Accent and dialect

• Cockney rhyming slang

  Originated in East London

  • ‘Apples and pears’ = stairs

  Was first introduced as a code to communicate in working-class and criminals
• Estuary English

  Term coined by David Rosewarne, describes the English spoken near the Thames. Features standard variations, received pronunciation, upper class.
• Giles Matched Guise study

  RP speakers are :

  Intelligent

  Trustworthy

  Unfriendly

  Unsociable
• Kerswill


  Through dialect levelling, accents and dialects are become more and more similar
• Mugglestone


  Number of RP speakers is decreasing
• Harrington

  Over a period of 50 years, the Queen’s speech has been diverging from RP.
• Harbridge Joke study

  Surveyed 4000 people to find the funniest accent.

  • Brummie = funniest
  • Liverpudlian = second funniest
  • RP was least funny.
• Mahoney Guilt experiment 


  Students were played recordings of fake police interviews. Suspects have different accents.

  • Brummie was more likely to be judged as guilty
• Coggle

  Estuary English acts as a bridge between Cockney and RP.
• Dent


  Accents are like spoken birthmarks
• Giles capital punishment study

  5 groups of students given infomation about capital punishment through a lecture. The lecturer had different accents.

  • RP was most impressive and persuasive
  • Brummie was least impressive