Varieties of English

1
Varieties of English

• Standard English
• RP
• Cockney
• Estuary English

2

• Students are exposed to a number of varieties of
  English.
• Help in understanding them can play an important
  and particularly useful part in the study of
  English as a foreign language (EFL).
• English, like every language, is subject to
  variation.

3

• DIMENSIONS of LANGUAGE VARIATION
• DIFFERENT TYPES OF VARIATION
• Saussure 1912
• SYNCHRONIC variation in language
• (in terms of differences within one language in
  different places and among different groups at
  the same time)
• DIACHRONIC variation in language
• (from the historical perspective of change
  through time) time

4

• Coseriu 1973
• DIATOPIC variation
• (dependent on geographical factors) place
• English in the British Isles
• English in America
• English in the Colonies
• English around the world
• DIASTRATIC variation
• (dependent on social factors) level - users
  variation
• DIAPHASIC variation
• (dependent on the function of the message and on
  the global context in which communication takes
  place) function use variation
• Different styles and registers
• Different aims of communication
• (English for General Purposes / English for
  Specific Purposes (ESP)
• Restricted languages Airspeak, Netspeak)
• standard (RP pronunciation) / non-standard
  varieties

5

• What is the difference between
• a dialect and an accent?

6

• A dialect describes features of grammar,
  pronunciation and vocabulary.
• An accent refers to the description of aspects of
  pronunciation which identifies where a speaker is
  from, regionally or socially.

7

• Three variables of dialect are
• Geographical Where the speech community is
  based.
• Social What social group/s the speech community
  belongs to.
• Temporal In what time (present or historical)
  the speech community exists.

8
Accents

• It is not just a case of pronouncing things
  differently.
• Not all speakers share the same set of phonemes
• We dont always use them in the same place

9
As a result..

• Many words are pronounced identically by some
  speakers and differently by others. Look at the
  example
• Farther anf father
• these are pronounced identically by most people
  in England (except in the South West and parts of
  the North of England.)

10

• Can you think about a definition of standard?

11
STANDARD ENGLISH

• Standard is the kind of English which is
• written in published work,
• spoken in situations where published writing is
  most influential, especially in education (and
  especially at University level),
• spoken natively (at home) by people who are
  most influenced by published writing - the
  professional class.

12
On the social distribution of Standard, we can go
a bit further than this.

• First, Standard is probably spoken natively by
  about 10 of the population.
• Secondly, Standard can be combined with many
  different accents, including regional accents.

13

• Standard English, also known as Standard Written
  English or SWE, is the form of English most
  widely accepted as being clear and proper.
• Publishers, writers, educators, and others have
  over the years developed a consensus of what
  standard English consists of. It includes word
  choice, word order, punctuation, and spelling.
• Standard English is especially helpful when
  writing because it maintains a fairly uniform
  standard of communication which can be understood
  by all speakers and users of English regardless
  of differences in dialect, pronunciation, and
  usage. This is why it is sometimes called
  Standard Written English.

14

• BRITISH ENGLISH
• spoken written
• standard regional dialects standard
  regional dialects
• RP regional accents related regional
  accents

15
RP SOME DEFINITIONS

• A kind of standard, not necessarily deliberately
  imposed or consciously adopted, not a norm from
  which other accents deviate, nor a target towards
  which foreign learners need necessarily aim, but
  a standard in the sense that is regionally
  neutral and does undeniably influence the
  modified accents of many British regions (S.
  Ramsaran in Gramley-Patzold)
• A pronunciation of British English, originally
  based on the speech of the upper class of
  southeastern England and characteristic of the
  English spoken at the public schools and at
  Oxford and Cambridge Universities. Until recently
  it was the standard form of English used in
  British broadcasting.  (The American Heritage
  Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth
  Edition, Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000).

16

• When British English is taught to foreign
  learners, the accent presented as a model for the
  learner will most typically be received
  pronunciation (RP)
• Received in the 19th century the sense was
  that of accepted in the most polite circles of
  society.
• British society has changed a good deal since
  that time, but RP has remained the accent of
  those in the upper reached of the social scale,
  as measured by education, income and profession,
  or title.

