Theories about variations of English

• MLE has West-Indian, South Asian, Cockney and Estuary English roots.
• It's a youth slang and an accent/dialect for core users.
• It is mostly picked up at schools in which 50% of the pupils have English as a second language.
• It's a defence mechanism for youths who have experienced discrimination or a lack of progress in life to exclude others.

• MLE comes from Afro-Caribbean and Jamaican roots with words such as 'bruv', 'bredrin', 'hype' and 'bare' all having roots in these cutlures.
• It's also used by children with a white ethnicity.
• Because of this, cultural/ethnic factors aren't synonymous in a group but, rather, the lexicon that they use.

Jenny Cheshire and Viv Edwards (1997):

• Present in 97.7 (98%) of the schools that they studied.
• They thought that this could be due to American dialects on TV.

Kortmann and Szmrecsanyi (2004):

• Present everywhere apart from Orkney and the Shetland Isles.
• This, again links to the idea that this is present because of American dialects- Orkney and Shetland are remote areas.

• 'Matched-Guise testing' - got an actor to speak in different accents within English.
• Concluded that people have a different perception of somebody based on the way that they speak.

Howard Giles (1973):

• Got British teenagers to listen to speeches about the death penalty in RP and Birmingham accents.
• They perceived the RP accent to be more competent and intelligent.

Howard Giles (1975):

• Got two groups of 17 year olds to witness the RP and Birmingham accent.
• Conclusively, they thought that the RP accent was more comeptent and intelligent.

• Studied the relation between accent and guilt.
• Concluded that the Birmingham accent was significantly more guilty than others.

Determined that teachers made judgements on a student's ability and personality based on their accent.

• Home country, American, Scottish, Continental European and Asian Accents are viewed as the most successful.
• Geordie, Liverpudlian and Birmingham accents are viewed as the least successful.