Regional Variation Flashcards
Identity
created by individual characteristics. It can also be linked to a particular social group where members of the group share common characteristics. A range of factors helps us to create identity and the consensus is that we begin to think about identity in our teenage years.
Language choice contributes to creating identity.
Joanna Thornborrow 2004
“one of the most fundamental ways we have of establishing our identity and shaping other people’s views of who we are, is through our use of language”
This use may include specific lexical choices to help form this identity, grammatical constructions in speech and variations in phonology (or a combination of all three)
Conscious or subconscious use of language for identity is not new in sociolinguistics.
Labov
1961 William Labov study in Martha’s Vineyard (can only be accessed by boat or plane) focused on dialectology.
Labov was interested in diphthongs, interviewed 69 people of different social groups, asking questions which encourage use of words containing these vowels.
certain groups shared tendency to pronounce diphthongs more like /eu/ and /ei/
this was found in a group of fishermen and up islanders (original inhabitants)
concluded this identified them as islanders albeit subconsciously
propagates a them and us mentality
Dialect and Accent
Dialect: a way of speaking that is influenced by geography. It will include lexical variations and grammatical deviations from standard english. This is linked to accent (the pronunciation of words).
-e.g. NI gravy-rings for doughnuts.
-Elements of some dialects are dying out, in Yorkshire there is a movement to retain the accent.
-Stereotypes are attached to accents: Scousers will rob you, Geordies are drinkers and violent, Brummies are slow/unintelligent
-UK dialectal variation is the result of invasion and immigration. Places which are very close to each other have very different accents. Accent is very specific to where people raised.
-end of bread: heel (North), crust (South)
Yorkshire: has words rooted in language of vikings, it was one of their main settlements
Nadine Cole : lives in America but has kept Irish accent to retain identity
Cockney Rhyming Slang 1
East end, part of London identity, uses rhyming words to transfer meaning, developed in 19th century. Used by criminals to conceal what they were talking about.
-2012 London Olympics: cash machine asks “English or Cockney?”
• amounts in cockney were: lady Godiva, speckled hen, a horn of plenty”
• “fast sausage and mash”, cash, east end famous for pie and mash
Cockney Rhyming Slang 2
Cockney idiomatic phrases: being used outside London and are used as idiomatic phrases
social mobility saw Londoners leaving to other parts of the country,
Rhyming slang has incorporated pop culture: Britneys for beers, Tonys for flares
began to die out in early 20th century but came back in 50s and 60s being used by gangs in the east end
television introduced it to wider audiences, for example ‘The Sweeney’ 1970s about detectives from London’s flying squad (Sweeney Todd, Flying Squad)
The Minder and Only Fools and Horses popularised the slang throughout the country
MLE
a factor in variations of english is migration, with dialects associated with cultural groups such as Caribbean or Asian
Daily Mail 2013: headline “Hybrid dialect dubbed ‘multicultural London English’”, claims the dialect to be prevalent “among people with few opportunities”
recognises that much of the slang is Afro-American or Jamaican in origin and is often picked up at a young age, particularly in schools where 50% of pupils ave English as a second language
Paul Kerswill (quoted in Daily Mail): “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 or are discriminated against is to speak differently, to use that as an exclusionary strategy. Here again, we are faced with the issue of identity- people are using language to create some forms of social identity.”
