Accents and Dialects

Question 1

RP: Received Pronunciation

Answer 1

• is the standard accent of English = Posh/BBC

Question 2

Who uses RP?

Answer 2

• Prestige accent commonly used with power, influence, and a high social class

Question 3

What accents are related to RP?

Answer 3

• Estuary English: combo of cockney and RP used by Londoners to sound posh and visa versa.

Question 4

Supra-regional English:

Answer 4

• a more neutral form of the language which does not have regional connotations but not as close to RP

Question 5

glottalisation:

Answer 5

replacing t with a glottal stop -uh

Question 6

TH fronting and stopping:

Answer 6

• f or v in mouth pronounciation

Question 7

Restricted code

Answer 7

• working-class speakers

Question 8

Elaborated code:

Answer 8

• middle-class speakers

Question 9

Robin Lakeoff:

Answer 9

• Deficit Models argues that lang contributes to women’s lower status and weaker position in society

Question 10

Dialect levelling:

Answer 10

• form of standardisation where the loss of regional features in local speech variations favours a more urban or mainstream dialect.

Question 11

Paul Kerskill (1966)

Answer 11

• Milton Keynes
• varieties of speech are becoming similar overtime
• outcome of levelling is a convergence of accents and dialects towards each other.

Question 12

Howard Giles: The Matched Guise Technique (1970)

Answer 12

• asking interviewees to evaluate the personal qualities of speakers

whose voices are recorded

on tape, whereby the
same speaker uses

different linguistic varieties

: 3 main
parameters:
1. status
2. personality
3. persuasiveness

Question 13

Ranking order of kind of status:

Answer 13

1. RP: intelligent but ruthless
2. National accents: honest
3. Regional rural accents: trusted more
4. Regional urban accents: //

Question 14

MLE: Multi-cultural London English

Answer 14

• applied to young speakers living in multi-cultural and multi-lingual districts of large cities
• high proportion of second language speakers

Question 15

What kind of English formed the input to MLE?

Answer 15

• creole-influenced varieties
• ex-colonial Englishes
• The local London vernacular (cockney)
• Media

Question 16

Labov’s main aim of NY Department Stores:

Answer 16

• investigate the use of the post vocalic rhetoric ‘r’ in words like ‘banter’ and ‘mark’

Question 17

macro-level:

Answer 17

• studying social groups as larger categories e.g age and gender

Question 18

micro-level

Answer 18

• studying individuals and how their language varied in small scale interactions

Question 19

Howard Giles: Communication Accommodation:

Answer 19

• linguistic convergence
• linguistic divergence
• the behavioral changes that people make to attune their communication to their partner
• the extent to which people perceive their partner as appropriately attuning to them.