Accent and Dialect

ACCENT FEATURES AND ACCENT EXAMPLES:

  • ACCENT:

    • The way that words are pronounced; by people from a particular geographical region; the sounds of the language.

  • RECEIVED PRONUNCIATION:

    • Not specific to a geographical region; spoken by just 2% of the population, but it is the accent on which phonetic transcriptions are based.

    • Uses standard English grammar and lexis.

  • THE TRAP-BATH SPLIT:

    • Change in pronunciation between north and south of England.

  • COCKNEY ENGLISH FEATURES:

    • Th-fronting

    • Glottal stops

    • /æ/ replaced with /e/

    • H-dropping in all words beginning with h

  • ESTUARY ENGLISH FEATURES:

    • Glottal stop at the end of words

    • ‘l’ replaced by a /w/ sound at the end of words

    • H-dropping in function words (he, her – especially if in middle of sentences)

    • Intrusive /r/

    • Using yod Trap-bath split

  • LONDON VOWEL SHIFT:

    • ‘Face’ sounds more like ‘price’

    • ‘Price’ sounds more like ‘choice’

    • ‘Lace’ like ‘lice’

    • ‘Buy’ like ‘boy’

    • People who would’ve previously spoken RP now opt for this more ‘regional sounding’ accent.

ACCENT THEORIES:

  • GUPTA:

    • Found that people in North England found the /a:/ sound ‘comical’, ‘snobbish’ and ‘pompous’.

  • PETYT:

    • Found that people in West Yorkshire saw the /a:/ sound as ‘incorrect’.

  • GILES:

    • People make assumptions based on accent.

    • RP speakers are rated more highly than those with a regional accent in terms of competence, intelligence, confidence, ambition and determination.

    • Regional accent speakers are perceived as being more socially attractive, friendly, warm and having a sense of humour.

      • Rural accents are viewed more positively than urban accents.

  • GILES (2):

    • Presented 5 groups with an identical set of arguments against capital punishment.

    • They were presented in 5 different ways – print, RP, Somerset accent, South Wales accent, Birmingham accent.

    • Those who read print or heard the RP were most impressed; those who heard the Birmingham accent were least impressed.

    • Those who heard regional accents were more likely to have changed their minds.

  • BEAL:

    • Found that even when people disliked the /a:/ sound, they still associated it with the BBC and the sort of professional jobs that they aspired to.

  • JONATHAN HARRINGTON ET AL (2000):

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

  • ITV TONIGHT AND COMRES STUDY (2013):

    • Found 28% of Britons feel they have been discriminated against because of their regional accent and reported that 80% of employers admit to making discriminating decisions based on regional accents.

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

  • DENNIS FREEBORN (1986):

    • THE INCORRECTNESS VIEW:

      • All regional accents are incorrect compared to the accent of RP.

    • THE UGLINESS VIEW:

      • Some accents don’t sound nice.

    • THE IMPRECISENESS VIEW:

      • Some accents are described as ‘lazy’ and ‘sloppy’.

TRUDGILL – NORWICH STUDY (1974):

  • In 1974, he studied the varying pronunciation of words with the suffix ‘-ing’.

  • He noticed that the upper working classes and lower middle classes were both using the non-standard ‘-in’.

  • Trudgill found that men used the non-standard form more than women, across all social classes.

  • The proportion of non-standard forms was higher in lower social classes.

  • He found that among men, non-standard forms have a covert prestige.

  • Women on average use forms which more closely approach those of the standard variety or the prestige accent than those used by men – although it cannot be predicted which form a man or woman will use on a particular occasion.

  • Also found that there were differences in how people perceived their own use of standard/non-standard forms:

    • When men were questioned about what they thought they were saying, they tended to say they used the non-standard forms more often than they really did.

    • Women did the opposite – when they were questioned about what they thought they were saying, they tended to say they used the standard forms more often than they actually did.

JENNY CHESHIRE:

  • Supports Trudgill’s work.

  • Analysed the speech of teenagers in Reading.

  • In nearly all cases, boys used more non-standard forms than girls.

  • Said boys have denser social networks and that their language converged towards the vernacular as a show of linguistic and social solidarity.

  • Found that the boys who used non-standard forms most often had a reputation for tough, deviant behaviour and was respected by his peers.

  • Boys who used non-standard forms much less frequently rated low on an index of ‘tough’ behaviour and was often the victim of other boys’ jokes and excluded from group activities.

DIALECT:

  • The words that are used and the grammatical structures used by people from a particular geographical region.

  • NON-STANDARD PAST TENSE:

    • When speakers form the past tense in a way that isn’t standard English.

  • EMPHATIC TAG:

    • A phrase placed at the end of a declarative reinforcing the information already provided in the main body of the statement.

  • PRONOUNS:

    • Several dialects use them in a non-standard way, e.g using the object pronoun in the subject position.

  • SIMPLE PAST TENSE:

    • The use of the verb ‘come’ is used in many dialects across the UK as an alternative to the standard ‘came’.

  • UNREDUCED NEGATIVE PARTICLE:

    • Some dialects might say ‘there’s not’ whereas others might say ‘there isn’t’.

    • ‘I’ve not’, ‘it’ll not’ and ‘they’re not’ are common in Scotland and northern England.

  • ALTERNATIVE NEGATIVE PARTICLE:

    • E.g nae and no, are frequent in Scotland – ‘I cannae believe it’, ‘it’s no possible’.