Accent And Dialect Flashcards
Jenny Cheshire Reading Study
She did a study in Reading, group A were higher class ‘good girls’ and group B were lower class ‘bad girls’. Group B used more non-standard forms and swore, group A didn’t.
Dr Alexander Naratta - Guardian article
Researched into discrimination against accents in the teaching profession,
In a group of 11 northern student teachers 9 were asked to change their accent and in a group of 12 southern student teachers 4 were asked to change their accent,
Last form of acceptable prejudice
Labour department store study
Researched which people in which store r-produced,
Saks - upper class - 62%
Macy’s - middle class - 51%
S.klein - lower class - 21%
Peter Trudgill
(1974) researched social class and regional dialect and phonological and grammatical variables in Norwich.
Found that lower social classes are more frequent in regional pronunciation, women are more RP in casual speech and men the opposite
Sally Wainwright
Creator of hit BBC dramas ‘Happy Valley’ and ‘Last Tango in Halifax’ has called for more diversity of British accents in the media. Says that media is still dominated by ‘posh southern voices’ and that regional accents are under-represented in the same way as women, non-white actors and the working class in film and TV
Grammatical variation in dialects
Subject-verb agreement:
Verbs ‘to be’ and ‘to do’, prepositions/syntax, negative verb constructions, reflexive pronouns and other pronouns
Regional accents of comedians and entertainers
Comedians and entertainers such as Ant and Dec and Jack Whitehall don’t upwardly or downwardly converge their accents as it adds to the humour and makes them seem more friendly and down to earth
Descriptivists
Believe that language change is inevitable and part of the richness of the English language. They feel that as long as there is no breakdown in communication I (i.e. using the wrong ‘there’) standard forms don’t necessarily have to be used
Prescriptivists
Believe there is a standard forms don’t of English, codified in dictionaries and grammar rules, which should be followed
Standard English
Prestige dialect in Britain. Like RP it had its origins in the southeast
Slang
Casual and formal, understood all over the country
Dialect
A change to grammar or lexis, mostly associated with a particular geographical region
Howard Giles matched guise test
People with RP, South Wales, Birmingham and Somerset accents all read out the same script about capital punishment a different groups of listeners had to rate their arguments. Found that RP was most convincing and the others caused a shift in opinion
Received Pronunciation (RP)
Prestige accent in Britain. Originated from the southeast. Usually the accent of bbc newspapers
