Accent and dialect revision notes PDF

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Alevel english language Accent and dialect revision notes...

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Paper 2 Accent And Dialect Notes

ENGLISH LANGUAGE: ACCENT AND DIALECT Definitions: Accent: The way you pronounce certain words depending on where you live; what country, area or class. Dialect: Lexical features or grammatical variations specific to a particular region. Received Pronunciation: This accent is used in the teaching of English as a foreign language and is used in dictionaries which give pronunciations. This has led to it being viewed as the ‘correct’ and most esteemed accent; it is often associated with prestige and formality: for example the Queen’s speech and salutatory speech in the Houses of Parliament. Standard English: The dialect of English that is considered to have the most prestige and is used in the education system and in formal written texts. Idiolect: The speech habits peculiar to a particular person. Sociolect: The dialect of a particular social class group. Covert Prestige: Non-standard varieties are often said to have covert prestige ascribed to them by their speakers. A specific, small group of speakers shows positive evaluation of and orientation towards a certain linguistic variety, usually without the speakers' awareness. The variety is usually not accepted in all social groups (e.g. youth language). Overt Prestige: The standard usually has overt prestige; it is generally socially acknowledged as ‘correct’ and therefore valued highly among all speakers of the language. Slang: Referring to words and phrases which are considered informal. Taboo: Lexical choices which can be deemed offensive, taboo language included swearing or using words which are considered inappropriate and unacceptable. Neologisms: New words are constantly entering the English Language. In 2013 and 2014, new additions to the dictionary included: bestie, selfie, me time, twerking, unlike, emoji and geek chic.

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Paper 2 Accent And Dialect Notes

Technology Influenced Words And Phrases: There is evidence that certain social groups use words and phrases in their speech which are normally associated with written technology forms such as tweets, texts and other forms of instant messages. A common example is ‘imho’: in my honest/humble opinion. Occupational Register: Sometimes stemming from personal interests, an occupational register or jargon is largely bases on shared understanding between certain groups or individuals. An example could be the jargon used by ‘gamers’. The website The Circular lists a large range of jargon and claims ‘game players have developed a unique language of their own.

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Paper 2 Accent And Dialect Notes

ACCENTS MLE – Multicultural London English What is MLE? 

Slang from Jamaican Patois and other African-Caribbean communities form the backbone of MLE.



MLE is here to stay due to UK grime becoming an international phenomenon.



Vice’s “Chat shit get elected” snap election series that featured political satirist RantsnBants calling Theresa May a knackered old goat.



Linguistic change is as natural as language itself; it’s a fundamental part of how languages are actually formed throughout the world, and many English words are bastardizations of other European tongues.



MLE is a rich, dynamic and varied accent. It expresses the economic and international culture of London



It has a negative stereotypical image as it is a stigmatised accent, controversial, represents antisocial, uneducated and intimidating behaviour.

Dialect Features: 

Bare



Fam



Gassed



Blud



Wasteman



Cuz



Innit



Bredrin



You get me



Dench



Wagwarn



My size



Manz



Yard



Hype



Ting

Phonological And Accent Features 3

Paper 2 Accent And Dialect Notes



The vowel ‘a’ in ‘face’ shifts to more of a /e/ or /ei/



The vowel ‘i’ on ‘price’ becomes more of a monophthong like /a:/



The vowels ‘oa’ in ‘goat’ become a monophthong of /o/ or /ou/



Th fronting and stopping, for example, ‘thing’ shifts to ‘ting’



Doesn’t feature ‘h’ dropping



Non-rhotic (linking R)

YORKSHIRE ACCENT Basics: 

English is largely spoken- Bradford are typically bilingual as 43% of primary school children have English as 2nd language.



There are a variety of different speech patterns across the region.

