Accent and Dialect

Standard English

The generally accepted, prestigious form of the language; particularly lexis and grammar

Accent

The sounds of an individual produced during speech: may be regional or social

Dialect

Variation in the words and grammatical structures associated with a particular geographical location

Prescriptive attitudes

The imposition or enforcement of a rule or method; insistence on particular lexis, grammar, phonetics etc

Descriptive approach

Describing what actually occurs in an objective and non-judgemental way

Received Pronunciation (RP)

A social accent considered to be the ‘standard’ accent, even though on about 2% of Britons speak it. Regarded as the most prestigious accent.

Coined by A J Ellis (1869), Popularised by Daniel Jones (1920’s)

• Conservative RP - a very traditional variety, associated with older speakers and the aristocracy

• Mainstream RP - an accent we might consider neutral in terms of signals regarding age, occupation or lifestyle of the speaker

• Contemporary RP - refers to speakers using features typical of younger RP speakers

Jonathan Harrington et al (2000)

Found evidence of RP accent change and influence of less prestigious southern accents with Christmas broadcasts made by Queen Elizabeth II

Matched Guise Experiments

RP speakers tend to be more highly rated than speakers with a regional accent in terms of their general competence; intelligence; self-confidence; ambition; determination; industriousness.

RP scored less well for qualities such as friendliness; warmth; talkativeness; good-naturedness; sense of humour.

Howard Giles (1973)

Capital punishment experiment

• investigated attitudes to RP, Somerset, South Wales and Birmingham accents

• The greater the accent prestige, the greater the perceived quality of the argument

• Listeners were most impressed by RP speakers

Dennis Freeborn (1986)

Incorrectness view: all regional accents are incorrect compared to the accent of RP

Ugliness view: some accents don’t sound nice

Impreciseness view: some accents are described as ‘lazy’ and ‘sloppy’

Anderson and Trudgill (1990)

Attitudes towards accents are based more on social connotations and prejudices surrounding the location or social group with that accent than on the sound itself, demonstrated with experiments using outsiders (American speakers, who know nothing about/ recognise these accents)

Rob Drummond

Accentism

• discrimination or prejudice based on someone’s accent

• Pervasive and socially sanctioned

• Accent influences perceptions of intelligence, social status, trustworthiness

• “One of the last socially acceptable forms of discrimination

ITV tonight and ComRes study (2013)

Found 28% feel that they have been discriminated against because of their regional accent

Reported that 80% of employers admit to making discriminating decisions based on regional accents

• Liverpool, Cockney and Brummie accents viewed negatively but RP is rated highly by employers

Dominic Watt (2010)

Ideas of Dialect leveling

• super urban accents (London, Manchester, Glasgow, Birmingham) seem to be spreading out from their traditional bases

• While local accents disappear

William Labour (1961)

Marthas Vineyard study

• Found that different social groups pronounced certain diphthongs differently

• Argued this was done subconsciously to identify themselves as Vineyarders, distancing themselves from the tourists

Manchester University (2013)

Mapped dialect variation in the Uk.

Students conducted fieldwork and mapped the variation of certain lexical items and phrases

(Sofa, settee, couch) (ice lolly, lolly ice) (roll, bun, bap)

Paul Kerswill (2001)

Dialect Levelling - the process which language forms of different parts of the country converge and become similar over time

• loss of regional features and reduced language diversity

• The reduction of rural employment, construction of suburbs and new towns increased interaction with people of other speech varieties and increased social mobility as possible causes

Leslie Milroy (2002)

Increased geographical mobility leads to “large scale disruption of close-knit, localised networks that have historically maintained highly systematic and complex sets of socially structured linguistic norms”

Jenny Cheshire and Viv Edward’s (1977)

Found that a national survey on dialect that the use of “them” as demonstrative was reported by 97.7% of schools who took part - the highest percentage of any dialect variation

Jenny Cheshire (1981)

Her paper described the syntactic and semantic functions of the use of “ain’t” fulfilled in the speech of adolescent peer groups in Reading

Showed how it may be linked to vernacular subculture to which the groups belong

Museum of London (2012)

proposed that Cockney rhyming slang is dying out and that many Londoners no longer understand expressions such as “Mother Hubbard” for cupboard

David Crystal (2012)

Argued that Cockney rhyming slang is not dying out but has been reincarnated and with that the modern cultural obsession with celebrities has added some additional terms

Amanda Cole (2023)

Interviewed the first generation of Cockney speakers, who grew up in Essex after their parents relocated in the late 1940s/1950s

Found that those who grew up in Essex still used nearly all the tested Cockney elements in their speech

• The cockney variation hasn’t disappeared- it has just moved to Essex