english language (language diversity)

• Sharma: West London/Punjabi English Pt.1

  • Sharma and her collegues asked their p's to record themselves talking about their day to day lives, talking to people etc.
  • they then analysed the recordings, listening out for specific features which have a 'British' or 'Indian' variant. And noting down the context in which these variant occurred.
• Sharma: West London/Punjabi English Pt2:

  Indian variant:

  • retroflex /t/
  • the tip of the tongue is curled upwards and is placed further back on the roof of the mouth
  • comapred to the standard British /t/
• Sharma: West London/Punjabi English Pt2:

  British variant:

  • alveolar /t/
  • a standard british /t/
  • tongue touching the alveolar ridge
• Sharma: West London/Punjabi English Pt3:

  • the vowel in the words: 'place', 'face', 'cake'
  • is pronounced as a monothong rather than a dipthong
  • monothong = Indian variant
• Sharma: West London/Punjabi English Pt3:

  • vowel in these words is pronounced as a dipthong
  • dipthong = british variant
• Sharma: West London/Punjabi English Pt4:

  • Anwar 41 yr old man showed great deal of variation in speech styles
  • from almost 100% Indian variant when speaking to a Sri-Lanken maid
  • to almost 100% British variant when speaking to a British Cockney mechanic
• Sharma: West London/Punjabi English Pt4

  • Anwar is someone who felt the need to be able to adapt his speech socially and linguistically
  • to be able to fit into society that was often hostle towards immigrants
• Sharma: West London/Punjabi English Pt4:

  • through his language, Anwar is able to perform both his Indian and British variant within his accent
  • therefore in his identity to
  • depended on the perceived demands of the context he is in
• Sharma: West London/Punjabi English Pt4:

  • Sharma found that the younger speakers did not adjust their speech so much
  • arguing that there is perhaps less need to do so due to the different social environments in which they have grown up in
• Ives: Bradford school case study: Pt1

  •   95% of the students are from Pakistani backgrounds 
  •  The majority are from a city called Mirpur which is surrounded by villages and farmland 
  •  A group of 8 teenage boy where interviewed about the way they speak and their language use 
• Ives: Bradford school case study: Pt2

  •   It was made apparent that they way they speak wasn’t natural and was a far more conscious choice 
  •  Some comments made by the students where that they mixed Punjabi and English, it all about our area (referring to the area of Pakistan that they’re from), you might say something to someone from our area but they won’t understand 
  •  Code switching = speakers alternate between their first and second language 
• Ives: Bradford school case study: Pt3

  •    The students also distinguished themselves from those called the term ‘freshie’ 
  •  In one interview with a teenage boy he stated that most use slang words ‘has a lot to do with the music industry like rap, hip hop, and urban music 
  • It is apparent that the students are using language as a social identity 
• Ives: Bradford school case study: Pt4

  •  They commented about how they speak differently to their parents and elders 
  • They all agreeded that as a british Asian they all use the same diverse forms of language to be apart of a social or friendship group 
  • A student felt that their lexis was influenced by a wide range of factors 
• Drummond: Polish case study: Pt1

  • Drummond looked at the English pronunciation of polish people living in Manchester
  • His main focus was to investigate the extent to which they acquired features of a Manchester accent, and to look at the social factors which might influence this 
• Drummond: Polish case study: Pt2

  • In research into -ing words such as living, swimming and feeling for example
  •  In addition to the predictable variant of -ing he also found quite a few people using -ink
  •  It was clearly an polish influenced pronunciation 
• Drummond: Polish case study: Pt3

  • In polish the -ink sound can only occur before and K or G 

  But surprisingly there was no relationship between the use of this variant and individuals English level 
• Drummond: Polish case study: Pt4

  • One of the questions that was asked to people was what they intended to do in the future either stay in England or go back to Poland 
  • People who where more likely to return back to Poland were more likely to use the -ink pronunciations whereas the people who intended to stay in England used more of the -ing pronunciation 
  • Drummond interpretated this finding as an example of individuals using this pronunciation more or less consciously in order to signal some sort kind of allegiance or solidarity for their polish ethnicity 
• Milroy: Belfast study: Pt1

  • A person who’s personal contact all know eachother belong to a closed network = high density 
  • A person whose contacts tend to not know eachother belong to a open network = low density
  • Members of a speech community are all connected to each other in social networks which may be relatively ‘closed’ or ‘open’ 
• Milroy: Belfast study: Pt2

  • The links between people may be of different kinds: people can relate to each others as relatives, as neighbours, as work mates, as friends 
  • Individuals are linked in several ways e.g. job, family, leisure activities, then the network ties are said to be multiplex
• Milroy: Belfast study: Pt3

