Allophones, phonologies and using phonetics

Who has mapped language variation?

• SED (Survey of English Dialects)

• SAWD (Survey of Anglo-Welsh Dialects)

What are the benefits of RP?

‘lingua franca’ accent where individuals adopt it for easier communication across many phonologies

what is currently happening to RP?

• RP is waning in prestige amongst younger generations (still viewed highly in recent research)

• This dovetails primarily into belief systems which cherish and respect larger variation and diversity in all modes of life

What are the allophones in the English Sound System?

1. Glottal stops

2. Dark L 

3. Aspiration

What’s an allophone?

• 2 sound units that in one sound system (phonology) are perceived as components of the same phoneme

What is glottaling?

/t/, sound made by brief closure of vocal chords blocking the passage of air through the glottis and this is then released, it’s chief characteristic is a brief period of silence

how is this transcribed?

/ʔ/

what’s an example of glottal stops

Common in certain dialects of english principally Cockney where it commonly replaces /t/ in words like water, butter or daughter

What does dialectology show about glottaling in RP?

trends moving out from urban centres like london, estuary english and any british metropolis

What did Lecumberri & Maidment (2000) find?

• Listed criteria they believed must be obtained if the glottal is to be used in RP 

  • It can replace /t/ but not other voiceless plosives in RP

  • The /t/ must be followed by a consonant other than /h/

  • /t/ must be preceded by a sonorant sound (vowel/semivowel)

  • /t/ must be in the coda of a syllable and not in the onset

what are the dark and clear /l/?

• Also alevolarised /l/ and velarised /l/

• Clear and dark /l/ have complementary distribution in RP 

What is a clear /l/?

alevolarised /l/,

• Word initial e.g. leave 

• In word initial clusters e.g. glad

• Word medial e.g. silly

• Word final if followed directly by vowel or /y/ e.g. all yellowy

What is the dark /l/?

velarised /l/

• Word final after a vowel e.g. fell

• After a vowel and before a consonant e.g. help

• When syllabic e.g. table

What’s aspiration?

• A sudden, oral release of air (sound /h/)

• This sounds often coarticulated with other sounds in the production of certain english consonants (i.e. phonemic context > aspiration occurs)

• Displayed via superscript h after the aspirated sound (/pʰ/)

• This feature is less marked in word medial positions and may disappear entirely in word final positions 

  • May get lateral nasal, delayed or no audible release depending on phonetic context

When does aspiration occur?

Associated with word initial voiceless plosives in english (/p/, /t/)

What’s the non-rhotic r?

In most accents and RP we only pronounce this sound before vowels (e.g. clearly in red but not in clearly)

What’s rhotic r?

• In some accents /r/ is always pronounced (e.g. american accent) 

• The /r/ in this case is called rhotic /r/, the process is rhoticity

• A receding phonological feature in england 

  • Harold Orton’s mid-20th century ‘survey of english dialects’ (J.C.Wells, 1984) compared with peter Trudgill’s later survey (1990)

What is the trend of rhotic r’s in American English?

• Late 19th Century: non rhotic accents were common in coastal, eastern and southern us 

• Early to mid 20th century, rhoticity gained nationwide social prestige, even in traditionally non-rhotic areas 

• Changing perceptions: non rhotic accents perceived as foreign or less educated 

• Rhoticity increasingly perceived as sounding more “general american” marking a shift in linguistic prestige towards rhotic pronunciations