Text E and F both express ideas and opinions on accents and language varieties although their ideologies are very different. Text E expresses hate and disgust for the working class accent, suggesting that it is undesirable by using adjectives such as 'riddled' or wincing' but emphasizes the value of convergence in social situations in order to present yourself in the best possible way dependent on the situation. Text F reinforces the importance and significance of received pronunciation, it suggests that the RP accent is the way forward and everybody is obliged to learn to speak properly.
Text E is a newspaper article aimed at an upper-class audience, as suggested by the title 'I hate my son's working-class accent'. It is written in a formal tone with occasional colloquial terms thrown in for effect e.g. 'matey'; the effect of such colloquialisms helps the article seem more realistic and shows contrast to the RP accent. The purpose of the text is to inform the reader that whilst the RP accent is seen as 'higher' in society, the power to converge and appear 'classless' is the ideal attribute to have. The fact that Chloe's son is technically upper class but is able to converge and appear classless reinforces Peter Trudgill's research which suggests that the more formal the conversation, the closer to RP the language becomes.
Text E uses a lot of techniques to present their ideas about accents, e.g. In the first sentence, there is a dynamic, finite verb 'sent'. The effect of this is to show that sending her son to a private school was a process that was completed and should have had a significant effect on his accent. The use of 'sent' creates the feeling that it was a forced action and automatically engages the reader to find out more.
The text also uses antonyms - 'help or hinder'. This shows that accents and language varieties have both advantages and disadvantages and it is possible to view regional accents positively, despite the fact that the text appears to disapprove of the working class accent. The antonyms help create a feel of balance when presenting their argument and allows the reader to make their own interpretations about the effects of accents and language variety.
The text also uses a subordinating clause introduced by a relative pronoun 'who'; 'who has assumed a working-class accents for his or her own reasons'. The effect of this is to create a more personal feel and relate language change to a real situation; this is further reinforced by the use of 3rd person objective personal pronouns 'his or her.'
In addition, text E uses examples of Estuary English 'If ya know wha' I mean', it shows that Estuary English has replaced RP as the more popular dialect form. This reinforces Rosewarne's research that suggested that in time, RP will diminish with Estuary English taking its place.
The fact that the text suggests that convergence is somewhat necessary in order to fit in expresses that language variation is becoming more accepted and valued in society - it is true that in contemporary society, people use their speech to show a sense of identity and individuality; this is reinforced by the fact that people in the mass media now feel comfortable communicating in their original accent and famous people in the media are increasingly asserting their identity by talking with their strong regional accents.
Text F is an article from a website which offers communication skills training - the text expresses ideas that everybody should speak in the RP accent. It is aimed at a lower-class audience who it is assumed, possesses a strong regional accent.The article is written with direct mode of address, constantly addressing 'you'. The use of the 2nd person, subject pronoun makes the reader feel involved and entices them to take the 'advice' given. The purpose of the article is to persuade the audience to learn to speak with an RP accent.
The text repeatedly uses words and phrases with negative connotations .e.g 'holding you back' , 'not taken seriously' and 'frustrated'. The effect of these lexical choices suggests that anything other than RP is undesirable and should be amended. This is reinforced by the way in which RP is referred to, using positive predicative adjectives 'authoritative and professional'. The text supports the communication accommodation theory which suggests that people can and do alter their accent and language in order to achieve a particular effect.
Text F uses a deontic modal auxiliary verb 'need' - 'we will explain the precise changes you need to make'. The use of such an obligatory term reinforces the necessity of action, which is what the text is trying to express, this creates a strong feeling of obligation and urges the reader to get involved in the actions being advised.
In addition,the text repeatedly uses the phrase 'we will explain'. This phrase makes it seem as if the audience is uneducated and needs to be told what to do; to some, this may seem patronizing and unnecessary although it it put in for effect - the clause expresses certainty that they are there to help and reassures the reader that the 'goal' is achievable.
In conclusion, both texts express clear ideas about accents and language variation and reinforce the prestige of RP but also acknowledge that language variation is everywhere and although some accents are seen as undesirable,it is necessary to use the accommodation theory in different situations in order to achieve desired results.
Wednesday, 30 November 2011
Section B; Language Discourses essay plan.
For English.
Analyse both texts for lexis and semantic use; either comparing them both all the way through or writing about each text separately and comparing them in your conclusion. Use the PEED structure + relevant theory.
3 paragraphs about text E.
3 paragraphs about text F.
& a paragraph to conclude.
In the first paragraph, do a GASP. e.g. Both texts express ideas and opinions on accents and language varieties, make sure you summarize both texts before you start, emphasising that they both express very different ideas about accents and dialects; include what you've learnt.
In all subsequent paragraphs, do your analysis on both texts, using PEED.
Picking out features and analysing them.
Include theories:
Giles – Capital punishment theory.
Trudgill – Attitudes to RP.
Rosewarne – Estuary English.
Petyt – Social class.
Jennifer Cheshire –Standard English.
Accomodation theory.
Convergence and Divergence.
People change their accents to seem more normal = e.g. Actors in Hollywood.
Identity.
Analyse both texts for lexis and semantic use; either comparing them both all the way through or writing about each text separately and comparing them in your conclusion. Use the PEED structure + relevant theory.
3 paragraphs about text E.
3 paragraphs about text F.
& a paragraph to conclude.
In the first paragraph, do a GASP. e.g. Both texts express ideas and opinions on accents and language varieties, make sure you summarize both texts before you start, emphasising that they both express very different ideas about accents and dialects; include what you've learnt.
In all subsequent paragraphs, do your analysis on both texts, using PEED.
Picking out features and analysing them.
Include theories:
Giles – Capital punishment theory.
Trudgill – Attitudes to RP.
Rosewarne – Estuary English.
Petyt – Social class.
Jennifer Cheshire –Standard English.
Accomodation theory.
Convergence and Divergence.
People change their accents to seem more normal = e.g. Actors in Hollywood.
Identity.
Tuesday, 15 November 2011
Geordie Accent spreading as a result of Cheryl Cole
Source:
- According to research, the Geordie accent is spreading beyond its roots.
- It is extending its reach across the north-east and into the north-west too because of the ‘prestige’ Newcastle is held in.
- He speculates that by 2030 Geordie could even have become one of ten regional accents that will dominate England.
- Other regional accents including Brummie
and West Country are also said to be on the march as the hundreds of
accents that once distinguished small towns and rural districts are
gradually being subsumed into regional ‘super-accents’.
Paul Kerswill's predictions for likely accent change.
Source:
- The distinctive accents and dialects that characterise the different parts of the country.
