English Language - Theories and Research

BBC Breakfast presenter Steph McGovern sent £20 by viewer to correct her 'terrible' northern accent’

• “'I’m sorry about your terrible affliction. Here’s £20 towards correction therapy’.’
• ‘“I think people tend to underestimate you when you have a Northern accent, for instance if you have to talk to the CEO of an international company," she added in an interview with the Daily Express.’ 
• ‘I remember at the end of one BBC job interview being told by the manager ‘I didn’t realise people like you were clever’.’

• This shows explicit evidence of the stigmas surrounding accents. Steph McGovern seems to have bravely battled the prejudice that her own accent has caused. 
• Despite the struggle, she has still managed to achieve success as she is now a Prime Time News Reader.
• In fact, she may be bringing prestige down for News Reader accents.

• Deborah Cameron: “The accents people complain about, Scouse, Brum, Glaswegian, are just the accents of the old industrial cities, thought to be full of yobs and chavs”
• “Student’s attitudes to their own accents are negative, with one girl saying scornfully of herself and her fellow Bristolian speakers, ‘We all sound like pirates and farmers’”. 
• “The South West accent is associated with rural way of life and carries connotations of lack of education.”
• “Study found that Geordie and Scouse speakers tended to have positive attitudes to their own accents… In contrast this with Bristol and Birmingham accents preferred not to be addressed in their own accents.”

• Accents carry stigmas, this can affect the way people feel about their own or other people’s accents.
• For example, someone with a Bristolian accent may struggle to get employed outside of Bristol as the accent may not be as appreciated in other regions. 
• Celebrity success affects the stigmas of a region’s accent.
• For example, the likeable characters Ant and Dec carry a Geordie accent, this makes people associate Newcastle with the fun, friendly personalities that the double act pursue.
• Cheryl Cole is another example of Geordie success but Cheryl’s success was stunted as she failed to hit off on American TV after they struggled to understand her accent.

• A study by Jenny Cheshire conducted in Reading found that groups of youngsters used their language to set them apart from others, but it also enabled them to fit into particular social groups.  
• The peer group’s culture and values were key in certain language patterns, if an individual’s language did not fit in then neither did they.  

This is reflected in many dialects created by youths, using slang and non-standard grammar ‘innit’, but it is not just the younger generations that do this.  

• In William Labov’s study of the accent variables in Martha’s Vineyard in the States, he found that the older generations adapted their dialect and accents to ‘fit in’ with those of the local fishermen.
• By doing this they created a dialect that symbolised their ‘belonging’ to the Vineyard as opposed to the thousands of visitors who descend on the island each year. 

This need for social identity can be seen as part of the ‘match concept and theory’, as changes can occur rapidly, perhaps due to an environmental factor, as seen on Martha’s Vineyard where the influx of visitors fuelled the local population’s desire to present themselves as belonging to that location.  

This functional theory, meaning that the change occurs due to the needs of the users, as mentioned regarding the Martha’s Vineyard study by Labov, leads to the ‘s-curve’ being created.

This refers to the pace at which the change occurs, at first quite slowly, then picking up speed and the slowing, but this can then repeat itself, as per Chen’s s-curve theory (1968).

Another theory, the ‘wave model’ is based on Bailey’s idea (1973) that if there is a particular grammatical, lexical or semantic change that occurs within a language, accent or dialect, this can spread out from this area and into general language, much like the shock waves from the epicentre of an earthquake.

This theory states that the further away from the ‘centre’ of these changes either socially or geographically an individual is, the less likelihood there is of a significant impact on their language.

Again much like an earthquake, the further away you are from the epicentre the less vibration you feel.  

This is why the multicultural youth dialects of London have little effect on the middle class dialects of Edinburgh, they are separated not only by distance but by social boundaries as well.

Dominance – the female sex is seen as the subordinate group whose difference in style in speech results from male supremacy 

• In mixed-sex conversations men are more likely to interrupt than women, as shown by Zimmerman and West (1975).
• In 1975, Don Zimmerman and Candace West analysed conversations in a college community, focusing on interruptions.
• In 11 conversations between men and women, men used 46 interruptions, but women only 2. 
• Not generalisable, only 11 conversations.
• Unreliable as convos cannot be replicated properly.
• Ecological validity cos mundane realism, even though in lab environment.
• Reductionist cos doesn’t take personal factors into account, cog functions etc.

