Accent studies/theories

What was Peter Trudgill’s Norwich study

• looked at relationship between social class and language use

• findings:

  ~ lower classes more likely to drop their ‘g’

  ~ women did it less often than men

  ~ women were less aware of doing it - claimed they did it less than they did

  ~ men claimed they did it more than they did

  ~ people used more standard language forms when under scrutiny - being interviewed - and less standard forms when simply telling a funny story

• conclusion: women more likely to use overt prestige forms

What did Jenny Cheshire do - Reading (1982)

• studied a set of non-standard grammatical features in Reading amongst teenage boys and girls

• some students deliberately chosen because they were frequently in trouble at school and often truanted - more likely to carry weapons, involve themselves in minor crimes and like fighting

• the group who belonged to the more ‘delinquent subculture’ used more non-standard forms than the group who were less connected to the subculture

What was Milroy’s Belfast Study

• Close-knit communities used more non-standard grammar forms than more open communities

• called close knot communities ‘closed networks’ - all people knew each other and had the same set of contacts

• the women in two areas of Belfast had particularly high use of non-standard forms

• women all worked (low employment amongst males) and all worked together - lived, worked and socialised with the same people

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