- Some are spreading; some retreating.
- Some are mutating; some are even getting stronger.
- Overall, the pronunciation and prosody of spoken English seems to vary as much as ever across the country of its birth.
- Liverpool’s “Scouse” dialect is made up of throaty, guttural utterances that emerged from a mixture of
Irish, Scots, Welsh and Lancashire accents in the late 19th century.
- For example, Liverpudlians tend to add a breathy “h” sound to words that
end with a “t”, lending their distinctive intonation to “what”, “that”
and “but”.
- Older Liverpudlians limit their use of it to words of a single syllable
but younger ones have increased the individuality of the Scouse accent
by extending it to “chocolate”, “certificate” and “aggregate”.
- Some aspects of south-eastern “Estuary English” have infiltrated northern
parts—replacing the “th” in “think” and “nothing” with an “f” sound.
- Regional accents have largely survived in northern cities, thanks to a
relative lack of immigration combined with chirpy civic pride.
- Mr Kerswill’s research finds that the distribution of accents across the country is undergoing big changes.
- While the Scouse accent grows stronger, variations of the north-eastern “Geordie” accent are not only retaining their distinctiveness but conquering fresh territory.
- The Brummie accent is spreading as its speakers move west to Wales.
- The traditional Cockney accent is fading and is no longer so common in East London.
- Mr Kerswill predicts that, by 2030, Cockney-influenced Estuary English
will dominate most of the east and south-east, as Londoners move out.
- In the capital itself a new dialect, inspired by recent immigration, is
emerging: “multicultural London English”, heavily influenced by Jamaican
with undertones of west African and Indian.
British Black English (BBE)
- The language variety of black Americans or black
English speakers.
- it is accepted
that African American Vernacular English (AAVE) or Black
English Vernacular (BEV) is a distinct variety of English (rather
than a dialect).
- AAVE has its
roots in the slave trade where people captured in various parts of Africa
and with a variety of languages were forced to create a pidgin or creole.
- Eventually
this incorporated elements of English so it could also be used to communicate
with the slave owners.
- Similar origins to Jamaican Creole spoken by Jamaican communities in London, Manchester, Bristol, Birmingham, Leeds and Nottingham.
- After the 1950's there
was significant immigration to London as England welcomed workers in its
post war expansion and rebuilding.
- British Black English speakers are finding
their own voice in literature such as rap poetry and song.
- A lot of BBE is written phonetically.
- "yuhself" for "yourself"
- "dat" and "dem" for "that" and "them"
- "nuff" for "enough"
- "respek"
for "respect".
BBE has different grammatical constructions, observe the table. - BBE speakers also use 'ain't' when using negation.
- It is seen a lot in American literature as it represent the way in which blacks' speak - giving them a sense of identity and significance.
Multi Cultural London English (MLE)
Source: http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fss/projects/linguistics/multicultural/overview.htm
- MLE is colloquially known as 'Jafaican'
- It is a dialect of English that emerged in the late 20th Century.
- Spoken in Inner London.
- Gaining territory from Cockney.
- Contains elements of Caribbean, South Asia & West Africa.
- MLE is mainly used by young , urban, working class people.
Grammar: - The past tense of the verb 'to be' is regularised with was being regular, I was, he was, she was.
- In comparison to negative constructions were 'weren't' is used: I weren't, he weren't etc.
- Tag questions: Innit?
Phonology: - Non-Rhotic. (only pronounce R's if they're followed by vowels.)
- H-dropping.
- Th-fronting
Research:
- London has long been considered by linguists as a motor of change in
the English language.
- Focused on
changes in the London periphery, especially Milton Keynes, Reading and
(later) Ashford.
- We found 'dialect levelling', with local accents and dialects
becoming less distinct by adopting a common set of pronunciation and grammatical
features.
- For several features,
the assumption that London is the origin of these changes is unsupported.
-
Young Londoners' speech contains only some of the levelling changes, such
as the very heavy use of 'f' for the 'th' in words like 'thin' and the
use of universal 'was' and'weren't', giving 'I was, you was' and 'I weren't,
you weren't' - though, surprisingly, ethnic minorities use less of these.
- Other features such as the vowels of words like 'face', 'goat', 'like'
and 'mouth', many use new pronunciations which, phonetically, resemble
Northern English but also Caribbean and Subcontinental Englishes.
- There is
ongoing divergence between Londoners and London periphery residents.
- The
changes which result in divergence are led by ethnic minority speakers,
particularly Afro-Caribbeans.
- The degree to which 'Anglos' participate
in these changes is strongly related to the ethnic mix of their peer groups.
- Outer Londoners' more 'Cockney' speech reflects the much smaller proportion
of ethnic minority people there.
- The key to
this is to understand the nature of what we call 'Multicultural London
English' (MLE), the (supposedly) ethnically neutral way of speaking which
still contains many 'ethnic' features.
- There is no clear boundary between and ethnically marked forms of English, eg Bangladeshi and Afro-Caribbean.
Changes: - As its traditional speakers emigrate to Essex and Hertfordshire, the 650-year-old accent is dying off in London.
- It is being replaced by MLE.
- Within a generation MLE is expected to be standard in London.
- “In much of the East End of London, the cockney dialect that we hear now
spoken by older people will have disappeared within another
generation,” <Paul Kerswill.
- “Cockney in the East End is now transforming itself into multicultural
London English, a new, melting-pot mixture of all those people living
here who learned English as a second language."
- since the 1960s, these areas of London have become home to immigrants from the West Indies, the Indian subcontinent and many other places, from South America and Africa to Central Asia and the Far East.
- Children were no longer learning their English dialect from local
cockney speakers but from older teenagers, who themselves had developed
their English in the linguistic melting pot.
- Out of all this, the new English which we call multicultural London
English emerged, and this is the sound of inner-city London we hear
today.”
- “Jafaican”, is a mixture of cockney, Bangladeshi and West Indian.
Lexis:
COCKNEY GLOSSARY
You're 'aving a laugh — I don't believe you
Geezer — likeable fellow
Mate — all-purpose sentence-closer
Know what I mean? — Do you agree with me?
China — cockney rhyming slang, from “China plate”: “mate”
JAFAICAN GLOSSARY
Buff — attractive
Axe — instead of “ask”
Creps — trainers
Endz — area, estate, neighbourhood
Low batties — trousers that hang low on the waist
Skets — derogatory term for loose girls
Bitch — girlfriend
Nang — good (as in “rah, das 'nuff nang!”)
