accents and dialect theories Flashcards
(12 cards)
coupland (1982)
investigated the language use of a cardiff shop assistant. she used more standard forms [like + /h/] when talking to middle class customers who use standard forms more
giles accommodation theory
when we speak to another person, we adapt our speech to accommodate them. this is not generally considered something we do deliberately, but subconsciously. we may accommodate by making our speech more like theirs, in terms of the strength of our accent, or the fillers or expressions we choose. this reduction of social distance is known as convergence. making our speech less like someone else’s, by hanging onto and exaggerating our individual traits is known as divergence. divergence increases social distance and can be used to exclude people.
labov
looked at 3 groups of people in martha’s vineyard
- older fisherman
- younger population
- tourists
research looked at the /aw/ and the /ay/ phonemes in words like ‘house’ and ‘spice’
labov findings
- younger population used the vowels used by the fishermen to appear distant to the tourists
- fishermen exaggerated their vocal sounds
- example of covert prestige and convergence towards one social group in order to diverge from a different social group
wallace lambert (1960)
first matched guise experiment carried out in canada. it involved the same person reading a passage in french and then in english to different groups of respondents. they were asked to rate the reader based on their intelligence. the english reading scored the highest, suggesting people prefferent the english language.
howard giles matched guise experiment (1970s)
found that RP was perceived as having more status than, for example, somerset or northern. RP speakers were also highly rated for intelligence, ambition, self-confidence etc. however, RP speakers scored low on sense of humour and talkativeness. accents like welsh and cockney scored higher for these characteristics
giles and powesland (1972)
17 years olds were lectured on psychology, one group in a birmingham accent, the other in an RP accent. they judged the RP lecturer to be more intelligent
bbc radio survey
asked to match occupation and particular character traits with different accents. the majority of respondents placed RP at the top of the social scale and labelled it as the most honest. by contrast they placed the scouse accent at the bottom of the social scale, and cockney as the least attractive in terms of character
worcester college study on brummie accents and crime research
findings made by three psychology lecturers who hired male actors to reproduce police interviews with suspected armed robbers and cheque fraudsters. the actors used the brummie accent and standard accents for the test and the suspect’s guilt was judged by 119 students
brummie suspect was regarded as less intelligent, more likely to be poor and working-class and less socially competent. they were more than twice as likely to be convicted of the crime than someone with a standard accent.
brummie accent more favourable overseas
study concluded that overseas speakers of english like the brummie accent because they are unaware of the social connotations which the accent possesses. this strongly indicates that attitudes are determined by social snobbery, negative media stereotyping, the poor public image of the city of birmingham, and the north/south geographical and linguistical divide
Dialects - Couplands british socioloect features
several non - standard grammatical features found across the Uk. Coupland suggests that these features are linked to the speaker’s socio - economic background than their regional origins
features
- multiple negatives = never been no one
- unmarked plural forms = she is five year old now
- never as past tense negative = never saw you yeserday
Trudgill
different not defective, no accent is better than another they are all even and without hierarchy
Over time, regional forms have had greater reception and acceptability. News readers and presenters rarely have a traditional RP accent
Hughes