  • Milroy investigated three working class communities in Belfast, all three of these areas are poor working class district with a high incident of unemployment 
  • She gave each individual that she studied a Network strength score based on the person’s knowledge of other people in the community, the workplace, and at leisure activities to give a score of 1-5
  • Then she measured each persons use of several linguistic variables, which both had standard and non standard forms and a stranger accent 
• Milroy: Belfast study: Pt4

  • When men where unemployed and women where working, women had stronger accents
  •  Relatively dense network functions as norm enforcement mechanisms: a way in which a particular use of language is reinforced
  • In this case of language, this means that a closely knit group will have the capacity to enforce linguistic norms 
• Jocks and burnouts: Eckert Pt1

  Jocks:

  • used more socially prestigious (standard) forms of language
  • i.e sought overt prestige
  • actively participated in school life
  • were critical of 'burnouts' non-standard language use
• Jocks and burnouts: Eckert Pt2

  Burnouts:

  • used non standard, less prestigious, urban (Detroit) accent
  • actively rebellious
  • i.e. covert prestige
• Jocks and burnout: Eckert Pt3

  • both groups included male and female
  • women of the group where the ones who represented the groups language the most
  • women adapted their speech more
• Jocks and burnouts: Eckert Pt4


  Findings:

  • each group shared social practices/attitudes - and language use
  • teenagers are likely to adapt their speech to the friendship group they're in
  • social practices were more of a determiner than class or other factors
• Martha's Vineyard: Pt 1

  • Population of 600 - up to 4000 in the summer
  • eastern part of the island home to permanent residents and tourists
  • western part of island (Chilmark) is were most original/traditional islanders live (associated with fishing industry)
• Martha's Vineyard: Pt2

  • Labov studied the mOUse and mIce sounds
  • he found that many residents - especially men (30-50) were adopting a different non-standard pronunciation like the Chilmark fishermen
  • this wasnt connected to class/education
• Martha's Vineyard: Pt3

  Conclusion:

  • islanders wanted to present a seperate identity to non islanders
  • covert prestige: 'us' vs 'them' identity
  • islanders wanted to claim their names and ensure that tourists understand the difference between them and islanders
  • wanted to identify with a particular group away from tourists
• Matched guise test: Pt 1

  • verbal guise test
  • p's listen to different speakers reading out the same text
  • involves speakers with different regional accents
• Matched guise test: Pt2

  • the p's job is to assess various qualities
  • might be asked to evaluate how friendly or intelligent a voice sounds
  • the idea is to tap into which pronunciations are linked with these abstract qualities
• Matched guise test: Pt3

  • p's may also be asked to try and identify the geographical region where they think the speaker is from
  • people who are more familiar with an accent may have stronger views towards it
• matched guise test: Pt 4

  • one potential issue is that different speakers with the same accent might produce speech that is slightly different
  • listeners might be assessing voices based on individual speakers way of pronoucing words rather than evaluating the accent more generally
  • to get arounf this issue the matched guise test was developed
• matched guise test: Pt 5

  • instead of using different speakers, used the same speaker throughout, hired voice actor
  • speaker would change their accents
  • by using this method, there is better control over the more individualistic properties of peoples voices
• Dixon, Mahoney and Cocks: Pt1

  • research into accents and perceptions of criminal 'guilt'
  • researchers interested in how listeners linked regional accents to different types of criminality
• Dixon, Mahoney and Cocks: Pt 2

  • using matched guise test, researchers are trying to portray a policeman and a suspect of a crime interview
  • actor read out the scrip first with a Birmingham accent and then with an RP accent
• Dixon, Mahoney and Cocks: Pt3

  • the idea was to see if the listeners would more harshly judge a suspect with a non standard, regional, 'brummie' accent compared to a suspect speaking a more prestigious accent
  • p's were asked to rate the suspect's guilt on a scale from 1-7
• Dixon, Mahoney and Cocks: Pt4


  Findings:

  • they found that the suspect was significantly more likely to be found guilty when he spoke with a Birmingham accent than with an RP accent
  • speakers of a standard more prestigious accent have an advantage in the legal system
  • opposite for non standard, regional accents
• Trudgill: Norwhich Study

  CLASS:

  • observed use of 'velar nasal' consonant (i.e. -ng)
  • certain non standard forms (walkin/talkin) were more likely to feature in working class speech than middle class speech
  • found that class is more of a determiner of non standard usage than gender
  • though women in all social classes are more likely to use the overt prestige or RP form
• Trudgill: Norwhich Study: Pt2

  CLASS & GENDER:

  • men over reported their non standard usage = implying that men wished to sound more non standard, assuming that they used more of the covert prestige forms
  • women over reported their standard usage = implying that women wished to sound more standard, assuming that they used more of the overt prestive forms
• Trudgill: Norwhich Study: Pt3


  CONCLUSION:

  • concluded that women are more susceptible to overt pretige than men
  • men are more susceptible to covert prestige