Sick — good
Hype — hype things up, increase status
Jamming — hanging around
Begging — talking rubbish
Chat — talk back, contradict
Bare — very, a lot
Nuff — really, very
Innit? — sentence-closer, seeking agreement
Accents can be a real turn off.
Source:
http://www.scotsman.com/news/accents_can_be_a_real_turn_off_for_scottish_listeners_study_finds_1_834743
- Scots are turned off by accents that don't sound like their own.
- The research found that people's brains switched off when listening to non-native voices but were alert when hearing a Scottish accent.
- The findings suggest that Scottish people have an in-built, unconscious bias against outsiders.
- Brain activity would decrease when listening to a Scottish accent as the participants could process the words spoken in their own accent more quickly and with less effort.
- That suggests that people were paying more attention to the voice of someone from their own group than from a different group.
- The initial results suggest such vocal samples somehow reflect group membership or social identity, so that 'in-group' voices are processed differently from the 'out-group'.
Monday, 14 November 2011
Estuary English.
History:
· Estuary English was brought into prominence by the work of David Rowewarne in the early 1980’s together with the prediction that it may well in time replace RP as the standard pronunciation form of English.
· Estuary English is a variety that is growing out of its original regional roots, influencing more speakers and spreading into wider areas of usage in the UK.
· It is often described as a mid-point between Cockney and RP.
· The non-standard accent and dialect features are best understood as those have been influenced by Cockney and the south east.
· The remainder of the dialect is ‘standard’ in the sense that is adheres roughly to the prestige of RP.
· Rosewarne stated certain dialect features involving non-standard grammatical forms including the contracted word ‘ain’t’ as a verb and non standard past tense forms like ‘come’ for ‘came’ in the usage like ‘I come back home yesterday.’
· The usage of the double negative forms has been put forward as another dialectal feature derived from Cockney, although negative constructions involving the primary verbs ‘to be’ ‘to do’ and ‘to have’ usually in the past tense. In these instances, the adverb ‘never’ is used to construct forms like ‘I never did’ or ‘He never went’, rather than the standard use of ‘not’, for example ‘I did not.’
Research:
- Joanna Przedlacka produced research on the accent forms of Estuary English in the late 1990's form the greater London area, covering an area of approx. 50 miles.
- She used male and female informants aged 14-16 from four areas representing the spread of London to the north west (Aylesbury), north east (Little Baddow), south east (Farningham) and south west (Walton-on-the-Hill).
- Her findings suggested the tendency towards some of the pronunciation features described above, although Przedlacka concluded that there was a definate homogeneity of accents across the area.
- Where Estuary English trends were appearing these seemed to be led predominantaly by the female speakers of the sample.
- The phonomemnon of Estuary English moving more widely across southern England and even beyond, has been the subject of research most notably by Paul Kerswill.
- Estuary English is a dominant pronounciation form in much of the spoken broadcast media, and from actors and musicians. This is one of the factors for the spread of Estuary English beyond its regional heartlands of the south east.
- Kerswill's research into the city of Milton Keynes found vowel fronting, perhaps indicacting the influence of Estuary English forms there as the population of the city has grown, with significant migration there from London and the south east.
- The emergence of Estuary English forms increasingly further afield from London signals something of the spread of the variety - and hints at its potential role inthe concept of dialect levelling, in which regional and local dialect differences begin to decrease.
*Vowel fronting = moving the place in which the vowel sound is generated towards the front of the mouth.
*Dialect levelling = is the means in which dialect differences decrease.
Tuesday, 8 November 2011
My recording experience
It seemed like an easy concept. All I had to do is acquire some spoken interaction via the medium of recording. How hard could it be?
I was well prepared, using two phones and a recording device to record to ensure that I captured every second; it wasn’t to be. The content just wasn’t right. I explained to the participants my aim of the recording and clearly informed them that their task was to have a normal, flowing conversation. No extra thought, no effort.
They just didn’t understand. My ideas weren’t complex, their task wasn’t complicated, why couldn’t they just fulfil my expectations. I was disappointed. The whole thing was a disaster.
In the end, my recording was just a collection of jumbled verbalizations. It wasn’t at all what I was looking for... my subsequent tasks were just in jeopardy, I couldn’t do any further recordings because I just didn’t know what I was doing anymore. The whole thing just filled me with dread.
After going through an unsuccessful recording experience, I now know that I no longer want to record spoken interaction again. The perfect recording just isn’t possible.
However, I’m far from giving up, you mark my words, I will achieve my aim.... eventually.
Monday, 7 November 2011
Non regional voices:
Received pronounciation:
Received Pronunciation ( RP) is the proper term to describe the regionally neutral accent used by many middle class speakers in England. It is widely used as a reference point in dictionaries and as a model for teaching English as a foreign language. But have you ever wondered how it came into existence, how it is changing or what role it plays in 21st century Britain?
Received Pronunciation, or RP for short, is the instantly recognisable accent often described as ‘typically British’. Popular terms for this accent, such as ‘The Queen’s English’, ‘Oxford English’ or ‘BBC English’ are all a little misleading.
The Queen, for instance, speaks an almost unique form of English, while the English we hear at Oxford University or on the BBC is no longer restricted to one type of accent. RP is an accent, not a dialect, since all RP speakers speak Standard English.
In other words, they avoid non-standard grammatical constructions and localised vocabulary characteristic of regional dialects. RP is also regionally non-specific, that is it does not contain any clues about a speaker’s geographic background. But it does reveal a great deal about their social and/or educational background.
RP is probably the most widely studied and most frequently described variety of spoken English in the world, yet recent estimates suggest only 2% of the UK population speak it. Received pronounciation is losing it's prestige in most places including Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales.
As well as being a living accent, RP is also a theoretical linguistic concept. It is the accent on which phonemic transcriptions in dictionaries are based, and it is widely used (in competition with General American) for teaching English as a foreign language.
Origins of RP.
RP is a young accent in linguistic terms. It was not around, for example, when Dr Johnson wrote A Dictionary of the English Language in 1757. He chose not to include pronunciation suggestions as he felt there was little agreement even within educated society regarding ‘recommended’ forms.
The phrase Received Pronunciation was coined in 1869 by the linguist, A J Ellis, but it only became a widely used term used to describe the accent of the social elite after the phonetician, Daniel Jones, adopted it for the second edition of the English Pronouncing Dictionary (1924).
The definition of ‘received’ conveys its original meaning of ‘accepted’ or ‘approved’ - as in ‘received wisdom’. We can trace the origins of RP back to the public schools and universities of nineteenth-century Britain - indeed Daniel Jones initially used the term Public School Pronunciation to describe this emerging, socially exclusive accent.
