University of Ni Faculty of Philosophy English Department

Phonetics and phonology paper work

English accents, dialects and the social context

Student: Marijana Mileti Ni, Serbia 2011

Teacher Advisor: Tatjana Paunovi

The place we come from is a very important part of our personality. The way we speak, our accents and dialects, are also important components of our identity. It is very often possible to guess where someone comes from by the way he speaks. People may even alter the way they speak after moving from one part of the country to another, but thay would carry at least some trace of their accent and dialect origins. And labels for people of different origins are broadly used in England, for example, people are called after their accents: Hey you, Cockney Our accent is the way we pronounce words of the language we speak. Our dialect is even broader, and it reffers to vocabulary and grammar we use as well. We all speak with a certain accent, and we all speak a dialect. The phenomenon of labelling people according to their way of speaking is common for every country in the world. Although the belief that some accents and dialects are more valuable, accurate or pure is based on prejudice, people speaking lower class dialects are sometimes underestimated, and considered to be uneducated or even unintelligent. The following pages are commited to the exploration of this phenomenon on the example of England, or more precisely to the description of different accents and dialects that are used in England, and the way people belonging to a certain regional group with distinctive accent and dialect are perceived by the rest of the population.

Standard dialect and BBC accent

Some people have very regional and characteristic accents, while a small number of the population of England, between 3 and 5 per cent, have a completely regionless accent. These are usually those people who have graduated from some highly appreciated Public School, or who at least want to sound as if they have. This accent is sometimes referred to as BBC accent because readers of the national news on radio and television are usually selected from this minority of the population. Since accents and dialects always go together, people with this BBC accent also speak Standard English, the dialect spoken by the most educated and powerful members of the population.

Around 12 to 15 percent of the population of England are native speakers of Standard English. It is the fact that everybody who speaks with a BBC accent also speaks the Standard English, but not everybody who speaks Standard English does so with a BBC accent. This accent and this dialect do not inevitably go together. The most prominent characteristic of this accent is the omission of r, or the process of r-loss (people pronouncing r in England have low social status, those omitting it, usually have high social status). Standard English uses the following grammatical forms: I did it; He doesnt want any; She isnt coming;

The other, Nonstandard Dialects may use grammatical forms such as: I done it; He dont want none; She aint coming;

Although Standard English is the most famous of all English dialects, most people do not speak this dialect. The nonstandard, regional dialects are spoken by the vast majority of the population. In any given area we find the social scale of dialects, with people at the top of the hierarchy speaking Standard English, and with more and more regional features occurring as we go down the social hierarchy.

Traditional Dialects
Traditional Dialects are spoken by a minority of the population, and those people are usually found in the remote and peripheral, rural areas of the country, although some

urban areas of northern and western England still have a number of Traditional Dialect speakers. When someone speaking this dialect says She is not coming, it sounds like this: She baint a-comin, or Her idden comin. One of the most striking differences between Traditional Dialects is related to the words ending in -ong/-ang. Words such as long and wrong are pronounced with a short o in most of England, but in northern England these words have a short a. Furthermore, words such as night and right are, instead of rait, nait, pronounced as reet and neet. In addition to all this, the pronunciation of words arm, cart and far for example also differs. Originally, all English dialects used to pronounce all rs. But some time ago, in some dialects rs started to be dropped when they occurred before a consonant. This change never occurred in Traditional Dialects. Rural areas near London were of these who retained their rs. For this reason, pronunciations such as ferrtilizerr are often used by urban speakers to mock those country people for being unsophisticated peasants. This is how their dialect is stigmatized as being undesirable. Americans, on the other hand, are not mocked for this.

