Accent and Dialect
Geographical Variation: Accent and Dialect
- Created by: miss_t2000
- Created on: 03-06-18 21:51
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- Accent and Dialect
- Accent is the pronunciation an individual uses based upon their location
- Dialect is the words an individual uses due to their location.
- Attitudes
- Regional accents are often stigmatised, and can result in presumptions being made
- Dennis Freeborn
- The Incorrectness View
- Said some accents were simply incorrect ways of speaking
- Standard English is the only correct manner of speech
- RP is therefore the only acceptable and correct accent
- BUT change over time, such as perceptions of the rhotic accents mean even RP has varied.
- The Ugliness View
- Regional accents are ugly and lack aesthetic appeal
- May be too harsh (eg Glaswegian)
- May be too thick (eg Northern)
- May be boring (eg Birmingham)
- Regional accents are ugly and lack aesthetic appeal
- The Imprecise-ness View
- The use of regional accent is lazy and imprecise
- The use of the glottal stop is perceived as laziness but may not always be so
- It is suggested that children with a regional accent are likely to struggle in school due to their pronunciation (eg )
- The Incorrectness View
- Howard Giles (1975)
- Looked at perceptions of Birmingham and RP accents
- Using a matched guise style, ppts discussed psychology and the death penalty.
- RP was rated more competent and more intelligent than the regional speaker
- BUT he had a small sample, and was potential for participant effects due to their own accent producing a 'halo effect'
- Dixon, Mahoney, + ***** (2002)
- Used a matched guise style to look at the correlation between guilt and accent
- Birmingham accents were found more guilty than RP speakers
- Had high realism, BUT doesn't account for appearance effects
- Neuliep + Spaten-Hansen (2013)
- Used a matched guise format to investigate ethnocentricit
- Non-native accents and speakers were measured against Americans in regard to appearance, credibility and similarity.
- Non-native accents got lower ratings in all catagories
- BUT non-native accent was describes as 'non-discernible' which isn't viable.
- Seligman, Tucker, + Lambert (1972)
- Choy + Dodd (1976)
- Suggested teachers make judgements of students' capabilities based on speech and accent
- Regional accents are perceived as less kind and less intelligent
- Children are rated less highly based on their parent's accents
- Children living in areas with thicker accent may be perceived as less capable causing a poorer education
- Choy + Dodd (1976)
- Paul Coggle (1993)
- Evaluated stereotypical attitudes towards classes - Estuary English
- Found people liked accents for different reasons
- Some accents are more soothing and friendly (Geordie) but some are reputable for poverty
- BUT this is generalised so may be unrepresent-ative
- Dialect Levelling
- Leslie Milroy (2002)
- Increased geographical mobility leads to the 'large-scale disruption of close-knit localised networks" which have "structured linguistic norms"
- Paul Kerswill (2001)
- Caused by the reduction of rural employment and he construction of suburbs
- Increased social mobility lead to "the consequent breakdown of tight knit working class communities"
- Survivor Dialects
- Some regional forms are surviving levelling
- Multiple negation
- Addition of the present tense -s (eg I likes)
- Use of ain't
- Absernce of plural marking on measures (eg 3 foot)
- Absence of adverb marking
- Foulkes and Docherty (1999)
- Surviving forms are not common to one region
- Suggested a degree of standard-isation
- Language spread often originates from London
- 1. South East (Reading, Milton Keynes)
- 2. Central England (Midlands, Yorkshire)
- 3. Northern England (Hull)
- 4. North-East England, Scotland (Newcastle, Glasgow)
- The process by which dialects converge over time, reducing regional features and diversity
- Leslie Milroy (2002)
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