Over the course of that century, members of the ruling and privileged classes increasingly attended boarding schools such as Winchester, Eton, Harrow and Rugby and graduated from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Their speech patterns - based loosely on the local accent of the south-east Midlands (roughly London, Oxford and Cambridge) - soon came to be associated with ‘The Establishment’ and therefore gained a unique status, particularly within the middle classes in London. As a result of this, the RP accent became heavily associated with being well-educated, well spoken and ultimately being a part of a higher socio-economic demographic.
RP is believed to be the best understood form of English and therefore was adopted by the BBC for broadcasting purposes; (hence the term BBC English). The fact that choosing a regional dialect may have alienated the audience was also taken into consideration when choosing a dialect for broadcasting.
But since RP was the preserve of the aristocracy and expensive public schools, it represented only a very small social minority. This policy prevailed at the BBC for a considerable time and probably contributed to the sometimes negative perception of regional varieties of English.
There's more than one type of Received Pronounciation;
A speaker who uses numerous very localised pronunciations is often described as having a ‘broad’ or ‘strong’ regional accent, while terms such as ‘mild’ or ‘soft’ are applied to speakers whose speech patterns are only subtly different from RP speakers.
So, we might describe one speaker as having a broad Glaswegian accent and another as having a mild Scottish accent. Such terms are inadequate when applied to Received Pronunciation, although as with any variety of English, RP encompasses a wide variety of speakers and should not be confused with the notion of ‘posh’ speech.
The various forms of RP can be roughly divided into three categories.
Conservative RP refers to a very traditional variety particularly associated with older speakers and the aristocracy.
Mainstream RP describes an accent that we might consider extremely neutral in terms of signals regarding age, occupation or lifestyle of the speaker.
Contemporary RP refers to speakers using features typical of younger RP speakers.
All, however, are united by the fact they do not use any pronunciation patterns that allow us to make assumptions about where they are from in the UK
RP Today:
Like any other accent, RP has also changed over the course of time. The voices we associate with early BBC broadcasts, for instance, now sound extremely old-fashioned to most. Just as RP is constantly evolving, so our attitudes towards the accent are changing.
For much of the twentieth century, RP represented the voice of education, authority, social status and economic power. The period immediately after the Second World War was a time when educational and social advancement suddenly became a possibility for many more people.
Those who were able to take advantage of these opportunities - be it in terms of education or career - often felt under considerable pressure to conform linguistically and thus adopt the accent of the establishment or at least modify their speech towards RP norms.
In recent years, however, as a result of continued social change, virtually every accent is represented in all walks of life to which people aspire - sport, the arts, the media, business, even former strongholds of RP England, such as the City, Civil Service and academia. As a result, fewer younger speakers with regional accents consider it necessary to adapt their speech to the same extent.
Indeed many commentators even suggest that younger RP speakers often go to great lengths to disguise their middle-class accent by incorporating regional features into their speech.
Geordie dialect:
The UK has a number of distinctive dialects, and Geordie – the dialect of Newcastle-upon-Tyne – is arguably one of our most recognisable.
The word Geordie refers both to a native of Newcastle-upon-Tyne and to the speech of the inhabitants of that city. There are several theories about the exact origins of the term Geordie, but all agree it derives from the local pet name for George.
Geordie should only refer to the speech of the city of Newcastle-upon-Tyne and the surrounding urban area of Tyneside. Locals insist there are significant differences between Geordie and several other local dialects, such as Pitmatic and Makkem.
Pitmatic is the dialect of the former mining areas in County Durham and around Ashington to the north of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, while Makkem is used locally to refer to the dialect of the city of Sunderland and the surrounding urban area of Wearside.
For many people these different identities are expressed in the way they speak. To the south, speakers in rural County Durham and North Yorkshire are sometimes affectionately referred to as Farm Yakkers, while Smoggies — the inhabitants of Middlesbrough and the surrounding urban area of Teesside — have their own distinctive dialect, too.
History:
This is not surprising given that speech in this part of the country is descended from the dialect that emerged approximately 1,500 years ago in the mouths of Anglo-Saxon settlers from continental Europe. The North East was settled mainly by the Angles, as was most of central and northern Britain in the centuries following the decline of Roman rule in the early fifth century AD.
The Angles came from the area around the border between Denmark and Germany and the language they spoke evolved into a number of Old English dialects often grouped together under the term Northumbrian.
Other dialect groups that emerged elsewhere in the UK include Mercian, spoken in the Midlands, Wessex in the South and West of England, and Kentish in the far South East. As the name implies, the Northumbrian dialects occupied an area northwards of a rough line drawn from the River Humber in the East to the River Ribble in the West (corresponding approximately with today’s M62 motorway). This dialect area therefore also includes Scotland.
Many contemporary Geordie dialect words, such as gan (‘go’ – modern German gehen) and bairn (‘child’ - modern Danish barn) can still trace their roots right back to the Angles.
Minority ethnic English:
For more than half a century, immigrants from the Indian subcontinent and the West Indies have added variety and diversity to the rich patchwork of accents and dialects spoken in the UK.
British colonisers originally exported the language to all four corners of the globe and migration in the 1950s brought altered forms of English back to these shores. Since that time, especially in urban areas, speakers of Asian and Caribbean descent have blended their mother tongue speech patterns with existing local dialects producing wonderful new varieties of English, such as London Jamaican or Bradford Asian English.
Standard British English has also been enriched by an explosion of new terms, such as balti (a dish invented in the West Midlands and defined by a word that would refer to a 'bucket' rather than food to most South Asians outside the UK) and bhangra (traditional Punjabi music mixed with reggae and hip-hop).
Slang:
As with the Anglo-Saxon and Norman settlers of centuries past, the languages spoken by today’s ethnic communities have begun to have an impact on the everyday spoken English of other communities. For instance, many young people, regardless of their ethnic background, now use the black slang terms, nang (‘cool,’) and diss (‘insult’ — from ‘disrespecting’) or words derived from Hindi and Urdu, such as chuddies (‘underpants’) or desi (‘typically Asian’).
Many also use the all-purpose tag-question, innit — as in statements such as you’re weird, innit. This feature has been variously ascribed to the British Caribbean community or the British Asian community, although it is also part of a more native British tradition - in dialects in the West Country and Wales, for instance — which might explain why it appears to have spread so rapidly among young speakers everywhere.
Original influences from overseas
The English Language can be traced back to the mixture of Anglo-Saxon dialects that came to these shores 1500 years ago. Since then it has been played with, altered and transported around the world in many different forms.