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• It has traditionally been the accent of those
  educated at public schools .
• Other way of defining it
• Oxford English
• Queens English
• BBC English
• RP is not a uniform, homogeneous pronunciation
  but it has different variants
• General RP,
• Near-RP
• Conservative RP
• Advanced RP
• Adoptive RP

18

• A regional accent can be used when speaking
  Standard English as well as when speaking a
  regional dialect.
• Received Pronunciation social accent
• Standard English (Superdialect)

19

• RP, unlike prestige accents in other countries,
  is NOT the accent of any particular region,
  except historically
• Its origins were in the speech of London and the
  surrounding area
• It is impossible to tell from this pronunciation
  where an RP speaker comes from.

20
WHY RP

• The aesthetic argument
• Wylde (1934) RP is superior from the character
  of its vowel sounds, to any other form of
  English, in beauty and clarity.
• But Daniel Jones underlined I do not consider
  it possible at the present time to regard any
  special type as Standard or as intrinsically
  better than other types. Nevertheless, the type
  described in this book is certainly a useful one.
  It is based on my own (Southern) speech, and is,
  as far as I can ascertain, that generally used by
  those who have been educated at preparatory
  boarding schools and the Public Schools. ...
  The term Received Pronunciation ... is often
  used to designate this type of pronunciation.
  This term is adopted here for want of a better.
  (D. Jones, An Outline of English Phonetics, 1960,
  9th edn, p. 12)
• The intelligibility argument
• D. Jones Rp is easily understood almost
  everywhere in the English-speaking countries.
• The scholarly treatment argument RP is the basis
  of linguistic treatment of English pronunciation.
  EFL model.
• The social argument RP as a status symbol

21

• Daniel Jones
• English Pronouncing Dictionary
• (Photocopy)

22

• Long-standing association of RP with affectation,
  social snobbery
• The influence of non-standard and foreign accents
  and dialects of English (and of EIL), along with
  a general deterioration in standards in other
  modes of behavior, has been blamed for the
  perceived rise of sloppiness in pronunciation
  and disregard for proper grammar.

23
Listen 1

• I was born in nineteen forty-two in S..Salisbury,
  England, which is southwest and I was there
  because my father was in the army during the war
  and Salisbury Plain is the place where all the
  military training went on and still does. I was
  educated in Sussex, which is south, southern
  England. Um oh I lived in Sussex for most of my
  formative years but I was educated under the
  British system of boarding-schools. So I spent
  the ages of eight to thirteen in Oxford at a
  cathedral school and then I went to Canterbury,
  another cathedral city, for my high-school years
  of thirteen to eighteen, and I then went on to
  Cambridge which is although it's in East Anglia
  has people from all over the country there so um
  although I'm familiar with the East Anglian
  accent, I certainly don't represent it. And then
  as a professional I travelled all over the world
  as a freelance performing singer, um moving in
  and out of all kinds of different countries and
  cultures. But I think my accent probably
  represents what used to be called Received
  Pronunciation, which the BBC classed as that, and
  it's a kind of an accent fairly typical of
  somebody who's had a boarding-school education,
  whose parents thought carefully, liked to hear
  English spoken well and so endeavoured to instill
  it in their offspring. Something I've failed to
  do with my own son, as a matter of fact, who's
  had a very similar background but his voice is
  much more relaxed than mine. Um and my daughter,
  on the other hand, is does speak fairly like me
  although she's now living in Virginia and has
  picked up more American accent than I think I
  have. I settled in United States in nineteen
  ninety-four, so I'm now I'm in my fifth year of
  teaching at University of Kansas.

24
LISTEN 2The subject is a 49 year-old white male
speaker of contemporary RP, born in Woking,
Surrey and educated to A-Level (age 18) at a
local grammar school. He has lived most of his
adult life in Brighton and works as a local
government officer. The speaker recalls that his
accent was closer to pure RP when growing up in
Surrey than in its current incarnation. Brighton
is a student city and the influence of many
younger Estuary English speakers is probably
significant. His occupation also entails a fair
amount of telephone-based conflict resolution and
he admits to regularly micro-adjusting his
natural accent in both class directions in order
to better establish a rapport with colleagues and
complainants.