Otto Jesperson (1922) was one of the first linguists to write about male and female language.  He had 1 chapter in his book entitled ‘The Woman’.

He believed that: 

• women had limited vocabularies

• women are delicate and easily offended, so prefer to avoid ‘coarse and gross expressions’ and use more ‘veiled and indirect expressions.’

• Men invent new terms, while women are naturally conservative. 

- Outdated
- Is difficult to recognise in real life, most likely as the entirity of a gender has been put under one umbrella

• Status vs. Support
• Independence vs. Intimacy
• Advice vs. Understanding
• Information vs. Feelings
• Orders vs. Proposals
• Conflict vs. Compromise

Red = Male
Black = Female

Women 

• Talk too much
• Speak in private contexts 
• Build relationships
• Overlap (not interrupt)
• Speak symmetrically

Men 

• Get more air time
• Speak publicly
• Negotiate status and avoid failure
• Speak one at a time
• Speak asymmetrically

Goal orientation - Participants in a workplace usually focus on specific tasks or goals.

Turn taking rules/restrictions - In some professional contexts, e.g. a courtroom, there are special turn taking rules in operation. But even when no special rules exist, there may be unwritten restrictions on who speaks when. E.g. In a doctor/patient scenario, the doctor would ask the patient questions first, then the patient who responds. 

Allowable contributions - There may be restrictions on what might be considered allowable contributions to conversation within a workplace context.

Professional lexis - The professional/workplace context may be reflected in the lexical choice, i.e. in special lexis or vocab used by speakers.

Structure - Workplace and professional interactions may be structured in specific ways - e.g. courtroom having to 'all rise'.

Asymmetry - Workplace and professional interactions are often asymmetrical, that is one speaker often has more power and/or special knowledge than the other. E.g. a boss and an employee, or a doctor and a patient. 

• Quality - be truthful, don't lie
• Quantity - speak enough but not too much
• Relation - remain relevant 
• Manner - be clear and polite

Pidgins – a form of contact language that act as lingua franca, so are a type of communication adopted by people who share no common language. Hybrid.

Unlike other lingua francas, pidgins are made up of different elements of different language.

Creole – more sophisticated language than a pidgin, as it has wider vocab and more complex grammar. (Only develops when a pidgin becomes a native language and when children are born to pidgin speakers.)

Pidgin is L2 – then the speakers have children – becomes Creole that’s L1

INNER CIRCLE = A native language = ENL – ‘Norm-providing’

OUTER CIRCLE = A second language = ESL – ‘Norm-developing’

EXPANDING CIRCLE = A foreign language = EFL – ‘Norm-dependent’

Limitations:

·        - Based on geography and history, rather than the speakers’ use of English 
- Grey area between Inner and Outer circles, as well as Outer and Expanding circles
- The world’s bilingual or multilingual speakers are not taken into account
- Difficulty of using the model to define speakers in terms of their proficiency – purely - geographical
- Does not account for linguistic diversity within and between countries of a particular circle
- The term Inner Circle implies that speakers from ENL countries are central, and thus may be interpreted as superior 

Here, Modiano’s Circles lets you move in towards the centre, not an exact science nor are they country defined. Kachru’s is more by level and region, Modiano’s by ability BUT can’t draw the line for proficiency or competency – no specific defining factors

-Potential = there needs to be a potential for words to change or for a new word to be inserted into the vocabulary of a language

-Implementation = the word is hinted and used in society and perhaps used in newspaper articles or by the media to get others to use it

-Diffusion = it spreads through the skin of society and reaches out to people across the country or community 

-Codification = it becomes a recognised word in Dictionaries and is used more and more frequently

E.g. 'hangry' - There was potential for anger caused by something specific, such as hunger. Social media began to pick it up, and slowly it diffused through the skin of society. Now, it is recognised by the Oxford English Dictionary.