The language we now recognise as English first became the dominant language in Great Britain during the Middle Ages, and in Ireland during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
From there it has been exported in the mouths of colonists and settlers to all four corners of the globe. ‘International English’, ‘World English’ or ‘Global English’ are terms used to describe a type of ‘General English’ that has, over the course of the twentieth century, become a worldwide means of communication.
American English:
The first permanent English-speaking colony was established in North America in the early 1600s. The Americans soon developed a form of English that differed in a number of ways from the language spoken back in The British Isles. In some cases older forms were retained — the way most Americans pronounce the <r> sound after a vowel in words like start, north, nurse and letter is probably very similar to pronunciation in 17th century England. Similarly, the distinction between past tense got and past participle gotten still exists in American English but has been lost in most dialects of the UK.
But the Americans also invented many new words to describe landscapes, wildlife, vegetation, food and lifestyles. Different pronunciations of existing words emerged as new settlers arrived from various parts of the UK and established settlements scattered along the East Coast and further inland.
After the USA achieved independence from Great Britain in 1776 any sense of who ‘owned’ and set the ‘correct rules’ for the English Language became increasingly blurred. Different forces operating in the UK and in the USA influenced the emerging concept of a Standard English.
The differences are perhaps first officially promoted in the spelling conventions proposed by Noah Webster in The American Spelling Book (1786) and subsequently adopted in his later work, An American Dictionary of the English Language (1828).
Both of these publications were enormously successful and established spellings such as center and color and were therefore major steps towards scholarly acceptance that British English and American English were becoming distinct entities.
Elsewhere in the British Empire; English imposed as an administrative language, spoken as a mother tongue by colonial settlers from the UK, but in most cases as a second language by the local population.
English around the world:
Cultural and political ties have meant that until relatively recently British English has acted as the benchmark for representing ‘standardised’ English — spelling tends to adhere to British English conventions, for instance. Elsewhere in Africa and on the Indian subcontinent, English is still used as an official language in several countries, even though these countries are independent of British rule.
However, English remains very much a second language for most people, used in administration, education and government and as a means of communicating between speakers of diverse languages. As with most of the Commonwealth, British English is the model on which, for instance, Indian English or Nigerian English is based. In the Caribbean and especially in Canada, however, historical links with the UK compete with geographical, cultural and economic ties with the USA, so that some aspects of the local varieties of English follow British norms and others reflect US usage.
An international language:
English is also hugely important as an international language and plays an important part even in countries where the UK has historically had little influence.
It is learnt as the principal foreign language in most schools in Western Europe. It is also an essential part of the curriculum in far-flung places like Japan and South Korea, and is increasingly seen as desirable by millions of speakers in China. Prior to WWII, most teaching of English as a foreign language used British English as its model, and textbooks and other educational resources were produced here in the UK for use overseas.
This reflected the UK's cultural dominance and its perceived ‘ownership’ of the English Language. Since 1945, however, the increasing economic power of the USA and its unrivalled influence in popular culture has meant that American English has become the reference point for learners of English in places like Japan and even to a certain extent in some European countries.
British English remains the model in most Commonwealth countries where English is learnt as a second language. However, as the history of English has shown, this situation may not last indefinitely. The increasing commercial and economic power of countries like India, for instance, might mean that Indian English will one day begin to have an impact beyond its own borders.
Received Pronunciation ( RP) is the proper term to describe the regionally neutral accent used by many middle class speakers in England. It is widely used as a reference point in dictionaries and as a model for teaching English as a foreign language. But have you ever wondered how it came into existence, how it is changing or what role it plays in 21st century Britain?
Received Pronunciation, or RP for short, is the instantly recognisable accent often described as ‘typically British’. Popular terms for this accent, such as ‘The Queen’s English’, ‘Oxford English’ or ‘BBC English’ are all a little misleading.
The Queen, for instance, speaks an almost unique form of English, while the English we hear at Oxford University or on the BBC is no longer restricted to one type of accent. RP is an accent, not a dialect, since all RP speakers speak Standard English.
In other words, they avoid non-standard grammatical constructions and localised vocabulary characteristic of regional dialects. RP is also regionally non-specific, that is it does not contain any clues about a speaker’s geographic background. But it does reveal a great deal about their social and/or educational background.
RP is probably the most widely studied and most frequently described variety of spoken English in the world, yet recent estimates suggest only 2% of the UK population speak it. Received pronounciation is losing it's prestige in most places including Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales.
As well as being a living accent, RP is also a theoretical linguistic concept. It is the accent on which phonemic transcriptions in dictionaries are based, and it is widely used (in competition with General American) for teaching English as a foreign language.
Origins of RP.
RP is a young accent in linguistic terms. It was not around, for example, when Dr Johnson wrote A Dictionary of the English Language in 1757. He chose not to include pronunciation suggestions as he felt there was little agreement even within educated society regarding ‘recommended’ forms.
The phrase Received Pronunciation was coined in 1869 by the linguist, A J Ellis, but it only became a widely used term used to describe the accent of the social elite after the phonetician, Daniel Jones, adopted it for the second edition of the English Pronouncing Dictionary (1924).
The definition of ‘received’ conveys its original meaning of ‘accepted’ or ‘approved’ - as in ‘received wisdom’. We can trace the origins of RP back to the public schools and universities of nineteenth-century Britain - indeed Daniel Jones initially used the term Public School Pronunciation to describe this emerging, socially exclusive accent.
Over the course of that century, members of the ruling and privileged classes increasingly attended boarding schools such as Winchester, Eton, Harrow and Rugby and graduated from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Their speech patterns - based loosely on the local accent of the south-east Midlands (roughly London, Oxford and Cambridge) - soon came to be associated with ‘The Establishment’ and therefore gained a unique status, particularly within the middle classes in London. As a result of this, the RP accent became heavily associated with being well-educated, well spoken and ultimately being a part of a higher socio-economic demographic.
RP is believed to be the best understood form of English and therefore was adopted by the BBC for broadcasting purposes; (hence the term BBC English). The fact that choosing a regional dialect may have alienated the audience was also taken into consideration when choosing a dialect for broadcasting.
But since RP was the preserve of the aristocracy and expensive public schools, it represented only a very small social minority. This policy prevailed at the BBC for a considerable time and probably contributed to the sometimes negative perception of regional varieties of English.
There's more than one type of Received Pronounciation;
A speaker who uses numerous very localised pronunciations is often described as having a ‘broad’ or ‘strong’ regional accent, while terms such as ‘mild’ or ‘soft’ are applied to speakers whose speech patterns are only subtly different from RP speakers.