Dialect Features: 

‘Belt’ – Hit



‘Bog – Toilet



‘Bray’ – Hit someone



‘Gaffer’ – Boss

Phonological And Accent Features 

H- dropping - ‘ouse’



Diphthongs not monophthongs’ – ‘moor’ ‘pure’ ‘sure’



‘ah’ – Cart



‘e’ – Bed



‘ee’ – Feel

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‘i’ – Bit

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‘o’ – Pot



Glottalisation – dropping ‘t’ in the middle of words, ‘wa?er’



Deletion of fricatives ‘th’ ‘v’ ‘ne’er’



Use of northern /ae/ 4

Paper 2 Accent And Dialect Notes



‘Make & take’ – ‘mek & tek’



‘We was’ – non-standard conjugation



‘They don’t play nowt’ – double negatives and non-standard pronunciation of ‘nothing’

Judgement 

Broad, common, rural, homely, condensed(shortening of words, lazy



Friendly, approachable, chavvy



Accent used by many people

SCOUSE ACCENT History 

Influx of welsh and Irish into Liverpool



Mix of the accents and dialects joining with words and sayings picked up from the global maritime arrivals all fused together to formulate scouse accent.



Scouse not spoken by everyone – Merseyside St Helens have their own way of speaking



Scouse heavy on slang terms

Regionalisms and Dialect 

‘Jarg, plazzy & blog’ – Fake



‘Offie’ – Off license shop



‘Chock a block’ – Very busy street

Accent Features 

/ae/ - northern not southern



Non rhotic – don’t roll r’s



Absence of foot and strut split



Rising tone at the end of the sentence – inflexion



Dental fricative ‘th’ becomes dental stop /d/



Lenition of plosive consonant /k/ to /x/



First person plural possessive determiner – ‘our Dave’



Word final weak vowel – ‘k’ ‘book’ ‘cook’ – elongated vowel sound.



Non-standard use of pronouns as determiners – ‘that’s me mam’ 5

Paper 2 Accent And Dialect Notes

Judgements 

70% - negative, annoying, difficult to understand and unintelligent



30% - humorous, fun to impersonate

ESSEX ACCENT Background 

Traditional dialect – north & east of Essex



Similar to some forms of East Anglian – Suffolk and Norfolk



Changed overtime- the original rural Essex accent was confined to older generations and is less common

Common connotations 

Unintelligent



Humorous



Friendly



Common



Annoying

Regionalisms 

Reem – great



Sort – attractive person



Well jel – very jealous



Melt – idiot

Phonological Features 

h - dropping – ‘high heels’ to ‘eye eels’



Pronounce /ou/ in ‘house’ as /a/



Th fronting ‘thing’ to fing’



Glottal stopping – ‘be?uh’ 6

Paper 2 Accent And Dialect Notes



Non rhotic – ‘mother’ to ‘muvah’

Judgements 

60% - unintelligent, annoying, common



20% - humorous, likeable



20% - approachable, friendly

RP Accent Features 

Elongated vowel sound /a/ in ‘bath’ ‘palm’



/a:/ long vowel



Never h drop



‘due’ ‘Tuesday’ ‘enthusiasm’ all pronounced with a /j/ sound - /nju:z/ - no yod dropping



Clear about when a speaker can produce a glottal stop, can replace a ‘t’ only before another consonant sound, accompanied by an alveolar stop



/l/ at the end of a syllable produces a dark /l/ sound, tongue is raised to the back of the mouth, soft muffled sound, ‘ball’



Rhotic /r/ joining an /l/ sound between one word ending in schwa or /a:/ and another word beginning with a vowel



Regionally non-specific and avoid non-standard grammatical constructions.

ESTUARY ENGLISH David Rosewarne (1984) research Accent Features

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Paper 2 Accent And Dialect Notes



L- vocalisation, ‘milk’=mewk, ‘will’=wiw – fricative to liquid



Glottalisation (used more than in RP bt less than in Cockney)



Rhotic /r/



Lengthening final vowel sound (veryyyy funnyyyy)

Dialect Features: 

Cheers



Ain’t



‘I never did’ – non-standard use of never instead of ‘didn’t’



Multiple negation

Findings: 

Process of accommodation – shift towards the ‘middle ground’ of pronunciation



Increases social inclusion



People with regional accents see it as more sophisticated



People fitting into their environment by compromising but not losing their original linguistic identity



