Changes In Spoken Language Flashcards
(16 cards)
Thomas Sheridan (actor + educator)
1762: wrote ‘A Course of Lectures of Elocution’
- Argues that pronunciation of the court is of higher value than the pronunciation used in other accents.
- Views on elite London accent were very popular, triggering the publication of large number of elocution books.
Peter Trudgill (1983)
Defines Standard English as the ‘dialect of education’.
- 19th c. witnessed emergences of prescribed ‘educated accent’.
Explain the reasons for phonological change.
Jean Aitchson
Change as a natural tendency occuring in all languages. Reasons:
* Ease of articulation
- ‘Mobile’ instead of ‘mobile phone’
* Social prestige + changes in society
Define informalisation.
Way in which language is becoming increasingly informal in all areas of society.
Alexander Ellis’ (1869)
Received Pronunciation
Define RP as ‘a standard of pronunciation which should be acknowledged + followed throughout countries where English is spoken’.
Giles + Powesland (1975)
Perception of different accents.
Anne Fabricius (2002)
- Changing structure of RP in former public school students.
- Glottal stops no longer pejorative.
- Most marked from London students; London as source of linguistic innovation + change.
Peter Trudgill (2002)
Continuation of discrimination towards less socially prestigous accents- reflects class divisions.
Cameron (2000)
Employers + examiners commented on ‘poor communication skills’ of people ‘because they used non-standard grammar’ or had ‘broad
accents’
Estuary English
David Rosewarne coined ‘Estuary English’ during 1980s.
* Mix of ‘ordinary’ London + southern-easten accents with RP.
* Conforms to SE grammatically + lexically, but has distinct phonology
* Used by speakers from all regions
Key features:
* Glottal stops (foo’ball, Ga’wick)
* ‘L’ vocalisation, where ‘w’ sound replaces ‘I’
Dialectal Levelling
Common non-standard features from different dialects converge with the effect of an overall reduction in the variation / diversity of features in one or more dialects.
Coupland (1988)
Identifies the following features that have moved into common use as a result of this process:
* Multiple negation
* ‘Never as a negative in the past tense
* ‘Them’ as a demonstrative determiner
* Plurals not signified
* Use of ‘good’ as an adverb in addition to its use as an adjective, ‘the boy did good’
* Omission of preposition
* Modification of reflexive pronoun
Conversationalisation
‘Shifting boundaries between written + spoken discourse practices, + a rising prestige + status for spoken language’.
● Many linguists see this informalisation + personalisation of language in today’s language use + credit spoken language with driving changes in the written mode.
Dennis Freeborn
Incorrectness view: all accents are incorrect compared to Standard English + the accent of RP.
- Freeborn refutes this, citing evidence that accent’s popularity originates in fashion + convention
- RP became standard because of the social prestige, rather than being more correct than correct than any other variety
Ugliness view: some accents don’t sound ‘nice’.
- Seems to be linked to stereotypes + negative social connotations, especially as ghd least-liked accents seem to be found in poorer, urban areas.
*Impreciseness view: Some accents are described as ‘lazy’ + ‘sloppy’, such as Estuary English, where sounds are omitted or changed.
- Freeborn offers the glottal stop as an argument that some sound changes are logical + governed by linguistic views.
Eye Dialect
Dialectal representations of speech have developed in prose throughout Late Modern English.
David Crystal (future of the English Language)
In the future, people will adopt bidialectalism and will switch between two dialects of English:
- Regional dialect
- International variety used to communicate with English speakers across the world.