So, we might describe one speaker as having a broad Glaswegian accent and another as having a mild Scottish accent. Such terms are inadequate when applied to Received Pronunciation, although as with any variety of English, RP encompasses a wide variety of speakers and should not be confused with the notion of ‘posh’ speech.
The various forms of RP can be roughly divided into three categories.
Conservative RP refers to a very traditional variety particularly associated with older speakers and the aristocracy.
Mainstream RP describes an accent that we might consider extremely neutral in terms of signals regarding age, occupation or lifestyle of the speaker.
Contemporary RP refers to speakers using features typical of younger RP speakers.
All, however, are united by the fact they do not use any pronunciation patterns that allow us to make assumptions about where they are from in the UK
RP Today:
Like any other accent, RP has also changed over the course of time. The voices we associate with early BBC broadcasts, for instance, now sound extremely old-fashioned to most. Just as RP is constantly evolving, so our attitudes towards the accent are changing.
For much of the twentieth century, RP represented the voice of education, authority, social status and economic power. The period immediately after the Second World War was a time when educational and social advancement suddenly became a possibility for many more people.
Those who were able to take advantage of these opportunities - be it in terms of education or career - often felt under considerable pressure to conform linguistically and thus adopt the accent of the establishment or at least modify their speech towards RP norms.
In recent years, however, as a result of continued social change, virtually every accent is represented in all walks of life to which people aspire - sport, the arts, the media, business, even former strongholds of RP England, such as the City, Civil Service and academia. As a result, fewer younger speakers with regional accents consider it necessary to adapt their speech to the same extent.
Indeed many commentators even suggest that younger RP speakers often go to great lengths to disguise their middle-class accent by incorporating regional features into their speech.
Geordie dialect:
The UK has a number of distinctive dialects, and Geordie – the dialect of Newcastle-upon-Tyne – is arguably one of our most recognisable.
The word Geordie refers both to a native of Newcastle-upon-Tyne and to the speech of the inhabitants of that city. There are several theories about the exact origins of the term Geordie, but all agree it derives from the local pet name for George.
Geordie should only refer to the speech of the city of Newcastle-upon-Tyne and the surrounding urban area of Tyneside. Locals insist there are significant differences between Geordie and several other local dialects, such as Pitmatic and Makkem.
Pitmatic is the dialect of the former mining areas in County Durham and around Ashington to the north of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, while Makkem is used locally to refer to the dialect of the city of Sunderland and the surrounding urban area of Wearside.
For many people these different identities are expressed in the way they speak. To the south, speakers in rural County Durham and North Yorkshire are sometimes affectionately referred to as Farm Yakkers, while Smoggies — the inhabitants of Middlesbrough and the surrounding urban area of Teesside — have their own distinctive dialect, too.
History:
This is not surprising given that speech in this part of the country is descended from the dialect that emerged approximately 1,500 years ago in the mouths of Anglo-Saxon settlers from continental Europe. The North East was settled mainly by the Angles, as was most of central and northern Britain in the centuries following the decline of Roman rule in the early fifth century AD.
The Angles came from the area around the border between Denmark and Germany and the language they spoke evolved into a number of Old English dialects often grouped together under the term Northumbrian.
Other dialect groups that emerged elsewhere in the UK include Mercian, spoken in the Midlands, Wessex in the South and West of England, and Kentish in the far South East. As the name implies, the Northumbrian dialects occupied an area northwards of a rough line drawn from the River Humber in the East to the River Ribble in the West (corresponding approximately with today’s M62 motorway). This dialect area therefore also includes Scotland.
Many contemporary Geordie dialect words, such as gan (‘go’ – modern German gehen) and bairn (‘child’ - modern Danish barn) can still trace their roots right back to the Angles.
Minority ethnic English:
For more than half a century, immigrants from the Indian subcontinent and the West Indies have added variety and diversity to the rich patchwork of accents and dialects spoken in the UK.
British colonisers originally exported the language to all four corners of the globe and migration in the 1950s brought altered forms of English back to these shores. Since that time, especially in urban areas, speakers of Asian and Caribbean descent have blended their mother tongue speech patterns with existing local dialects producing wonderful new varieties of English, such as London Jamaican or Bradford Asian English.
Standard British English has also been enriched by an explosion of new terms, such as balti (a dish invented in the West Midlands and defined by a word that would refer to a 'bucket' rather than food to most South Asians outside the UK) and bhangra (traditional Punjabi music mixed with reggae and hip-hop).
Slang:
As with the Anglo-Saxon and Norman settlers of centuries past, the languages spoken by today’s ethnic communities have begun to have an impact on the everyday spoken English of other communities. For instance, many young people, regardless of their ethnic background, now use the black slang terms, nang (‘cool,’) and diss (‘insult’ — from ‘disrespecting’) or words derived from Hindi and Urdu, such as chuddies (‘underpants’) or desi (‘typically Asian’).
Many also use the all-purpose tag-question, innit — as in statements such as you’re weird, innit. This feature has been variously ascribed to the British Caribbean community or the British Asian community, although it is also part of a more native British tradition - in dialects in the West Country and Wales, for instance — which might explain why it appears to have spread so rapidly among young speakers everywhere.
Original influences from overseas
The English Language can be traced back to the mixture of Anglo-Saxon dialects that came to these shores 1500 years ago. Since then it has been played with, altered and transported around the world in many different forms.
The language we now recognise as English first became the dominant language in Great Britain during the Middle Ages, and in Ireland during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
From there it has been exported in the mouths of colonists and settlers to all four corners of the globe. ‘International English’, ‘World English’ or ‘Global English’ are terms used to describe a type of ‘General English’ that has, over the course of the twentieth century, become a worldwide means of communication.
American English:
The first permanent English-speaking colony was established in North America in the early 1600s. The Americans soon developed a form of English that differed in a number of ways from the language spoken back in The British Isles. In some cases older forms were retained — the way most Americans pronounce the <r> sound after a vowel in words like start, north, nurse and letter is probably very similar to pronunciation in 17th century England. Similarly, the distinction between past tense got and past participle gotten still exists in American English but has been lost in most dialects of the UK.
But the Americans also invented many new words to describe landscapes, wildlife, vegetation, food and lifestyles. Different pronunciations of existing words emerged as new settlers arrived from various parts of the UK and established settlements scattered along the East Coast and further inland.
After the USA achieved independence from Great Britain in 1776 any sense of who ‘owned’ and set the ‘correct rules’ for the English Language became increasingly blurred. Different forces operating in the UK and in the USA influenced the emerging concept of a Standard English.
The differences are perhaps first officially promoted in the spelling conventions proposed by Noah Webster in The American Spelling Book (1786) and subsequently adopted in his later work, An American Dictionary of the English Language (1828).
