variation and change in modern received …...(2013), ‘a new model of social class? findings from...

Research Questions Background and Literature Methodology and Methods Limitations and Obstacles Questions

Variation and Change in Modern ReceivedPronunciation

Caitlin Halfacre

June 14, 2018


Table of Contents

Research Questions

Background and Literature

Methodology and Methods

Limitations and Obstacles

Questions


Research Questions

1. Descriptive aim - What pronunciation differences existbetween north-eastern and southern speakers of ReceivedPronunciation (RP), particularly focussing on vowels anddiphthongs?

2. Social aim - What insights does this give on the nature of anon-regional sociolect made up of diffuse speech communities?

3. Theoretical Aim - Can the variation seen in RP shed light onthe interactions between phonetics, phonology andmorphology during a sound change in progress?


Background and Literature (1)

• RP is an accent of English

• A non-regional sociolect

(adapted from (Wells 1982a))



• RP is an accent of English

• A non-regional sociolect

• Historically tied to schooling & socio-economic class(Jones 1917, Trudgill 2002)

• Subvarieties (Wells 1982b, Fabricius 2000)



• Recent studies of variation• Newsreaders (Bjelakovic 2016, Hannisdal 2006)• Fabricius (2000, 2002a, 2002c, 2002b, 2006, 2007, 2014)• Little to no current literature on variation in vowel/diphthong

pronunciation

• Sociolect is accepted but rarely defended (Przedlacka &Baghai-Ravary 2015, Wolfram & Schillings-Estes 1998)

• Calls for study (Fabricius 2002a, Britain 2017)


Methodology and Methods

• Quantitative methodology

• Sociolinguistic interviews (Labov 2011, Tagliamonte &Mesthrie 2006)

• Phonetic analysis Ô formant values

• Collect and code for as many social factors as possible (age,gender, area, class etc.)

• Statistical Analysis

• A difference is indicated by statistically significant differencesin vowel realisations


Methodology and MethodsResearch Question 1

What pronunciation differences exist between north-easternand southern speakers of RP, particularly focussing on vowelsand diphthongs?

• Quantitative methodology

• Sociolinguistic interviews (Labov 2011, Tagliamonte &Mesthrie 2006)

• Phonetic analysis Ô formant values

• Collect and code for as many social factors as possible (age,gender, area, class etc.)

• Statistical Analysis

• A difference is indicated by statistically significant differencesin vowel realisations



What insights does this give on the nature of a non-regionalsociolect made up of diffuse speech communities?

• Mixed Methodology - quantitative and qualitative• Interviews and surveys

• Class measurements



Can the variation seen in RP shed light on the interactionsbetween phonetics, phonology and morphology during asound change in progress?

hope hole holy holey




hope

hole holy holey




hope hole

holy holey




hope hole holy

holey




hope hole holy holey




• Effect of morphology on the phonetics of a sound change(Strycharczuk & Scobbie 2016)

(Strycharczuk & Scobbie 2016)



Can the variation seen in RP shed light on the interactionsbetween phonetics,phonology and morphology during a sound change in progress?

(Halfacre 2017)


Limitations and Obstacles

• How to measure class? (Britain 2017, Savageet al. 2013, Newport 2002)

• Recruitment• Defining the criteria for the accent - is this circular?

(Britain 2017)

• Sociolinguistics interview & Target variables


List of ReferencesBjelakovic, A. (2016), ‘The vowels of contemporary RP: vowel formant measurements for BBC newsreaders’,English Language and Linguistics pp. 1–32.URL: http://www.journals.cambridge.org/abstract S1360674316000253

Britain, D. (2017), ‘Beyond the ”gentry aesthetic”: elites, Received Pronunciation and the dialectological gaze’,Social Semiotics 27(3), 288–298.

Fabricius, A. (2006), ‘The ’vivid sociolinguistic profiling’ of received pronunciation: Responses to gendereddialect-in-discourse’, Journal of Sociolinguistics 10(1), 111–122.

Fabricius, A. H. (2000), Between Stigma and Prestige: a Sociolinguistic Study of Modern RP, PhD thesis,Copenhagen Business School.

Fabricius, A. H. (2002a), ‘Ongoing change in modern RP: Evidence for the disappearing stigma of t-glottalling’,English World-Wide 23(1), 115–136.

Fabricius, A. H. (2002b), ‘RP as sociolinguistic object’, Nordic Journal of English Studies 1(2), 355–372.Fabricius, A. H. (2002c), ‘Weak vowels in modern RP: An acoustic study of happY-tensing and KIT/schwa shift’,Language Variation and Change 14(02), 211–237.

Fabricius, A. H. (2007), ‘Vowel formants and angle measurements in diachronic sociophonetic studies:FOOT-fronting in RP’, Proceedings of the 16th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences(August), 1477–1480.

Fabricius, A. H. (2014), SEEING RP ’ S PRESENT IN THE PAST : EXAMINING ACCENT OBSOLESCENCETRAJECTORIES, in ‘Sociolinguistcs Symposium 20’.

Halfacre, C. (2017), The Life Cycle of poshness - the progress of GOAT backing in Received PronunciationEnglish., Unpublished BA Dissertation, Newcastle.

Hannisdal, B. R. (2006), Variability and change in Received Pronunciation A study of six phonological variables inthe speech of television newsreaders, PhD thesis, University of Bergen.

Jones, D. (1917), An English Pronouncing Dictionary, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Newport, E. L. (2002), Critical periods in language development, in L. Nadel, ed., ‘Encyclopedia of cognitive

science’, Macmillan, London, pp. 737–740.Przedlacka, J. & Baghai-Ravary, L. (2015), ‘Pitch and Duration in Rp : a Corpus-Based Historical Exploration’,Proceedings of the 18th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS 2015) .

Savage, M., Devine, F., Cunningham, N., Taylor, M., Li, Y., Hjellbrekke, J., Le Roux, B., Friedman, S. & Miles, A.(2013), ‘A New Model of Social Class? Findings from the BBC’s Great British Class Survey Experiment’,Sociology 47(2), 219–250.

Strycharczuk, P. & Scobbie, J. M. (2016), ‘Gradual or abrupt? The phonetic path to morphologisation’, Journal ofPhonetics 59, 76–91.

Trudgill, P. (2002), Sociolinguistic Variation and Change, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh.Wells, J. (1982a), Accents of English: 1 An Introduction, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Wells, J. (1982b), Accents of English 2: The British Isles, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Wolfram, W. & Schillings-Estes, N. (1998), American English, Blackwell Publishers, Oxford.


Thank You for ListeningQuestions?

1. Descriptive aim - What pronunciation differences existbetween north-eastern and southern speakers of ReceivedPronunciation (RP), particularly focussing on vowels anddiphthongs?

2. Social aim - What insights does this give on the nature of anon-regional sociolect made up of diffuse speech communities?

3. Theoretical Aim - Can the variation seen in RP shed light onthe interactions between phonetics, phonology andmorphology during a sound change in progress?

variation and change in modern received …...(2013), ‘a new model of social class? findings from...

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