Gary Ives 2014 Case Studies (Bradford)
• Bradford: 95% of students are from Pakistani backgrounds the majority are Mirpuri (in Pakistan), Mirpur is a large city surrounded by villages and farmland, part of Kashmir
—asked why they speak like that: “it’s the way we’re born” “it’s natural”,
—when pushed: “we mix Punjabi and English”, “it’s all about our area”, “there’s different types from different areas”
—distinguished themselves from “freshies” who had just come from Pakistan, offered distinction based on postcode
—used as a secret language to create identity, maybe only used among certain people
—some think it is linked to music
—some, however, who feel that they are a minority, mainly use english
—taboo language replaced with Punjabi equivalents, found funny or may be more socially acceptable
—differentiate themselves to other Pakistani backgrounds, comparison to Labov
Gary Ives 2014 Case Study (London)
• London: students come from a range of ethnic, religious and cultural backgrounds. Percentage of students who speak English as an additional language and who are from minority ethnic brackgrounds is significantly higher than national average. The highest proportion of these students is from an Afro-Caribbean background
—the majority of subjects chose to talk about the words and phrases which they felt “set them apart” from other areas of the country
—often replace standard verb form (chatting to mean talking, getting to mean being), changing nouns to verbs (hype to mean hyping), changing an abstract noun to a less abstract form (madness)
—language was not about ethnicity but where you live now. several white British teenagers us Jamaican or Afro-Caribbean lexis. It was about language identity being synonymous without having the same background. could be that teenagers are immersed in particular aspects of that culture, which consciously add purposeful influences in their language
—many people ave a fixed notion of dialect being a way of speaking depending where you live. There is probably the assumption that a dialect doesn’t change, although evidence suggests that it does.
Sue Fox and MLE
13 year old boy in The Independent article: “everyone in my school speaks like this…it’s because you hear the cool kids saying these words and then you have to do it too. You’ve got to know them all and you’ve got to keep up. Nobody wants to be uncool”
Sue Fox’s article suggests ethnicity is not the important factor, but because of the various languages influencing the speech of those around them, a new variety of english has emerged from the mix
“One of our most interesting findings was that we’d have groups f students from white anglo-saxon backgrounds along with those of Arab, South American, Ghanaian and Portuguese descent, and they all spoke with the same dialect”
MLE speakers sound the same regardless of their ethnic background
one young girl on her eight ear old cousin from inner London: “People say he speaks like a black boy, but he just speaks like a London boy”
Multiple negation
is used throughout the UK. To say “i didn’t do nothing” literally means “i did something” which likely isn’t the speaker’s intention. was the norm in West Saxon old English and was in Chaucer’s writing: “no man nowhere so virtuous”
However by 18th century, Lowth stated in his ‘Short introduction to English Grammar’:…….
Grammatical Variations
• “sorry I were late”
• “it’s okay, you was late yesterday too”
-this is non-standard English wording.
-in some parts of the country (North and midlands), the verb in these cases are unmarked (plural form were for a singular pronoun)
-some dialects in the South East of England also use the same unmarked version but instead use the singular for “I was/you was/they was”
Others include:
• double subject: “I’m always late me”
• Ellipsis of definite article: “we’re going t’shop”
• various pronoun variations: “give us a ring”, “youse”, “hisself”
• Preposition variety: “lunch is twelve while (meaning until)”, “I’m going Sam’s house”, “I got off of the bus (instead of I got off)”
• Adverbial variation: “He ran quick”
1980s and University
more young people started going to university, polytechnics given university status and would ask for lower grades, better education changes language use,
Received Pronunciation and BBC English
regionally neutral accent of the ‘middle’ class, suggests social background and education. Rose to prominence in the 19th century in public schools, since has spread, becoming associated with authority, status and power.
• clipped precise tones
• long vowel sounds
• about 2% of UK population
Sometimes called ‘BBC English’, although news presenters since 2008 when Diretor General Mark Thompson called for more regional accents. According to Daily Telegraph, “The move follows complaints from licence fee payers that the BBC was ignoring large parts of the country by failing to employ people with regional accents - even on local news programmes”
Thompson: “we could hear a broader variety of English accents across output”
Examples of variations in pronunciation
th fronting: pronouncing th as f, occurs in southern english
Hair and Fir have the same vowel sound in Liverpudlian English
National Dialects and Dialect Levelling
• despite language diversity, there is a theory that regional diversity is dying out. There are also, however, new regional dialects such as MLE which challenge dialect levelling.
• Dialect levelling is the process by which language forms of different parts of the country converge and become more similar over time, losing regional features and so diversity lessens
• There is n argument that UK is moving towards a national dialect