Both of these publications were enormously successful and established spellings such as center and color and were therefore major steps towards scholarly acceptance that British English and American English were becoming distinct entities.
Elsewhere in the British Empire; English imposed as an administrative language, spoken as a mother tongue by colonial settlers from the UK, but in most cases as a second language by the local population.
English around the world:
Cultural and political ties have meant that until relatively recently British English has acted as the benchmark for representing ‘standardised’ English — spelling tends to adhere to British English conventions, for instance. Elsewhere in Africa and on the Indian subcontinent, English is still used as an official language in several countries, even though these countries are independent of British rule.
However, English remains very much a second language for most people, used in administration, education and government and as a means of communicating between speakers of diverse languages. As with most of the Commonwealth, British English is the model on which, for instance, Indian English or Nigerian English is based. In the Caribbean and especially in Canada, however, historical links with the UK compete with geographical, cultural and economic ties with the USA, so that some aspects of the local varieties of English follow British norms and others reflect US usage.
An international language:
English is also hugely important as an international language and plays an important part even in countries where the UK has historically had little influence.
It is learnt as the principal foreign language in most schools in Western Europe. It is also an essential part of the curriculum in far-flung places like Japan and South Korea, and is increasingly seen as desirable by millions of speakers in China. Prior to WWII, most teaching of English as a foreign language used British English as its model, and textbooks and other educational resources were produced here in the UK for use overseas.
This reflected the UK's cultural dominance and its perceived ‘ownership’ of the English Language. Since 1945, however, the increasing economic power of the USA and its unrivalled influence in popular culture has meant that American English has become the reference point for learners of English in places like Japan and even to a certain extent in some European countries.
British English remains the model in most Commonwealth countries where English is learnt as a second language. However, as the history of English has shown, this situation may not last indefinitely. The increasing commercial and economic power of countries like India, for instance, might mean that Indian English will one day begin to have an impact beyond its own borders.
Thursday, 3 November 2011
Regional voices:
Source: http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/sounds/regional-voices/
Dialects:
A specific variety of English that differs from other varieties in three specific ways: Lexis (vocabulary), grammar (structure) and phonology (accent and pronouciation).
- A speaker from Newcastle-upon-Tyne, for instance, might pepper his speech with localised vocabulary, such as gan for “to go” or clarts for “mud”.
- He may often use regional grammatical constructions, such as the past tense constructions I’ve went and I’ve drank or the reflexive pronouns mysel, yoursel, hissel etc
Accents:
Accent, on the other hand, refers only to differences in the sound patterns of a specific dialect.
-Dialect is the umbrella term for a variety of linguistic features, one of which is accent. True dialect speakers are relatively rare, but despite popular belief we all speak with an accent.
Attitudes to language variety:
For many years, certain English dialects have been viewed more positively than others. Many of us make assumptions based on the way people speak — judging certain dialects or accents as too posh, harsh, aggressive, unfriendly, ‘unintelligent’ or ‘common.
-A source of great pride and an important expression of cultural identity.
--------------------------
Lexical:
Lexical variation is differences in vocabularly, when a word or phrase has a different meaning depending on region. An example of this is 'happen' - in Yorkshire / Lancashire or The East Midlands - 'happen' means maybe or perhaps.
" The popular image of dialect speech tends to focus almost exclusively on dialect vocabulary and although there was at one time greater regional variation in vocabulary across the UK, there remains a great deal of lexical diversity."
Observing Lexical variation.
All languages change over time and vary according to place and social setting. We can observe lexical variation - differences in words and phrases - by comparing the way English is spoken in different places and among different social groups.
This is demonstrated, for instance, by the variety of words used for 'bread roll' in different parts of the country. If you live in Lancashire you might buy a barm cake, whilst people over The Pennines in Leeds would probably ask for a bread cake. At a baker’s in Derby you might be offered a cob and on a visit to Coventry you might eat a batch, although each of these words refers pretty much to the same item.
----------------------
Phonological variation:
A well-known difference in British accents is the distinction between speakers in the north and south. Those in the north generally pronounce words such as bath, grass and dance with a short vowel — rather like the vowel in the word cat. Those in the south use a long vowel, rather like the sound you make when the doctor examines your throat. So you can immediately deduce something about a person who pronounces baths to rhyme with maths or pass to rhyme with mass.
Phonological variation — differences between accents — comes in a variety of forms. Some speakers might be difficult to place geographically, while others who speak with a broader accent might use a number of localised pronunciation features. This might include the articulation of certain consonant or vowel sounds. It might be apparent in so-called connected speech processes — the way certain sounds are pronounced in particular combinations of words or phrases. Or it might be revealed in characteristic intonation patterns.
In most cases, an accent enables others to place you in a large geographic area, so the terms northern accent or Welsh accent are reasonably useful descriptors. In a small number of cases a speaker might have an accent that enables listeners to be even more specific, such as Liverpool accent (aka Scouse) or Rhondda Valleys accent.
------------------
Grammatical variaton:
Grammar is the structure of a language or dialect. It describes the way individual words change their form, such as when play becomes played, to indicate an event in past time. It also refers to the way words are combined to form phrases or sentences.
The construction she were wearing a mask might sound unusual to some ears, but in some dialects in northern England and the Midlands, many speakers indicate the past tense of ‘to be’ by saying I were, you were, he, she and it were, we were and they were.
This means the verb is unmarked for person, while speakers of Standard English differentiate by using I was and he, she and it was. Some dialects, perhaps particularly those in the South East of England, favour a similarly unmarked version using the singular form of the verb I was, you was, he, she and it was, we was and they was.
Observing grammatical variation:
We can observe grammatical variation - differences in the structure of words, phrases or sentences - by comparing the way English is spoken in different places and among different social groups. One of the most common differences between dialects is the way in which past tenses are formed.
Most English verbs have a simple past tense that is unmarked for person, such as played, went, saw, did. In other words we simply say I played, you played, he/she/it played, we played and they played and make no adjustment to the ending of the verb.
The verb 'to be' on the other hand has two simple past forms in Standard English - I/he/she/it was and you/we/they were. Apart from the special case of you, the distinction is, therefore, between singular was and plural were. In some regional dialects, however, this pattern is not observed.
In some parts of the country, speakers use was throughout, while speakers elsewhere use were exclusively. There are also dialects where the two different forms are used for the opposite function - singular were and plural was.
-----------------
Social Variation:
"Maybe she was wearing a cap." - This phrase alone doesn't reveal much about the speaker but the pronounciation of the final consonant in the word wearing might reveal a great deal about a speaker’s social background or the context in which he is speaking.