Breaks down class barriers

ATTITUDE TO ACCENT AND DIALECT STUDIES Good and Bad Language High prestige is when something is highly respected and has an air of superiority around it 8

Paper 2 Accent And Dialect Notes

Low prestige is when it is more inferior, not respected, more rough and common Low prestige accent features: 

Birmingham accent



Glottal stop



Slang words



Rhotic r



H dropping

Trudgill: 

No linguistic reason for saying any language is superior to any other



No such thing as a primitive language – Standard English developed out of dialects spoken in the South-east of England



SE has always been one dialect among many other and it is subject to change as any other dialect

Detroit: 

Found a strong link between multiple negation and social class.



Multiple negation is more common in lower classes

Norwich: 

Third person inflections are more common in lower classes



Upper classes are less likely to use them



‘We walks to shop’

Bradford and Norwich: 

Relationships in Bradford and Norwich between usage of ‘h’ in words and social class



The ‘h’ is pronounced much more in upper class than lower

Glasgow: 

The glottal stop research found that they are more common in lower classes than higher

Halliday Rural vs Urban Rural:

Urban:



Somerset



Birmingham



Devon



Manchester



Yorkshire



London



Liverpool

Judgements: 

Careless



Harsh

Paper 2 Accent A



Cornwall



Lancashire



Wales

Judgements: 

Soft



Pleasant



Musical



Tolerated



Value judgements are extremely common – often represent class attitudes



We tend to generalise preferences – if it sounds like a ‘city’ accent or ‘southern’ then we might have different judgements



Found these judgements to be harmful



For example: we tend to judge on social grounds, e.g. the Birmingham accent is disliked as they know their children could stand a better chance in life if they didn’t have it



Birmingham accent is subject to social

Kevin Watson: 

Use to counteract research to dialect levelling, as it is resisting dialect levelling as Scouse is becoming stronger, trying to maintain their group identity.

Ideas that are key when understanding judgements to accent and dialect 

Judgements to accent and dialect change depending on where you are



People want to preserve their accent to maintain their social identity (Bradford and Martha’s Vineyard) Labov



People associate accent and dialect with social class

Giles Accommodation theory: 

People converge and diverge from the accent of the person they’re talking to



Suggests convergence expresses social solidarity with the other speaker and divergence expresses a wish to increase social distance from the person.

David Crystal:

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Paper 2 Accent And Dialect Notes

Takes a descriptivist approach to language as he has a non-judgemental approach to language as he believes it is essential for students to learn and appreciate all the different types of English spoken globally. He also believes that conventionally people speak about one type of English Prescriptivism: 

Prescriptivism is the attitude or belief that one variety of a language is superior to others and should be promoted as such. Also known as linguistic prescriptivism and purism



A key aspect of traditional grammar, prescriptivism is generally characterised by a concern for ‘good’ ‘proper’ or ‘correct’ usage.



Prescriptivists believe that there are rules to follow with language and that those who don’t follow these rules are using language incorrectly.

Descriptivism: 

Non- judgemental approach to language that focuses on how it is actually spoken and written. Also called linguistic descriptivism



This is observing people using language and how it is used in their contexts



A descriptivist approach is trying to describe the facts of linguistic behaviour exactly as they’re found, refraining from making value judgements about the speech of native speakers.

Vocal Fry: 

Low creaky vibrations, fluttering of the vocal chords



Examples of its use: Kardashians and Mean Girls



2/3 of women in college use this glottalisation – ‘staahhpp’ or ‘liiikeeee’



Developed from the mid 80’s valley girls, who were associated with airheads, unprofessional, uptalk



It is often described as America’s young women running out of oxygen



Majority of women use it however, are seen by their peers (other women) as educated, urban orientated and upwardly mobile



Speech pathologists describe it as a disorder



VF is a sizzling topic in the NY times, and young women are being viewed as developing as linguistic innovators 11

Paper 2 Accent And Dialect Notes



Wider society interest (mainly men): view VF as unengaged, annoying, unworldly, exactly the same, uneducated



Differing opinion, nothing technically wrong with it.

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