Accent and Dialect

Question 1

What is slang?

Answer 1

Informal language used by members of a social group/ region/ context

Question 2

What did Dixon, Mahoney and Cocks find from their accent study?

Answer 2

Actors speaking in a Birmingham accent were seen as more criminal and less attractive, compared to RP speakers- due to the level of perceived prestige and regard.

Question 3

What did the results from the Workman study suggest?

Answer 3

Accents did not have an affect on perceived attractiveness of the women, but did have an affect on intelligence; also RP was seen as boring and that preconceptions have changed about regional accents

Question 4

What is Giles’ Accommodation Theory?

Answer 4

You change your language to fit the situation; movement in dialect/ accent/ sociolect

Question 5

What is upward convergence?

Answer 5

Making your language more sophisticated/ formal/ prestigious to fit the situation

Question 6

What is downward convergence?

Answer 6

Making your language more informal

Question 7

What is code-switching?

Answer 7

The use of different sociolects/ accents/ dialects within different social groups/ situations

Question 8

Divergence:

Answer 8

Where a speaker actively moves away from another speaker’s accent/ dialect

Question 9

Idiolect:

Answer 9

Your individual speech

Question 10

Prescriptivism vs Descriptivism:

Answer 10

P- based on “correct” way of speech, often based on arbitrary rules; D- based on how we actually use language, acknowledging change