Most people either use the <n> sound in finger, or they use the <n> sound in fin. In popular writing, the latter pronunciation is often transcribed as wearin’ and this usually conveys the sense that the speaker is either from a lower socio-economic group or is speaking in an informal situation.
Making speech fit the situation:
All native speakers adjust their speech patterns depending on context: from relaxed conversation in familiar surroundings to a more formal setting. Most of us have been accused of having a ‘telephone voice’.
We all have a range of different voices — for talking to children, talking to friends in the pub, making a presentation or talking to a foreigner and we modify our speech accordingly.
In most cases, the changes we make are extremely subtle but nonetheless noticeable, and a perfectly natural way of making the people we are talking to feel at ease.
Often this process is subconscious and we are simply expressing a shared identity or group solidarity or attempting to present a certain image. However, the range of any given speaker’s repertoire is defined by who he or she is. People from different geographical places speak differently, but even within the same small community, people might speak differently according to their age, gender, ethnicity and social or educational background.
Dialects:
A specific variety of English that differs from other varieties in three specific ways: Lexis (vocabulary), grammar (structure) and phonology (accent and pronouciation).
- A speaker from Newcastle-upon-Tyne, for instance, might pepper his speech with localised vocabulary, such as gan for “to go” or clarts for “mud”.
- He may often use regional grammatical constructions, such as the past tense constructions I’ve went and I’ve drank or the reflexive pronouns mysel, yoursel, hissel etc
Accents:
Accent, on the other hand, refers only to differences in the sound patterns of a specific dialect.
-Dialect is the umbrella term for a variety of linguistic features, one of which is accent. True dialect speakers are relatively rare, but despite popular belief we all speak with an accent.
Attitudes to language variety:
For many years, certain English dialects have been viewed more positively than others. Many of us make assumptions based on the way people speak — judging certain dialects or accents as too posh, harsh, aggressive, unfriendly, ‘unintelligent’ or ‘common.
-A source of great pride and an important expression of cultural identity.
--------------------------
Lexical:
Lexical variation is differences in vocabularly, when a word or phrase has a different meaning depending on region. An example of this is 'happen' - in Yorkshire / Lancashire or The East Midlands - 'happen' means maybe or perhaps.
" The popular image of dialect speech tends to focus almost exclusively on dialect vocabulary and although there was at one time greater regional variation in vocabulary across the UK, there remains a great deal of lexical diversity."
Observing Lexical variation.
All languages change over time and vary according to place and social setting. We can observe lexical variation - differences in words and phrases - by comparing the way English is spoken in different places and among different social groups.
This is demonstrated, for instance, by the variety of words used for 'bread roll' in different parts of the country. If you live in Lancashire you might buy a barm cake, whilst people over The Pennines in Leeds would probably ask for a bread cake. At a baker’s in Derby you might be offered a cob and on a visit to Coventry you might eat a batch, although each of these words refers pretty much to the same item.
----------------------
Phonological variation:
A well-known difference in British accents is the distinction between speakers in the north and south. Those in the north generally pronounce words such as bath, grass and dance with a short vowel — rather like the vowel in the word cat. Those in the south use a long vowel, rather like the sound you make when the doctor examines your throat. So you can immediately deduce something about a person who pronounces baths to rhyme with maths or pass to rhyme with mass.
Phonological variation — differences between accents — comes in a variety of forms. Some speakers might be difficult to place geographically, while others who speak with a broader accent might use a number of localised pronunciation features. This might include the articulation of certain consonant or vowel sounds. It might be apparent in so-called connected speech processes — the way certain sounds are pronounced in particular combinations of words or phrases. Or it might be revealed in characteristic intonation patterns.
In most cases, an accent enables others to place you in a large geographic area, so the terms northern accent or Welsh accent are reasonably useful descriptors. In a small number of cases a speaker might have an accent that enables listeners to be even more specific, such as Liverpool accent (aka Scouse) or Rhondda Valleys accent.
------------------
Grammatical variaton:
Grammar is the structure of a language or dialect. It describes the way individual words change their form, such as when play becomes played, to indicate an event in past time. It also refers to the way words are combined to form phrases or sentences.
The construction she were wearing a mask might sound unusual to some ears, but in some dialects in northern England and the Midlands, many speakers indicate the past tense of ‘to be’ by saying I were, you were, he, she and it were, we were and they were.
This means the verb is unmarked for person, while speakers of Standard English differentiate by using I was and he, she and it was. Some dialects, perhaps particularly those in the South East of England, favour a similarly unmarked version using the singular form of the verb I was, you was, he, she and it was, we was and they was.
Observing grammatical variation:
We can observe grammatical variation - differences in the structure of words, phrases or sentences - by comparing the way English is spoken in different places and among different social groups. One of the most common differences between dialects is the way in which past tenses are formed.
Most English verbs have a simple past tense that is unmarked for person, such as played, went, saw, did. In other words we simply say I played, you played, he/she/it played, we played and they played and make no adjustment to the ending of the verb.
The verb 'to be' on the other hand has two simple past forms in Standard English - I/he/she/it was and you/we/they were. Apart from the special case of you, the distinction is, therefore, between singular was and plural were. In some regional dialects, however, this pattern is not observed.
In some parts of the country, speakers use was throughout, while speakers elsewhere use were exclusively. There are also dialects where the two different forms are used for the opposite function - singular were and plural was.
-----------------
Social Variation:
"Maybe she was wearing a cap." - This phrase alone doesn't reveal much about the speaker but the pronounciation of the final consonant in the word wearing might reveal a great deal about a speaker’s social background or the context in which he is speaking.
Most people either use the <n> sound in finger, or they use the <n> sound in fin. In popular writing, the latter pronunciation is often transcribed as wearin’ and this usually conveys the sense that the speaker is either from a lower socio-economic group or is speaking in an informal situation.
Making speech fit the situation:
All native speakers adjust their speech patterns depending on context: from relaxed conversation in familiar surroundings to a more formal setting. Most of us have been accused of having a ‘telephone voice’.
We all have a range of different voices — for talking to children, talking to friends in the pub, making a presentation or talking to a foreigner and we modify our speech accordingly.
In most cases, the changes we make are extremely subtle but nonetheless noticeable, and a perfectly natural way of making the people we are talking to feel at ease.
Often this process is subconscious and we are simply expressing a shared identity or group solidarity or attempting to present a certain image. However, the range of any given speaker’s repertoire is defined by who he or she is. People from different geographical places speak differently, but even within the same small community, people might speak differently according to their age, gender, ethnicity and social or educational background.
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