SHHS Accent and Dialect theory and terminology

Question 1

Joanna Thornborrow (2004) claims what about identity?

Answer 1

‘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.’

Question 2

What is Standard English?

Answer 2

The dialect of English that is considered to have the most prestige and is used in the education system and in formal written texts

Question 3

What is slang?

Answer 3

Referring to words and phrases which are considered informal

Question 4

What is dialect?

Answer 4

Dialect can be lexical features, or grammatical variations typical to a specific region of the country

Question 5

What is taboo language?

Answer 5

Lexical choices which can be deemed to be offensive, including swear words or inappropriate/unacceptable words

Question 6

What are neologisms?

Answer 6

New words which enter the vocabulary

Question 7

What is occupational register?

Answer 7

Sometimes stemming from personal interests, an occupational register or jargon is largely based on shared understanding between certain groups or individuals, e.g. the language used by ‘gamers’

Question 8

What is Received Pronunciation?

Answer 8

This accent is used in the teaching of English as a foreign language and is used in dictionaries which give pronunciations. This has led to it being viewed as the ‘correct’ and most esteemed accent; it is often associated with prestige and formality: for example, it is the accent adopted by the Queen

Question 9

Regional accent

Answer 9

The way you pronounce certain words depending on where you live

Question 10

How did English dialects emerge?

Answer 10

As a result of invasion and immigration

Question 11

Where does the Scouse dialect come from?

Answer 11

Spoken in Liverpool. Largely influenced by the arrival of many migrant workers from Ireland into the city, but is a mix of many dialects

Question 12

Where does Geordie come from?

Answer 12

Spoken in the North East. Can be traced back to the settlement of Anglo-Saxons in the North East approximately 1500 years ago.

Question 13

Where does Brummie come from?

Answer 13

Spoken in Birmingham. Can be traced back to Anglo-Saxons

Question 14

Where does the Yorkshire dialect come from?

Answer 14

Spoken throughout the Yorkshire counties. Many words have origins in the language of the Vikings

Question 15

Where does Mancunian come from?

Answer 15

Spoken in Manchester. Similar to Scouse, Mancunian is likely to have developed through an influx of migrant workers moving to the city for work. This was most prevalent when Manchester became a port during the Industrial Revolution

Question 16

Where does ‘Cockney Rhyming Slang’ come from?

Answer 16

According to John Ayto’s Oxford Dictionary of Rhyming Slang it is thought to have originated in the East End of London during the first half of the 19th Century. Probably first used ‘by street sellers, beggars, and petty criminals’

Question 17

James Orr’s opinion on Cockney Rhyming Slang?

Answer 17

It is dying out: ‘Modern Londoners are just as baffled by Cockney Rhyming Slang as the rest of the country’

Question 18

David Crystal’s observations on the future of Cockney Rhyming Slang?

Answer 18

That the nation’s current obsession with celebrity culture has been responsible for more additions, e.g. ‘Pete Tong’ for ‘wrong’ and ‘Brad Pitt’ for ‘fit’

Question 19

What is an idiomatic phrase?

Answer 19

A phrase that has an accepted and known meaning that is different from the dictionary definition of the word. Usually well known or metaphoric cliches

Question 20

What is social mobility?

Answer 20

When a person moves from one social class or level to another - this may occur through changing jobs, getting married or through change in a person’s economic or financial situation

Question 21

What is MLE?

Answer 21

‘Multicultural London English’ - a hybrid dialect which has West Indian and South Asian, Cockney and Estuary roots and is most prevalent in East London, among people with few opportunities

Question 22

What does Paul Kerswill say about MLE?

Answer 22

‘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’

Question 23

Gary Ives (2014) Bradford Case Study?

Answer 23

Interviewed eight teenage boys in school in Bradford, where 95% of students are from Pakistani backgrounds. Discovered that boys here code-switch - mix Punjabi and English and use it as a different language so others can’t understand them.

Question 24

Gary Ives (2014) South London Case Study?

Answer 24

Interviewed teenage boys in school in South London, where highest proportion of students come from Afro-Caribbean background, but included white teens also. Discovered that the students used words and phrases specific to their group, which ‘set them apart’ from other areas of the country. Many of these words had Afro-Caribbean/Jamaican roots

Question 25

William Labov (1961)

Answer 25

study that took place in Martha’s Vineyard (an island off the state of Massachusetts). This island is fairly isolated but is also a popular tourist destination. Labov was interested in the pronunciation of particular vowel sounds. He discovered that a small group of fishermen, people between the ages of 31 and 45 and ‘Up-Islanders’ (original inhabitants) pronounced these vowel sounds differently to others on the island, probably subconsciously, in order to establish an identity for themselves as ‘Vineyarders’, distancing themselves from the tourists who were frequent visitors.

