Language Regional Differences Flashcards
Accomodation theory
Giles- we change our speech style according to who we are speaking to.
Divergence- changing our speech to move away from other speakerI INCREASING SOCIAL DISTANCE (due to dislike)
Convergence- changing our speech style to move closer to other speaker REDUCING SOCIAL DISTANCE (build a relationship)
Howard Giles(1970)
How far speakers due to individual accent or character
Used matched guise technique
(one person representing all diff accents)
3 main parameters:
status
personality
persuasiveness
Giles findings
Status: ranked
1.RP
2.National accents
3.Regional rural
4.Regional urban
Personality:
RP=self confident,intelligent,cold
Northern= honest,reliable,generous,warm and funny
Persuasiveness= only those who had listened to presentation in their regional accents had changed their mind
Dr Lance Workman
Accent and perception of intelligence
1.Yorkshire
2.R.P.
3.Brummie and silent
BUT found no link between physical attraction
SE
accepted form of english understood by all users,defined by rules of usage
RP
received pronoucation
an accent marked by its association with wealth and power in uk
Regional accent
phonological pronunciation differences, depending on georgraphy
regional dialect
lexical and grammatical differences, depending on geogrpahy
language markers
elements of language that mark the speaker as deviating from standard form of language e.g. regional social age or gender related
overt prestige
a form of prestige that is universally agreed upon
covert prestige
a form that is valued by smaller groups than the whole of society
prescriptivism vs descriptivism
prescriptivism - H.C Wyld: may well be sophisticated valleys of usages, there is an idea there is a good and bad english
Descriptivism- Crystal : most ppl speak in a variety of english , SE is that language of the written mode and its important to remeber that
regional accents examples
Scouse
Welsh
Mancunian
Regional dialect examples
kecks-pants
Brassic-poor
Ginnell-alleyway
Dialect features (4)
double negatives
split negation
non standard contracted forms
archaic second person pronoun
Whats a double negative
“i ain’t got none”
split negation?
does he not want to?
vs
doesnt he want to
non standard contracted forms?
shell not go
or
i’ve not done it
archaic second person pronoun
“get thee gone”
deviate from thee
famous dialect debates
“chase me” -tag, tig, it
great bread debate- teacake, bun, bap
Labov- Martha’s vineyard
A small grp of fishermen began to exaggerate their speech- to establish themselves as an independent group with superior status to summer visitors.
Other islanders regarded this group as old and desirable values ,imitating the way they speak
overt prestige
-RP
(3)
conservative- royal fam
contemporary- made in Chelsea(more casual setting but elite sounding)
mainstream- a form of accent where there are no discernible markers (absence of regionality-keira knightly)
what is rp
accent not standard english
associated with power(overt prestige)
