Anne Fabricius

1
Short vowels in real time TRAP, STRUT and FOOT
in the South of England

• Anne Fabricius
• Roskilde University, Denmark
• ICLAVE 5, Copenhagen
• June 27th, 2009

2
Introduction

• Language change in progress, its social
  embedding, predictions and complications
• A real-time diachronic study of some features of
  modern RP/changing SSBE
• At one level a quantitative study of patterns of
  variation implicated in linguistic change in some
  cases
• At another level, a study of the evolution and
  devolution/transformation of modern RP as a
  social practice and its place in the
  sociolinguistic landscape of the UK
• Here an exemplificatory look at short vowel
  configurations

3
Background

• Phonologically and phonetically the RP accent has
  been well described in the past (native speaker
  phoneticians e.g. Daniel Jones EPD, Gimson
  Cruttenden)
• Methodological foundations in the structuralist
  tradition of phonetics, a variety perspective
• axiom of categoricity vs sociolinguistic/variati
  onist school of thought
• Historical roots of RP are discussed by
  Mugglestone (2003) Talking Proper the rise of
  accent as social symbol
• the traditional non-regional accent /as
  consequence of the insularity of public school
  boarding life/preparatory schools from age 7, 8

4
RP fact and fiction (Ramsaran 1990)

• Native RP (s)
• Sociolinguistically observable through a defined
  population in successive generations
• Sociologically
• Socioeconomic background
• Educational background and experiences
• Phonological system(s) with phonetic variations
• Change is a different phenomenon in each case
• All varieties have this potential ambiguity

• Construct RP (s)
• Systematically related to n-RP but distinct and
  with its own diachrony
• Here the notion of standard comes into play,
  and can change
• E.g. on age-graded reactions to t-glottalling
• Each generation has its own cutoff points posh
• Examples of clergy-speak
• A sociolinguistics of perception (Harrington ,
  Kleber and Reubold 2008, on generational
  perceptions of /u/-fronting)

5
Modern RP or SSBE?

• A question of naming practice
• Why Modern RP
• Why SSBE
• What do the titles emphasize and de-emphasize
• Standard as a label mixes form and function,
  Southern as a result of regional history
• Modern RP emphasizes a generational
  sociolinguistic continuity
• which however may be illusory in some individual
  cases
• Ask what is the breaking point, empirically,
  for a decisive cut with the earlier label
• Connotations of RP led many to abandon it in
  the 60s.

6
Empirical background Social polarities in the UK

• Historical social differentiation in UK secondary
  education public school - independent school
  grammar school - state school (similar to
  Australia, vs e.g. Denmark, Scandinavia)
• Universities, Govt. Education policy and Access
  schemes
• Are educational backgrounds blurred or maintained
  in a higher education context?
• Application rates to e.g. Cambridge are rising
  (Access)
• Present Economic situation (?)
• What are students perceptions? (North-South
  divide, levelling, do accents matter to people)

7
Theory sociolinguistics and class

• Chambers (199537),
• The upper class, consisting of people with
  inherited wealth and privileges, is so
  inconsequential nonexistent outside Europe and
  Asia and dwindling rapidly there - that it will
  not be considered here.
• Schneider's (199951) review of Chambers
• "we are less well-informed about upper-class
  speech patterns, attitudes, ... and although it
  may be true that for sociolinguistic purposes
  they are rather irrelevant, that still does not
  imply non-existence, - for sociolinguistic
  modelling, a continuum of which one pole just
  does not exist, would not be very convincing."
• Macaulay (2002 398) points out, social class was
  to some extent sidelined compared to ethnicity,
  social networks and gender as important
  sociolinguistic categories.
• (My interviewees MC/UMC rather than aristocratic
  UC)

8
Kroch 1996

• Anthony Krochs interview-based study of the
  upper-class of Philadelphia
• members of that group were users of the same
  phonological system as other Philadelphians
• E.g. complex phonetic conditioning of features
  such as Philadelphians short /a/.
• What distinguished them in their speech and in
  the perception of others was a distinctive set of
  prosodic and lexical behaviours. (c.f. creak in
  RP)

9
Thus...

• A research interest in the sociolinguistics of
  the successor to RP, e.g. speakers rates of
  participation in ongoing England-wide vernacular
  changes (such as discussed in Foulkes and
  Docherty 1999)
• Is non-regionality breaking down/changing, e.g.
  in Oxbridge contexts?
• What does Higher education contribute to
  koinéization processes (Bigham 2008)?
• Reflects a changing picture of (fluid)
  relationships between language and socioeconomic
  privilege and historical processes
• Part of the picture of English in the UK in its
  entirety

