Language and region

• Joanna Thornborrow (2004) identity


  "One of our most fundamental ways we have of establishing our identity & of shaping other people's views of who we are is through our use of language "
• Received pronunciation

  Non-regional , socially approved accent. Comes from any region. Developed during the 19th century, showed status/you had a good education. Origins Southern, spoken anywhere suggests higher class. This accent is used when English is spoken as a foreign language. Viewed as the "correct", most esteemed accent
• Peter Trudgill, social class affects on language use


  1974 study of speech of the difference between people of working & middle class backgrounds in their pronunciation of sounds

  His work suggested only 3% of people use received pronunciation
• Kachru's model of global English 


  1. Inner circle: countries whose main language is English e.g: UK, USA
  2. Outer circle; countries who use English has a 2nd language e.g: India, Ghana
  3. External circle: English only spoken via trade & business e.g: China, Egypt
• Folk linguistic 


  Popular views & beliefs about language, held by those who use it
• Media became an important role in allowing cockney rhyming slang to spread across the UK as people became familiar with the language e.g. through popular TV shows
• An article from the Daily Mail suggests speaking in a hybrid of languages is often derived and associated with people who have fewer opportunities in life, e.g. associated with the London East end
• code switching is the use of different linguistic forms to communicate with different groups of people, speaking in alternate languages
• In 2014, Gary Ives studied Bradford-Asian English and MLE

  The majority of people he studied spoke in these accents, when asked why they said things like:

  • "It's the way we were born"
  • "Everyone speaks like this"
• Gary Ives also found that some speakers felt ashamed of their accent because they believed it was not 'correct', however others did not feel any shame at all.
• Lexical variants in South London e.g."bare" have Afro-Caribbean roots & therefore originate from other cultures

  • In Gary Ives' study, majority of students speaking this lexical variation came from England, showing how school influences lexis
• Accent


  Variations in pronunciations, associated with a particular region or social class
• Dialect


  Variation in words and structures, associated with a particular geographical region.
• William Labov studied individual speech patterns in 3 Manhattan stores varying in prestige and got a sales assistant in each store to say "fourth floor".

  • "/r/" sound is seen as prestigious in New York
  • Those in the high end store pronounced "/r/" the most, in the lowest store they pronounced it least
  • Lower working & middle class were more aware of prestige and so were more likely to change how they spoke to speak "how they should"
  • Upper middle class were most susceptible to pronounce "/r/"
• In 1974, Trudgill studies how gender effects dialect in social classes

  • Investigated pronunciation of "walking" to be pronounced "walkin' "
  • Assesed ppts awareness of accent and how they wanted to sound
  • Found class is more of a determiner than gender on non-standard pronunciation
  • Women of all classes are more likely to use RP whereas men wished to sound more non-standard
  • Lower middle and upper working class were must susceptible to the prestige of RP form
• Northern speakers are more likely to use short vowels, while southern speakers are more likely to use long vowels. e.g "bath" pronounced like "bath" rather and in the South, "baath"
• G-dropping, omission of the g-sound "swimmin' " is seen as 'common' and sloppy by prescriptivists. Some linguists disagree and argue it'a not losing anything, but replacing a sound.
• Phrases are becoming more "mobile" and Cockney rhyming slang is used outside of the east-end, due to Cockneys and other Londoners interacting with each other more than before. This meant Cockney was spread around more, leading to an increased use for it in London and across the UK