Region

• Accent


  Specific ways in which words are pronounced
• Dialect


  Specific lexis and grammar used
• Idiolect


  An individual's way of speaking
• RP


  An accent that was viewed as prestige in the early 20th century, or the standard way of speaking based on educated speech in the south
• Standard English


  A variety of English that is accepted to be the norm
• Estuary English


  Midway point between RP and cockney
• Dialect levelling


  A reduction in the spread, range and features of local dialects associated with the movement of people
• Acrolect


  Accent which is given the highest prestige
• Mesolect


  The way most Britons speak
• Basilect


  The broadest form of popular speech
• Koineisation


  A new standard of language is formed by the contact of 2 or more existing dialect forms
• Linguistic accommodation


  The process in which speakers adjust their accent to sound more alike
• Convergence


  Speaker chooses language that fits the style of other speakers
• Divergence


  Speaker social distances from other speakers
• Upward convergence/divergence


  Speaker chooses to sound more upper class
• Downward convergence/divergence


  Speaker chooses to sound more lower class
• Hierarchical geographical diffusion


  A linguistic feature that spreads from a rural to urban area
• Status


  Place in society
• Unconscious stereotyping


  Forming attitudes based on language use
• Matched guise


  Experimental technique used to determine the true feelings towards language, accents or dialects
• Overt prestige


  A form of status valued and shared by mainstream society
• Covert prestige


  A form of status shared by the minorities, usually with an opposing view to mainstream society
• David Rosenwarne (1983): 'Defined Estuary English as a midway point between RP and Cockney and predicted that it may replace RP as the standard pronunciation form of English. He created a list of grammatical and phonological features of EE. Grammatical features include: non-standard constructions, non-standard contractions, non-standard negatives, non-standard past tense forms and double negatives. Phonological features include: L-vocalisation, yod-coalescence, glottalling, th-fronting and vowel fronting'
• Joanna Przedlacka (late 1990s): 'Looked at EE within a 50 mile radius of London in Aylesbury, Little Baddow, Farningham and Walton-on-the-Hill. Males and females aged 14-16. She found some pronunciation forms of EE but no definite homogeneity across accents in this area. Where EE trends were appearing, they were predominantly led by females.'
• Paul Kerswill (early 2000s): 'Looked at EE moving across southern England and vowel-fronting in Milton Keynes. He found EE in public figures such as musicians and athletes and that the influence of EE in MK is due to migration from London. This is evidence that dialect levelling is taking place.'
• Labov - Martha's Vineyard (1972): 'An island 3 miles off the coast of New England on the East coast of the USA. Permanent population of 6,000 with 40,000 tourists each summer. The East side is densely populated with residents on down island. The West side is called up island and is home to the original residents such as the Chilmark fishermen who are opposed to summer residents. Focused on the diphthong /aw/ and /ay/. Labov found that speakers aged 31-45 upwardly converge towards the Chilmark speakers to use the standard New England pronunciation, especially young men. Educated college boys were heavy users of the vernacular vowels. The fishermen however are independent with superior status.'
• Giles + Powesland (1975): 'Made a psychology lecturer speak fluently with an RP or Brummie accent. He gave the same presentation to 2 groups of 17 year olds, but with a different accent. His assistant then asked the students whether he was a suitable person to give lecturers and to rate his intelligence. The students rated the RP guise as more intelligent, and wrote more to him (24% more) and more about him (82% more). The lecturer in his RP guise was far more respected due to him being a stereotypical RP speaker with a strong academic background.'
• Ryan, Zahn, Hopper (1980): 'Studied a group of undergraduates who listened to male, American and British English, middle and lower class speakers in a lecture. The students then judged the people off their speech. The British middle class had high status but low solidarity, and the American lower class had low status but high solidarity.'
• Ellen Ryan (1980): 'Proposed 2 different approaches in assessing attitudes people have towards different speakers. High status = intelligent, wealthy, educated. Low status = poor, unintelligent, uneducated. High solidarity = friendly, kind, trustworthy. Low solidarity = unfriendly, unkind, untrustworthy.'
• Dr Watson (2003): '13 older speakers (8M, 5F) born in the 1930s and 16 younger speakers (7M, 9F) born in 2003 in Liverpool. Looked for the plosive standard or fricative Liverpool variant to see if the Liverpool variants were in decline. He found that they were not in decline. For males, the younger and older speakers had roughly the same number of Liverpool variants. For the females, the older ones used a higher percentage of standard forms than older male speakers. For older speakers, there is a gender difference. But this no longer exists for the younger speakers as young females have increased their use of the Liverpool forms, matching the males. This means the Liverpool accent is actually expanding, not declining. Generational resilience found in children.'
• Glasgow has not homogenised, only small findings such as "car -> ca"
• Scouse is derived from the Jewish accent after immigrants came to Britain after the industrial revolution.
• Yorkshire still uses words like "thee" and "thou" in place of "you".
• Dixon, Mahoney + Cocks (2002)


  Used the matched guise approach to see if there was a correlation between accent and perceiving if someone is guilty. Participants listened to a dialogue between a policeman and a suspect. The suspect either spoke with a Brummie or standard accent. The suspect with a Brummie accent was more likely to be voted as guilty.
• Neuliep + Hansen (2013)


  Used the matched guise approach to research attitudes from an ethnocentric approach. Participants were asked a series of questions to identify how ethnocentric (when people perceive their culture to be superior) they were. Participants were split into 2 groups and watched a video of a male speaker who either spoke in a non-native accent or standard American accent. The participants were asked to rank the speaker on attractiveness etc. Those who were ethnocentric gave lower ratings to the non-native speaker.
• Trudgill (2000)


  RP speakers are perceived as haughty and unfriendly by non RP speakers. Children with working-class accents and dialects may be evaluated by teachers as having less educational potential than those with middle-class accents.
• The Telegraph poll


  56% said people were proud of their accents. Queen’s English ranked as the coolest accent (20%), followed by Scottish (12%) and Geordie (9%). Brummie was rated the worst (2%).
• Choy + Dodd (1976)

  Teachers make judgments on a student’s ability and their personality based on the way they speak.