10
Moreover

• When is an accent variety no longer the same,
  when has it changed beyond recognition (mutually
  intelligible still across generations or breaking
  down through changes below consciousness...
  yeast/used, toasties/tasties)
• Linguistic Variety perspectives and social
  practice/social constructionist perspective
  potentially complement each other (having an
  accent versus doing being a student at Cambridge
  linguistically)
• Thus, linguistic and ethnographic/sociological
  perspectives can/must potentially intertwine...
• Need an updated model of the generational picture
  also for modern RP speakers (cf Ramptons model
  based on Wells 1982)

11
The research questions arising here

• To what extent is there still a non-regional
  accent of English in the UK?
• What phonetic characteristics does it maintain
  from earlier generations?
• and to what extent are ongoing UK-wide processes
  of vernacular change visible here?
• Are there changes particular to this variety
  alone?
• What is its relationship to ongoing metaprocesses
  of standard-formation/devolution/transformation

12
Methods

• Interview corpus with present author as
  interviewee
• 40 interviews collected 1997/1998
• 40 interviews collected 2008
• At Cambridge University
• Students with independent school backgrounds
• Structured sociolinguistic interviews, 1hr
  duration
• Ongoing project
• Quantitative studies of phonetic variation to
  map the accent variety empirically to an extent
  not attempted before

13
Presuppositions

• The forces of linguistic change which act on all
  varieties of a language will also apply to n-RP
• whether internally-motivated endogenous or
  contact-induced exogenous changes (Trudgill 1999)
• Popular or folk-linguistic notions of, and about,
  correctness or standardness also undergo change,
  due to historical societal developments,
• these changes represent developments in c-RPs (cf
  Ramptons posh performances)

14
The unity of varieties...

• Varieties emerging from dialectologically-focussed
  studies
• Demarcation lines become important Wells 1982
  (RP, near-RP)
• However, difficulties of demarcation and
  definition in late modern societies are sometimes
  emphasized (Rampton Language in Late Modernity)
• So is the British accent landscape characterized
  by stability as well as change?
• Coupland and Bishop 2007 reporting stability in
  regional vernacular downgrading
• Plus younger speakers rejection of standard
  prestige in highly decontextualised attitudinal
  rating settings
• Report disappointingly familiar conservative
  tendencies..(200784)
• Alongside findings for younger listeners that
  at least to a limited extent, challenge the
  inference that there is a consolidated, single
  ideological set in the evaluation of English
  accents (200785)

15
...contra social practice perspectives

• Social practice emerging through ethnographic
  approach
• We could for example ask how do students do being
  at Cambridge linguistically
• speaking differently when they start and when
  they finish (Evans and Iverson 2007)
• Are there gender distinctions? (are they
  potential motors of wider change?)
• Communities of practice in the Cambridge
  University landscape rowing clubs, choirs,
  subject groups (Classics?), different colleges,
  could form basis for ethnographic studies

16
Data short vowels in reading passage data

• Data set

• Analysis

• Lexical items with tone group prominence
• PRAAT analysis using standard settings (adjusted
  with greater Hz range for female voices)
• PRAAT script by Tyler Kendall to extract
  mid-point formant values
• 900 tokens in all, 8 keywords
• Hand checked, 4 tokens discarded

17
Comparisons presented here

• Compare reading passage data in year and gender
  cohorts
• For comparison with trends in RP over the course
  of the twentieth century, see Fabricius 2007a and
  b.
• TRAP-STRUT rotation brought about by (1) trap
  backing and lowering (2) STRUT raising to central
  or back of central position
• FOOT fronting (and unrounding) towards KIT
• Changes in short vowel system only.
• Comparisons needed with long vowels e.g. START

18
Male speakers, 1998 cohort
19
M3s interview speech
LOT-FOOT
TRAP-STRUT
20
Male speakers, 2008 cohort
21
Female speakers, 1998 cohort
22
Female speakers, 2008 cohort
23
Tendencies suggested

• TRAP/STRUT configuration stable
• LOT raising vis a vis FOOT
• Females 2008 plus 1 male 2008 speaker
• FOOT remains distinct from KIT, process has
  slowed
• STRUT/ START overlapping needs further
  investigation
• Importantly, individual differences can be
  tracked
• Unity and diversity...

