olds spoke like their parents. Children aged 8 to 12 spoke Estuary English dialect with a Milton Keynes accent
What was found in Reading with the speed of accent change? Why?
Accent change was slow as accents were still influenced by their parents
What was the only change observed in Reading residents?
Older residents had a more rhotic accent
What did younger speakers in Reading use?
t-glottalization
What was found in Hull with younger residents?
Young speakers kept the accent of their older relatives
What is an example of young people in Hull keeping their older relatives accents?
‘u’ phoneme in ‘but’ was said like how southern people say ‘put’
What did young speakers use in Hull that was separate to their older relatives?
Th-fronting
What was Kerswills conclusion in Milton Keynes and Reading for children?
As children got older, they moved to the less vocalised parts of speech
What was Kerswills conclusion in Hull for children?
As there was not good education in Hull, children felt like they could not move up a social class felt they had no need to make their accents more formal
Why was there some presence of accent change in Hull for young people?
th-fronting and glottalization was more present due to media influence and peer influence