Question 26

Leslie Milroy (2002)

Answer 26

argues that increased geographical mobility ‘leads to the large-scale disruption of close-knit, localised networks that have historically maintained highly systematic and complex sets of socially structured ‘linguistic norms.’ He explains this as the reason for ‘dialectal levelling’

Question 27

Paul Kerswill’s paper, ‘Mobility, meritocracy and dialect levelling: the fading (and phasing) out of Received Pronunciation’

Answer 27

quotes statistics which demonstrate the increase in social mobility, and the ‘increased interaction with people of other speech varieties’ as a possible cause of dialect levelling. In 1831, 34% of British people lived in cities. By 1991, 90% of people live in cities. This movement of people has led to greater dialect contact, and the result is dialect levelling with standardisation. However, he also points out that some features of dialects have survived and are now used all over the country, e.g. multiple negation (double negatives), use of ‘ain’t’ etc.

Question 28

Paul Foulkes and Gerard Docherty (1999)

Answer 28

discuss the replacement of ‘th’ with ‘f’ or ‘v’ and how this phonological variant has spread from its original origins of London. They argue also, that geographical and social mobility may not just be seen as reasons for why regional dialects are becoming less prominent but also as reasons for non-standard forms spreading across the country.

Question 29

Peter Trudgill (2000)

Answer 29

‘RP speakers are perceived, as soon as they start speaking, as haughty and unfriendly by non-RP speakers unless they are able to demonstrate the contrary. They are, as it were, guilty until proven innocent. Similarly – and this of course is far more worrying – children with working class accents and dialects may be evaluated by some teachers as having less educational potential than those with middle-class accents and dialects, unless they, too, are given an adequate chance to demonstrate the contrary’

Question 30

Howard Giles (1975)

Answer 30

used a ‘matched guise’ approach (this involves participants listening to the same speaker using a range of different accents and then passing judgement on each different variant). He used this approach when researching perception of RP and the Birmingham accent by two groups of 17-year-olds. The teenagers rated the RP speaker higher in terms of competence and intelligence. He found that teenagers were more likely to value the arguments and opinions put forward by a person who used a more prestigious accent.

Question 31

Dixon, Mahoney and Cocks (2002)

Answer 31

used the same ‘matched guise’ approach as Howard Giles to see if there was a correlation between accent and how we perceive someone’s guilt. The results showed that the suspect was perceived to be significantly more likely to be guilty when he spoke with a non-standard Birmingham form.

Question 32

Neuliep and Speten-Hansen (2013)

Answer 32

used the matched-guise approach to research attitudes from an ethnocentric viewpoint. Ethnocentricity can be defined as when people perceive their culture to be the most important, and superior to others. Neuliep and Speten-Hansen were interested in the link between ethnocentrism and the perception of a speaker with a non-native accent. Those listeners considered to be highly ‘ethnocentric’, when asked to rank the speaker on ‘how attractive’, ‘how credible’ and ‘how like themselves he was’, gave lower ratings to the non-native speaker. Thus, how a non-native speaker is perceived can depend on the ethnocentricity of the person they are speaking to.

Question 33

Seligman, Tucker and Lambert (1972)

Answer 33

found that teachers’ perceptions of students were heavily influenced by their speech.

Question 34

Choy and Dodd (1976)

Answer 34

also reached conclusions which suggest that teachers make judgements on a student’s ability and their personality based on the way they speak.

Question 35

Paul Coggle (1993)

Answer 35

‘Just as upper-class English evokes in many people’s minds an image of Hooray Henrys and Henriettas, chinless wonders, Land Rovers, green wellies and- in the case of the women – Jacqmar scarves and velvet headbands, so Estuary English evokes a similarly stereotypical image of shell suits, beer bellies, Ford Escorts, chunky gold chains, flats in Marbella (at least for those at the dodgy dealings end of the spectrum) and- again in the case of the women – white, high-heeled shoes preferably worn with no tights. The stereotypes are the living reminders of Britain’s continuing class system. They are there to enable members of British society to go on disdaining each other in the age-old manner.’

Question 36

Other terms used for ‘RP’?

Answer 36

‘The Queen’s English’
‘BBC English’
‘Oxford English’

Question 37

Where did RP originate from?

Answer 37

We can trace the origins of RP back to the public schools and universities of nineteenth-century Britain.
It is based loosely on the local accent of the South-East Midlands (roughly London, Oxford and Cambridge).

Question 38

How did RP become popularised?

Answer 38

RP probably received its greatest impetus when Lord Reith, the first General Manager of the BBC, adopted it in 1922 as a broadcasting standard – hence the origins of the term ‘BBC English’. Reith believed that standard English, spoken with an RP accent, would be the most widely understood variety of English, both here in the UK and overseas (during the age of the British Empire).

