Regional Accents Studies Flashcards
Who proposed Martha’s Vineyard Study
Labov
What was Martha’s Vineyard study?
- foscused on the realisations of the diphthongs “aw” and “ay”
- took place on an island off of New England USA
- Found that younger speakers (31-45) were moving linguistically away from the pronounciation of standard New English norms and towards pronounciation of conservative vineyard speakers like the Chilmark fisherman
- heaviest of users were young men who actively sought to identify themselves as Vineyards
When and who proposed the New York Study
1966- Labov
What was Labovs New York study?
- investigated the speech of sales assistants in 3 Manhattan stores (lower, middle, upper class)
- found that lower middle class were most susceptible to overt prestige of the pre-consonantal “r”
- upper middle class were least susceptible to overt prestige
When and who proposed restricted and elaborated code
1971 - Bernstein
What was restricted and elaborated code study?
- restricted code = less syntax, more cliches, more pronouns, used in informal situations (speech is exchanged against shared experiences)
- elaborated code = formally correct syntax, fewer unfinished sentences, used in formal situations (arises when there is a gap between the listener and speaker like if they don’t know them)
- looked at two 5 year old children one of working class and one of middle class who had to describe a picture
- lower working class didn’t use elaborated code at all only restricted
- middle class used more elaborated code
When and who proposed the Reading Playground study
1982 - Jenny Cheshire
What was the Reading Playground study?
- Cheshire identified two non standard forms and measured the frequency of use on boys and girls in a playground, making note of those who approved or disapproved of minor criminal activities
- all children who approved of minor criminal activities used more non standard forms
- all children who disapproved used non standard forms less frequently therefore less suspecting to covert prestige forms but the difference between the girls was more prevalent
- males are more susceptible to covert prestige
- social attitudes is more of a determining factor than gender
When and who proposed Norwich Study?
1974 - Trudgill
What was the Norwich study?
- looked at men and women from Norwich from working and middle class and g dropping in the suffix “-ing” such as “working” or “doing”
- class is more of a determiner of non standard forms than gender
- men over reported use of non standard form use
- upper middle class women tend to use RP and overt prestige
- lower middle and upper working class difference in language great see in formal speech
When and Who proposed the Matched Guise Study?
1970 - Howard Giles
What was the Matched Guise study?
- a public speaker did the same talk in different accents such as RP, National accents (Irish, Welsh, Scottish), regional rural accents (Bristol) and regional urban accents (Cockney, Scouse)
- people ranked them and found that RP had the most status, regional urban the least
- RP was seen to be confident, intelligent but cold and ruthless
- northern accent was seen to be honest, reliable, humorous and warm
When and who proposed the Belfast Study?
1975 - Milroy
What did the Milroy Study find?
- men whose speech revealed high usage of vernacular or non standard for,so were also found to belong to tight knit social networks
- women used less non standard forms because the belong to less dense social networks
- it was how closely or loosely knit a social group of a person belonged to that determined their use of local dialect forms
What did Watson (2008) find?
Liverpudlians (Scousers) identify heavily with their region as they have regional pride and are resisting dialect levelling
What did Kerswill propose?
Dialect levelling and Geographical diffusion
- dialect leveling refers to the reduction or elimination of marked differences between dialects over a period of time.
- Dialect leveling tends to occur when speakers of different dialects come into contact with one another for extended periods
- urbanisation is the key driver behind dialect levelling as people move to cities and away from rural towns therefore people mix and dilute their accents
- Geographical diffusion is the process by which linguistic features spread out from a populous and economically and culturally dominant centre
What is Gary Ives (2013) study?
- Bradford school
- Asked British Punjabi teens about their language and found they speak English at home but at school they use abusive Punjabi words to create identity
What was the South London School Study?
- multicultural London
- usage of words that “set them apart” from others like ‘neek’, to create identity, saving face and positive self image.
- this was a secret language with distinctions within their postcodes e.g. the “BD3 haircut”
Montgomery (2000)
Social information based on remoteness, sociological, economic, psychological and technological factors creates out ideas about sets and subsets of language users
Who proposed Communication Accommodation Theory (CAT)
Howard Giles
What is CAT?
The theory which suggests we converge our accents to be liked due to accent prejudice
Rosewarne (1984)
- Estuary English
- middle ground of Cockney and RP
- Spoken by middle class young people
- fit into new environments by converging but do not lose their original linguistic identity therefore perceived as a neutral accent
- “classless” profile
- evolution of language
Dixon, Mahoney and Cock (2002)
The perceived guilt of one who committed as crime was increases when they heard a Brummie Accent
