Estuary English

Question 0

what does Przdelacka say EE is?

Answer 0

an umbrella term for a number of different accents

Question 1

Who was the term ‘Estuary English’ coined by? When?

Answer 1

David Rosewarne 1984

Question 2

What is EE said to be?

Answer 2

between cockney and RP

‘classless’

Question 3

What are some reasons for EE?

Answer 3

• enables upward and downward convergence
• fit in with a social group - to relate to them
• obscures sociolinguistic origins

Question 4

What are some features of EE?

Answer 4

• Speaker might use a /w/ instead of RP /l/
  ○ Buiwd - build
  
  • Use of glottle stop in place of /t/ or /d/
  • Pronunciation of /r/
    ○ Similar to general American r
  • Interpreted as deliberate and lack of enthusiasm:
    ○ Greater use of tag questions
    ○ A rise fall intonation
    ○ Pitch of intonation in a narrower frequency
  • Yod dropping
    ○ Noo - New
  • L-vocalisation
    ○ Miwk - milk

Question 5

What are some attitudes towards EE?

Answer 5

• Negative: imprecision, incorrect, inaesthetic (Giles 3 criteria)
• Positive: ‘classless’, ‘death of RP’

Question 6

What was Przdelacka studying?

Answer 6

Studied the socio-phonetics of a variety of EE in the 4 main Home Counties

Question 7

What are the 4 Home Counties?

Answer 7

Kent
Essex
Surrey
Buckinghamshire

Question 8

Przdelacka:

How many variables were studied?

Answer 8

14

Question 9

Przdelacka:

Who were the differences studied between?

Answer 9

• difference between counties
• between male and female
• between social class

Question 10

Przdelacka:

What was the age group of the people chosen?

Answer 10

teenagers

Question 11

Przdelacka:

After collecting her data, what did she do with it?

Answer 11

compared it with the Survey of English Dialects

compared it with cockney and RP

Question 12

Przdelacka:

What were her findings after comparing it with the Survey of English Dialects?

Answer 12

• glottalling is not dissimilar to that of 50 years ago

- l vocalisation has increased

Question 13

Przdelacka:

What were her findings after comparing her data to that of cockney speakers and RP speakers?

Answer 13

• EE is half way between cockney and RP in regards to /t/glottaling and /l/vocalisation

Question 14

Przdelacka:

What did she conclude?

Answer 14

• There is no homogenity (similarity) in the accents spoken in the area given the extent of geographical variation alone
• Tendencies include vowel fronting, t-glottaling = led by females
• Social class turned out not to be a good indicator of change
• Little difference between the classes

Question 15

Why does Trudgill dispute that EE will be the new RP?

Answer 15

• if all regions of England were to acquire /h/dropping for example, it would not make it an RP feature
• linguistic innovations are not spread by TV or Radio

Question 16

What may be some reasons that Trudgill believes people are being led to think that RP is dying out?

Answer 16

• Non-RP accents are now found in situations from which they would have been excluded only a few decades ago
• The kind of people who in earlier generations would have been speakers of RP no longer are
• RP itself has changed - it has acquired forms that were, before, part of local accents
• RP now admits certain types of /t/glottaling that were formerly associated with local accents only