Modern Nonstandard Dialects

Mainstream dialects, on the other hand, include both the Standard English Dialect and the Modern Nonstandard Dialects. Most people in England no longer speak Traditional Dialect but rather some form of Modern Dialect. As far as the features of the Modern Dialects are concerned, the change of arrm to ahm have started in the southeast of England (London, the South Midlands and East Anglia), and have spread to other parts of the country. The process of r-loss has been accelerated by the fact that this change has been adopted by the BBC accent speakers. It is widely familiar that r is pronounced by the people of the lower social status, while it is omitted by those belonging to higher social class. On the contrary, as far as

consonant h is concerned, those people who omit it are criticized. H is a quite useless consonant when it appears in the beginning of the word, which is why many local dialects have lost it (words hill and house are pronounced ill and aus. But pronouncing h is clearly a sign of higher social status. This shows us how linguistic changes are differently socially evaluated depending on whether they are adopted by upper-class speakers or not. Characteristics of Modern Dialects differ from one region to another, especially in pronunciation of the following types of words: Sing/long/bang (in most areas g is no longer pronounced, but in Liverpool, Manchester and Birmingham, it still is); Coffee/seedy/money (in most parts of the country the vowel is ee, but in the Central North, Central Lancashire, Northwest and Central Midlands the vowel is shirt i; Gate/face (while in most parts of England the vowel pronounced is ei, in the areas far away from London in the North and far Southwest the this vowel is pronounced as long e. One interesting feature of some Modern English Dialects is the pronunciation of l in milk, hill, roll, ball... These words are in London pronounced as miuk, hiu etc. This may be the beginning of a whole new change in the English language that will lead to the disappearance of l in the same way that r began to disappear 200 years ago. As far as grammar is concerned, many dialects have grammatical distinctions that are not present in Standard English. For example, even many Nonstandard Modern Dialects employ them or they rather than those: Them boys over there They books on the table

Very few dialects, for instance, distinguish between adverbs ending in ly, such as nicely. While Standard English has She sings nicely, most Nonstandard dialects have She sings nice. Not only do the dialects of England differ in their accents, grammar and vocabulary, but also in the conversational styles of the speakers. It is quite an interesting fact that the speakers of different dialects have different reputations, and are perceived in the light or shadow of the style of speech they use, which is closely related to their dialect. Some urban dialect areas, for instance, are known for the ability of their speakers to include quick wit in their conversations, like Merseyside or Cockney speakers. On the other hand, in some other areas, such as East Anglia, slower speech styles and irony are appreciated. The Cockneys may be valued in London as amusing and interesting, but they are certainly perceived by the speakers of East Anglia as arrogant. Not surprisingly, people from East Anglia are usually perceived by Londoners as unfriendly. This shows how people are prone to creating some general assumptions and prejudice due to their being intolerant on differences.

Origins of Dialect Differences and the Correctness of Dialects

Peter Trudgill explains in his book The Dialects of England the way in which dialects came to exist in such great numbers. It is impossible to enumerate them due to the fact that there are no strict dialect boundaries. According to him, there are as many dialects as there are places to be from. He states that dialects differ from immediately neighboring dialects only slightly, and can be heard to change slowly and word by word as we travel from one place to another. He also tries to answer the question why there are dialects at all and what their origins are. The answer he offers is the historical one. English, like all other languages in the world, is constantly changing, and different changes take place in different parts of the country. The different dialects that exist in modern England represent the results of 1500 years of linguistic and cultural development. This type of change is in the nature of language, and in the nature of society.

Although language differences that exist among different dialects are the outcome of many diverse cultural and historical changes, and the changes of the way of life of the people living in different geographical areas in general, language intolerance seems to be quite a usual occurrence. Peter Trudgill describes this phenomenon and expresses his attitude in the following sentences: There are a number of people who believe that Standard English is correct English, and that all other dialects are wrong. They seem to believe, in fact, that Standard English is the English language, and that all other dialects are in some way deviations from or corruptions of Standard English. Historically, of course, this is not true. Standard English has its origins in the older Traditional Dialects of the southeast of England, and rose to prominence because this was the area in which London, Oxford and Cambridge were situated, and which contained the royal court and the government. If the capital of England had been, say, York, then Standard English today would have shown a close resemblance to northern dialects of English. The fact is that all dialects, both Traditional and Modern, are equally grammatical and correct. They differ only in their social significance and function. As a result of a historical accident, the Standard English dialect is today the dialect which is used in writing, and which, by convention, is used for official purposes. This is why we teach children in British schools to read and write in this dialect. This does not mean, however, that there is anything wrong or linguistically inferior about the other dialects, which, as we have noted, are spoken by, and will undoubtedly continue to be spoken by, the majority of the population of England. 1 Peter Trudgill concludes that all the dialects have perfectly valid grammars, and that the only superiority that Standard English has is social.