24
Some sound samples

• 1997-1998 corpus
• M2
• M3
• 2008 corpus
• F1
• F4

25
Future plans with corpus data

• 1997-8 and 2008 materials will be transcribed and
  annotated
• Building up a series of inductive quantitative
  sociolinguistic-oriented studies of stability,
  variation and change-in-progress
• Mapping the current features of Modern RP/SSBE
  from a dynamic perspective which integrates
  individual and group differences

26
Language change in progress examples

• GOAT fronting/merging with FACE
• GOAT-allophony
• MOUTH-PRICE onsets
• Monophthongisation
• T-glottalling
• R-sandhi
• Vowels in unstressed syllables (weak vowels)
• L-Vocalisation (variants)
• Gender differentiations, lexical effects, style
  effects in all of the above

27
Potential comparison points

• BBC Newsreader corpus (Hannisdal)
• London WC (Kerswill, Torgersen, Fox Cheshire)
• DyViS 100 male SSBE speakers in Cambridge
  (Nolan, McDougall et al)

28
Bibliography 1

• The Modern RP page www.akira.ruc.dk/fabri
• Bigham, D. 2008. Dialect contact and
  accommodation among emerging adults in a
  university setting . Ph.D. Thesis, University of
  Texas at Austin.
• Chambers, J.K. 1995. Sociolinguistic Theory.
  Oxford UK and Cambridge USA Blackwell.
• Cruttenden, Alan. 2001. Gimson's Pronunciation of
  English. 6th edition. Oxford UK Oxford
  University Press.
• Coupland, Nikolas and Hywel Bishop. 2007.
  Ideologised values for British accents. Journal
  of Sociolinguistics 11, 1 74-103.
• Fabricius, Anne. 2007a. Variation and change in
  the TRAP and STRUT vowels of RP a real time
  comparison of five acoustic data sets. Journal of
  the International Phonetic Association 373
  293-320.
• Fabricius, A. 2007b. Vowel Formants and Angle
  Measurements in Diachronic Sociophonetic Studies
  FOOT-fronting in RP. Proceedings of the 16th
  ICPhS, Saarbrücken, August 2007. www
  www.icphs2007.de/.
• Fabricius, Anne H. 2002a. RP as sociolinguistic
  object. Nordic Journal of English Studies, Vol 1,
  nr 2355-372.

29
Bibliography 2

• Fabricius, Anne H. 2002b. Weak vowels in modern
  RP an acoustic study of happy-tensing and
  KIT/schwa shift. Language Variation and Change.
  Vol 14, nr 2 211-237.
• Fabricius, Anne H. 2002c. Ongoing change in
  modern RP evidence for the disappearing stigma
  of t-glottalling. English Worldwide 23,
  1115-136.
• Foulkes, P. and G. J. Docherty. eds. 1999. Urban
  Voices Accent Studies in the British Isles.
  London Arnold.
• Labov, William. 1994. Principles of Linguistic
  Change volume 1 Internal Factors. Oxford
  Blackwell.
• Hannisdal, Bente Rebecca . 2007. Variability and
  change in Received Pronunciation a study of six
  phonological variables in the speech of
  television newsreaders . University of Bergen PhD
  thesis. http//hdl.handle.net/1956/2335
• Harrington, J., F. Kleber and U. Reubold. 2008.
  Compensation for coarticulation, /u/-fronting,
  and sound change in standard southern British An
  acoustic and perceptual study. JASA 123,5
  28252835.
• Macaulay, Ronald. 2002. "Extremely interesting,
  very interesting, or only quite interesting?
  Adverbs and social class." Journal of
  Sociolinguistics. 6.3398-417.
• Mugglestone, Lynda. 2003. Talking Proper the
  Rise of Accent as Social Symbol. Oxford Oxford
  University Press. 2nd edition.
• Rampton, B. 2006. Language in Late Modernity
  Interaction in an urban school. Cambridge
  Cambridge University Press.

30
Bibliography 3

• Ramsaran, Susan. 1990. RP fact and fiction. In
  Ramsaran, Susan, ed. Studies in the Pronunciation
  of English A Commemorative Volume in honour of
  A.C. Gimson. London Routledge.
• Schneider, E. W. (1999). Review of Chambers 1995.
  Journal of English Linguistics. 27,1. 49-56.
• Trudgill, P. 1999. Norwich endogenous and
  exogenous linguistic change. In P. Foulkes and
  G.J. Docherty 1999, 124-140.
• Wells, J.C. 1982. Accents of English, 3 volumes.
  Cambridge Cambridge University Press.

31
Acknowledgements

• Department of Culture and Identity, Roskilde
  University
• Department of Linguistics, Cambridge University
• Francis Nolan, Kirsty McDougall, Toby Hudson
• Tyler Kendall, Duke University and North Carolina
  State University.

32
Short vowels in real time TRAP, STRUT and FOOT
in the South of England

• Anne Fabricius
• Roskilde University, Denmark
• ICLAVE 5, Copenhagen
• June 27th, 2009