Accent and Dialect Theories

William Labov - Martha's Vineyard (1961)

What?

Labov was interested in phonological variation and investigated the vowel sounds /au/ and /ai/ (in words like mouse and mice). These are called diphthongs.

Where?

He researched this on an island called Martha's Vineyard. It is heavily populated by tourists in the summer months.

How?

He interviewed 69 people of different age and social groups from the island and tried to ask questions that encouraged them to say certain words with the diphthongs he was studying. This way, the people he was interviewing found the conversation more natural and wouldn't necessarily guess what he was trying to research.

His Results

Labov found that:

- Fishermen pronounced the /au/ and /ai/ vowel sounds more prominently than any other group - He concluded this to mean that they were trying to subconsciously distinguish themselves as Vineyarders and distance themselves from the tourists as they believed they infringed on their traditional island lives..

- Young people between the ages 31-45 centralized around these vowel sounds more than the other age groups - Perhaps this is because the fishermen were thought highly of on the island and were seen as a desirable social group, and many wanted to reject the speech style of the mainland.

The islanders distanced themselves from the tourists by adjusting their language. This could suggest that social groups have a big influence on language variation and language change.

Gary Ives - Code Switching (2014)

What?

Code switching is where people mix their first and second languages. For example, English and Punjabi.

How?

Gary Ives carried out two studies (one in London and one in Bradford) and questioned people about their language use and dialect.

His Results

Bradford (8 teenage boys) -School A

When they were originally asked why they spoke this way they gave responses such as: 'it's where we leave', 'it's natural' and 'everybody speaks like this'.

When they were questioned further their answers started to hint that it was a conscious choice to code-switch. Some of them said that it was because other people who aren't Pakistani won't understand what they're saying, and some said that with their parents they'll speak English but they add in Punjabi when talking to friends. A student also added that they especially code switched when it came to swearing as it was like a 'secret language'.

Students who were born in Pakistan but moved to England were called 'Freshies' and didn't tend to code switch as much. Other students try and distinguish themselves from the 'freshies' as they feel no connection with them. Two members of staff were also studied and said that they also code-switched. (NOT AGE RELATED)

London - School B

Ives interviewed many teenagers from a school in South London and found that MLE was heavily influenced by Afro-Caribbean and Jamaican culture. For example, words like 'bruv', 'hype' and 'bare' have roots to these cultures.

These students came from a wide variety of backgrounds and the percentage of children who spoke English as an additional language and who are from a minority ethnic group was significantly higher than the national average. The highest proportion of these students come from an Afro-Caribbean background.

Some of these students were white British students but still used lexis from Afro-Caribbean and Jamaican cultures which shows that MLE is more about a group identity rather than a cultural identity. Perhaps these teenagers are attracted to or immersed in that culture which affects their language.

Paul Kerswill - Who's an Eastender now?

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAnFbJ65KYM)

What?

Paul Kerswill researched MLE and decided to go public with his findings (research of 6 years) to defend MLE from David Starkey who claims that 'gangster culture has become the fashion' and how 'Jamaican patois has intruded England'.

His Findings

He found that:

- Young Londoners do not use H omission anymore so are somewhat more correct.

- Some slang words are from Jamaican backgrounds like 'bare' but there is also a lot of slang that has originated from England like 'my ends'. Therefore, Jamaican patois has nOt intruded England.

- In areas where less than 50% people are white British and there is a lack of funding, people are more family orientated and community based due to being unable to travel away. This is how words from different cultures mix in with English and create a new language.

- Young people of different ethnic and cultural backgrounds use MLE so it is less about race, ethnicity or culture and more about age!

Milroy - Belfast Study

Closed Network - When one's contacts know each other/a close-knit group of friends
Open Network - When one's contacts don't tend to know each other

What?
Milroy was interested in how individuals in closed and open networks used language.

How?
She gave every individual that she studied a number from 1-5 based on their 'network strength'. 5 meant that they had a very high network strength (i.e a closed network), and 1 meant that they had a very low network strength (i.e an open network). She then studied each person on several linguistic variables, like, for example, how they pronounced the 'th' in mother.

Her Results
She found that the people with higher network scores, so therefore those in a closed network, used more non-standard forms when speaking. She also discovered that men in tight-knit communities seemed to use more non-standard forms than women, as women seemed to be in less tight-knit communities.

However, in the Clonard, these roles were reversed, which Milroy thought was linked to the unemployment rates. The unemployment rates were around 35% here, so men tended to look for work outside of the communities and the women would all work together. This meant that the non-standard forms found in closed networks were more evident in the young Clonard women than the Clonard men due to these circumstances.

Howard Giles - 'Capital Punishment' Experiment

What?
He was interested in peoples attitudes to different accents.

How?
He presented five groups of students with an identical set of arguments against capital punishment. One group were given a written presentation, and the other four were given an oral presentation. Within the oral presentations, one was presented by an RP speaker, one by a Somerset speaker, one by a South Welsh speaker and the last by a Birmingham speaker.

His Results
When asked how impressed they were with how successful the presentations were ...

- The RP speaker and the written presentation were deemed the most impressive.
- The Birmingham presentation was deemed the least impressive.

When asked about their opinion's on Capital Punishment before and after the presentations ...

- Those hearing the regional speakers presentations were more likely to change their opinions
- Those who listened to the RP speaker or reading the written presentation didn't seem as likely to change their opinion

Therefore, he concluded that RP is deemed more professional than the regional accents, but the regional accents were more persuasive.

Howard Giles - 'Matched-Guise' Technique

What?
Giles was interested in how people judge different accents.

How?
He asked participants to listen to a recording of a speaker expressing their views on different subjects and asked British teenagers to pass judgement on each recording. All of the recordings were spoken by the same speaker but with different accents.

His Results
1973 - The British teenagers listened to a recording of the same speech arguing against the death penalty, but in two different accents. The teenagers were more likely to value the opinion and the content of the speaker with an upper-class accent.

1975 - Two groups of 17 year olds listened same speaker speak about psychology, once in a Birmingham accent and once in RP. They rated the RP speaker higher in terms of intelligence.

Criticisms 
- Listeners could have become aware of the fact that it was the same speaker.
- They may have answered with what they thought they should say rather than their true opinion.
- Some may not have had an opinion but they were forced to give an answer anyway.
- The recordings weren't reflective of natural speech.

Dixon, Mahoney & Cocks - Accents of Guilt (2002)

What?
They were interested to attitudes to different accents.

How?
119 participants listened to recorded conversations between a British male criminal suspect and a British male policeman. The criminal was voiced by the same man in both tapes, but once in a Brummie accent and once in an RP accent. After listening to the recordings, the participants were asked to rate each suspect on a scale from innocent to guilty.

Their Results
The criminal with the Brummie accent was rated guiltier than the criminal with the RP accent.

Peter Tudgill - Norwich Study 

What?
He was interested in H-omission and the pronunciation of -ing. He believed that people who spoke with received pronunciation were immediately thought to be unfriendly and untrustworthy, and children who spoke with 'working-class accents' were seen as having less potential than other kids by teachers.

His Results
The proportion of people in Norwich who dropped the 'g' in words ending with -ing (like walkin') was higher in lower classes and especially in men rather than women.

When asked about the -ing ending, women thought that they dropped the 'g' less than they really did, and men thought that they dropped the 'g' more than they did. 

People in all classes seemed to pronounce the -ing ending more when they were more focussed on their speech. Perhaps this is an attempt to sound like you belong to the upper class.