Question 39

What is ‘conservative RP’?

Answer 39

Refers to a very traditional variety particularly associated with older speakers and the aristocracy. It is rarely heard in this country.

Question 40

What is ‘Contemporary RP’?

Answer 40

Refers to speakers using features typical of younger RP speakers.

Question 41

What is ‘Mainstream RP’?

Answer 41

Describes an accent that we might consider extremely neutral in terms of signals regarding age, occupation or lifestyle of the speaker.

Question 42

Estuary English

Answer 42

A type of accent identified as spreading outwards from London (originated in the Thames Estuary area) and containing features of both RP and London speech (cockney accent). Coined by David Rosewarne, an EFL teacher, in 1984. He characterised it as ‘if one imagines a continuum with RP and London speech at either end, Estuary English speakers are to be found grouped in the middle ground. This accent is a far more contemporary, standard accent which can be found in all parts of the country. Estuary speakers, like RP speakers, use standard English but does share some pronunciation characteristics similar to both cockney and RP.

Question 43

Social Mobility (not a linguistic term)

Answer 43

A phrase used to describe a person’s move from one social class or level to another – this may occur through changing jobs, getting married or through a change in a person’s economic or financial situation.

Question 44

Code-switching

Answer 44

Occurs when a bilingual speaker will use and alternate between different languages while talking.

Question 45

Verbs that are ‘unmarked by person’

Answer 45

When the subject/verb agreement is not met in a sentence – when the past tense form of the verb ‘to be’ is used in non standard ways (this is a typical dialectal feature found in different areas of the country) e.g. ‘sorry I were late’
‘you was late yesterday’.

Question 46

Multiple negation

Answer 46

When a sentence or utterance contains more than one negative, e.g. ‘I didn’t do nothing’.

Question 47

Plural marking

Answer 47

The method of making a singular noun into its plural form, e.g. one shoe but two shoes.

Question 48

Unmarked plurality

Answer 48

When a singular form of a noun is used rather than the plural e.g. ‘there’s only two mile to go’.

Question 49

Dialect levelling

Answer 49

The process by which language forms of different parts of the country converge and become more similar over time, with the loss of regional features and reduced diversity of language.

Question 50

BBE/British Black English

Answer 50

A wide-ranging label, but often referring to a variety used by some speakers within the Caribbean community in the UK. BBE combines elements of Standard British English with Creole (or Patois) forms

Question 51

Kerswill Milton Keynes study

Answer 51

Examined children from Milton Keynes, comparing their accents to those of their parents. Findings showed that the youth of Milton Keynes had an accent which included many features considered ‘estuary’. Accent therefore not always linked with geographical location, but with social group identity/peer group belonging.

Question 52

Peter Trudgill, Norwich Study (1974)

Answer 52

Studied the final consonant found in present progressive verbs, e.g the ‘g’ in ‘walking’. Found that non-standard ‘runnin’ occurred more in men than women - this was the case across all social classes. Also found that lower classes drop the ‘g’ more often.

Question 53

Milroy and Milroy (Belfast 1978)

Answer 53

Studied 3 speech communities in Belfast: Ballymacarrell, the ‘Hammer’ and the ‘Clonard’ - all poor w/c districts with high incidences of unemployment. Studied the use of ‘th’ and ‘a’ in non-standard forms. Those who were more closely integrated into ‘closed networks’ more likely to use vernacular/non-standard forms.

Question 54

Jenny Cheshire (1982) Reading

Answer 54

Devised ‘toughness’ index by which participants could be measured. Concluded that ‘tougher’ kids in Reading used fewer standard forms of English generally.

Question 55

Bernstein: Codes and Class (1961)

Answer 55

Classified language into ‘restricted code’ and ‘elaborated code’. Theorised that middle classes used the elaborated code whereas working classes only had use of the restricted code. Later claimed that working classes might use elaborated code but class difference relevant in that w/c have fewer occasions in which they would need to use the elaborated code.

Question 56

Penelope Eckert - ‘Jocks and Burnouts’ (2000) Detroit, USA

Answer 56

Observed friendship groups in Detroit high school - established two different groups: jocks and burnouts, each containing individuals with mix of social class. Found that people tend to speak more like their friends - those who shared social practices together.

Question 57

Howard Giles’ Accommodation theory (1970)

Answer 57

We adapt our speech to ‘accommodate’ the person we are addressing - convergence and divergence occurs when people’s speech styles move further apart which acts to emphasise the difference between people.

Question 58

Jane-Stuart Smith - Glasgow Media Project

Answer 58

Aims to understand why Glaswegian appears to have ‘English’ features such as TH fronting, R-vocalisation and L-vocalisation. Found that these features were influenced by the media, such as watching Eastenders on television.