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Accent Variation

8.1 The Importance of Accent

• Every English speaker has a unique idiolect (individual language system).

• Understanding language requires examining geographic and social accents.

• Individuals adjust their speech based on who they want to identify with or impress, often without conscious awareness.

• Early speech patterns mimic family members, but peer influence increases over time, leading to accent modification.

• Age and trends affect accent; some changes are temporary (like fashion) while others become standard.

• Phonologists face a dilemma: focusing on idiolects provides limited insight while grouping accents may lead to oversimplification.

• Common accent features allow for group identification, while regional distinctions signify social class or education level.

• Accent plays a critical role in social inference and projecting self-image, requiring phonologists to classify accents technically.

8.2 Systemic Differences

• Systemic differences exist when a phoneme opposition is present in one accent but absent in another.

• Scottish Standard English (SSE), Scots, and New Zealand English (NZE) contrast /w/ and /^/, shown in examples (e.g., Wales vs. whales).

• Cockney accent often drops the /h/ sound, and some Jamaican English varieties lack /v/ and /w/ distinctions.

• Vowel systems vary more than consonantal systems; small changes can create wider accent differences.

• Comparison of SSBE (Standard Southern British English) and GA (General American) highlights systemic differences:

  • GA lacks certain phonemes, leading to historical shifts in pronunciation compared to SSBE.

  • Vowel systems in SSE differ significantly from SSBE, lacking centring diphthongs and having fewer vowel contrasts.

8.3 Realisational Differences

• Realisational differences occur when the same phonemes are pronounced differently in various accents.

• Example: /l/ can be clear or dark in SSBE but varies across dialects.

• Consonant /r/ varies in its pronunciation (alveolar or uvular) across English accents.

• Accent features such as diphthongs vary across regions; e.g., SSE and SgE (Singapore English) tend to be monophthongal.

8.4 Distributional Differences

• Distributional differences manifest in lexical incidence and phonological context.

• Certain words may use different vowel phonemes across accents (e.g., route in British vs. American English).

• Phonological context restrictions can affect vowel and consonant distributions (e.g., schwa availability).

Classification of Accent Variation

• Three types of accent variation must be analyzed:

  • Systemic: Involves the phoneme system differences.

  • Realisational: Variations in how phonemes are realized.

  • Distributional: Variations in lexical incidence depending on context.

• Understanding these categories helps in discerning the individual phonetic systems of different English varieties.

Exercises

1. Create a vowel system diagram on a vowel quadrilateral (separate for monophthongs and diphthongs).

2. Define your phonemic consonant system and provide minimal pairs to show contrasts, noting if your accent is rhotic.

3. Compare your accent to SSBE, GA, SSE, NZE, and SgE for both vowel and consonant systems, classifying discrepancies.

Recommendations for Further Reading

• Giegerich (1992), Carr (1999), Wells (1982), Trudgill (2000), Wolfram and Schilling-Estes (1996), Chambers and Trudgill (1980), Hudson (1995), and Graddol, Leith, and Swann (1996).