accent and dialect

• Accent discrimination


  ¼ britons feel they are discriminated due to their accents and some believe it reduces their chances of getting a job
• Accent


  pronunciation of words
• Dialect


  the way people speak their mother tongue
• Mutual Intelligibility


  2 or more speakers of a language can understand each other
• 80% Employers


  admit to discriminating decisions based on regional accents
• Accent Discrimination survey findings

  scouse is unfriendly and unintelligent

  devon accent is friendliest

  southern irish tones are seen as most appealing
• Who did the matched guise technique

  Giles
• Matched guise technique


  technique to determine the true feelings of an individual towards a specific language, accent or dialect
• Matched guise technique findings

  RP was found most impressive

  Bham accent left people least impressed
• Matched guise order of status found

  1. RP

  2. National accents

  3. Regional rural accents

  4. Regional urban accents
• 3 main parameters used (Giles)


  status, personality, persuasiveness
• Matched guise results


  RP speakers are trustworthy, confident and well educated

  RP speakers are also considered unfriendly and insincere
• Harrington et al -Queen Elizabeth

  Found evidence of RP accent change and influence of less prestigious southern accents within Christmas Broadcasts made by Queen Elizabeth II

  Shows that she wanted to come across as more friendly
• Bishop


  replicated giles - similar results to giles who did it in the 70s

  5k respondents to rate 34 accents
• Voice coaches


  people wanted to improve their accents to try and gain job opportunities

  accent can hamper career progression
• Voice coaches RP


  sometimes not an advantage to be well spoken

  clients may refuse to talk to them as they think they're stuck up
• Giles accommodation theory


  individuals adjust their speech to create, maintain or decrease social bonds
• Convergence


  alter speech to sound more like other
• why you would converge


  to seek approval or fit in
• Divergence


  emphasise linguistic differences
• why you would diverge

  to show status or influence others
• Upwards convergence


  trying to match others and sound higher class
• Downwards convergence


  trying to downplay social status and match others
• Upwards divergence


  making your social status heard to distance
• Downwards divergence


  making a working class accent/dialect more hearable to distance
• MLE


  Multicultural London English
• Multicultural London English


  dialect of english thats similar to cockney. first heard in ethnically, linguisticaly diverse areas

  it has been reclaimed by the second generation
• MLE issue


  accent bias and therefore those who use it must code switch and converge upwards in certain settings
• Accent bias


  prejudice towards a group because of their accents
• Code switching


  being able to switch from linguistic codes depending on the context of the situation
• Diphthong


  combination of two vowels in a single syllable
• diphthong example


  coin
• Monophthong


  Single vowel sound
• Monophthong example


  cat