Trudgill, Peter, The Dialects of England

Professor Tatjana Paunovi states in her English Phonetics and Phonology for EFL Students that people tend to have strong feelings about the varieties of their mother tongue, and may be sensitive about their own variety being quite different from the standard one. This comes as a consequence of the following: When one variety is promoted as the standard in a language community, other varieties may be considered sub-standard, bad, or undesirable. And it is a fact that in any language community some dialects and sociolects are considered socially prestigious, attractive and desirable, while some others are ridiculed as socially low and unacceptable. 2 The dialect or accent that someone uses tells us nothing about ones intelligence; it merely suggests where someone comes from. Still, a lot of people are judged, labeled, and even discriminated on the basis of the dialect/accent they use. And this does not refer to England only, but it happens elsewhere. The following passage, may be a good example of this fact, since it depicts the feelings of an African-American woman who speaks a regional dialect in America: As a black woman, I must speak differently. I must be able to communicate with my peers and with those who I interact with on a regular basis. It makes me an intelligent woman who will not let the constraints of language hold me back. Yeah, that's right, I have a dialect. I have a social dialect that if used in the wrong place at the wrong time will immediately classify me as being an uneducated, black, "hip-hop talking bad girl." But there is more to me than that. I speak to reveal the ideas and notions in my head. I speak to you so that you can understand me, so that the conversation flows. I speak to my peers differently, so that they can understand me and feel comfortable around me. 3 Peter Trudgill comments that, unfortunately, there are many cases of discrimination on the grounds of ones dialect. It may mean that we should enable all children of one country to have the kind of education which will help them protect themselves from this.
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Paunovi, Tatjana, English Phonetics and Phonology for Serbian EFL Students Slang: My Social Dialect

However, we should not accept discrimination, but fight it. He concludes that people should be encouraged to become more tolerant towards the dialects of others: The Traditional Dialects and Modern Dialects of England are part of our linguistic environment, and should be protected. Very few people would be happy if the whole England ended up resembling Milton Keynes, excellent place as Milton Keynes is in its way. This would make our country very dull and unstimulating place to live in. The same is true of our dialects, and of the local cultures that go with them. If everyone in this country spoke the same dialect, and used the same words, it would become less enjoyable and interesting place. Just imagine if Liverpudlians sounded like Cockneys! Or if you couldnt tell an English person from a Scot! 4 Peter explains how dialects do not represent barriers in understanding, but encourage us to develop our listening skills and enrich our vocabulary. He states that the causes for misunderstandings are never different dialects, but closed attitude and lack of will. People do not understand each other because they do not want to. Not only would our culture become poor if we all spoke the same language, but our thoughts and values would become uniformed together with the words we speak, like in Orwells 1984. I would like to conclude my paper with Petar Trudgills words, which completely reflect my attitude: It is good that Geordies and Cockneys and Scousers, northerners and midlanders and southerners are somewhat different sorts of people, and have different ideas, values and cultures. The fact that they speak different dialects helps them to stay that way. If we were all to end up speaking, thinking and behaving the same, we would eventually be left with only a single monolithic English culture that would greatly reduce our chances in the future of exploring alternative ideas, and of looking at alternative ways of making progress for our society. Dialect differences both symbolize and help to preserve local identities and individual ways of looking at the world. 5
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Trudgill, Peter, The Dialects of England Trudgill, Peter, The Dialects of England

All previously mentioned once again proves the fact that our language/dialect is the part of our identity, of who we are. And we still need to learn to respect each other, and differences which exist among us, which make us unique. Differences may teach, enrich, enlight. We should be encouraged to learn from our different ways.

Bibliography:
Trudgill, Peter - The Dialects of England, Second edition "Slang: My Social Dialect." 123HelpMe.com. 30 Jul 2011, source: <http://www.123HelpMe.com/view.asp?id=42032>. Paunovi, Tatjana - English Phonetics and Phonology for Serbian EFL students, Ni, 2007