• The following sounds heard in the recording are
  fairly typical of a shift away from traditional
  toward relaxed RP.
• Slight centring of GOOSE vowel with fairly
  relaxed lip rounding relative to advanced RP.
• Retraction and lowering of first vowel in FACE
  diphthong
• Raising of first vowel in MOUTH diphthong
• Retraction of first element of PRICE vowel,
  sometimes smoothing it into a monophthong.
• CURE and SQUARE vowels are often realised as
  monophthongs..
• Affricated intervocalic /t/
• The intermittent occurrence of a labiodental or
  weak r is a feature of the speakers idiolect
  and not particularly characteristic of either of
  his regions of origin.
• Transcription
• Well, I was um, I was born in Surrey, in 1957,
  and, uh in a little town called Woking. Ah, I
  lived with my parents, ah, for three years in
  acaravan on a caravan site, um until the birth
  of my brother, when I was about three, er, and
  then we moved into the.. gamekeepers cottage on
  an estate, where my grandfather worked, my
  grandfather was the gamekeeper on the estate. Er,
  and we lived there for a couple of years.
• Um, just in the, this little little cottage on
  the estate looking at watching the animals, I
  remember my father chasing a fox in the garden,
  and I remember there being lots of dead animals
  around, that had been shot, by the gamekeeper, my
  grandfather gamekeeper.
• Anyway we lived there for a while, and then my
  father got er, a house, in Addlestone, near
  Addlestone. And we lived there until I got a
  permanent job, which involved me living, working,
  overseas in other parts of the world, and then,
  eventually moving down to Brighton, and Ive been
  hereabout25 years, or more, I think.

25
Listen 3
26
Cockney

• Cockney represents the basilectal end of the
  London accent and can be considered the broadest
  form of London local accent.(Wells 1982b)
• It traditionally refers only to specific regions
  and speakers within the city.
• While many Londoners may speak what is referred
  to as "popular London" (Wells 1982b) they do not
  necessarily speak Cockney.
• The popular Londoner accent can be distinguished
  from Cockney in a number of ways, and can also be
  found outside of the capital, unlike the true
  Cockney accent.

27

• The term Cockney refers to both the accent as
  well as to those people who speak it?
• The etymology of Cockney has long been discussed
  and disputed. One explanation is that "Cockney"
  literally means cock's egg, a misshapen egg such
  as sometimes laid by young hens.
• It was originally used when referring to a weak
  townsman, opposed to the tougher countryman and
  by the 17th century the term, through banter,
  came to mean a Londoner.
• Today's natives of London, especially in its East
  End use the term with respect and pride -
  Cockney Pride'.)

28

• The Cockney accent is generally considered one of
  the broadest of the British accents and is
  heavily stigmatized.
• It is considered to epitomize the working class
  accents of Londoners and in its more diluted
  form, of other areas.
• The area and its colourful characters and accents
  have often become the foundation for British
  "soap operas" and other television specials.
• Currently, the BBC is showing one of the most
  popular soaps set in this region, "East Enders"
  and the characters accents and lives within this
  television program provide wonderful
  opportunities for observers of language and
  culture.

29
The most striking features of Cockney are

• r is pronounced only when followed immediately by
  a vowel-sound. So, in the demonstration below, no
  r is pronounced in flowers. (Some New England
  accents and Southern U.S. accents have this same
  feature.)
• Dropped h at beginning of words (Voiceless
  glottal fricative) h is usually omitted (home in
  the demonstration words) in self-conscious
  speech it's articulated very strongly. Examples
  house ouse hammer ammer
• l is pronounced only when a vowel-sound follows
  (so no l is pronounced in hole, etc.).
• TH fronting Another very well known
  characteristic of Cockney is th fronting which
  involves the replacement of the dental
  fricatives, and by labiodentals f and v
  respectively. Voiceless th is often, but not
  always, pronounced as f (breath, etc.). Voiced th
  is likewise often but not always pronounced as v
  (breathe, etc.). Examples thin fin brother
  bruvver three free bath barf
• The long vowels are all diphthongs, as you can
  hear from the demonstration words. Notice
  especially the difference between force etc.
  (spelled with r followed by a consonant, though
  the r is not pronounced) and poor etc. (spelled
  with r not followed by a consonant, though again
  the r is not pronounced).
• Monophthongization This affects the lexical set
  mouth vowel. mouth rather than mouth
• Glottal stop (the t sound is not pronounced in
  intervocalic or final positions. there are some
  words where the omission of t has become very
  accepted. Examples Gatwick Gawick Scotland
  Sco'land statement Sta'emen network Nework

30
Listen

• fleece, police, grease
• face, chase, lace
• price, rice, nice
• choose, lose, shoes
• mouth, round, flowers
• goat, note, home
• force, north, porch
• poor, more, door
• hole, bowl, coal
• little, model, fiddle
• breath, three, thanks
• breathe, mother, other

31

• Cockney is characterized by its own special
  vocabulary and usage, and traditionally by its
  own development of "rhyming slang."
• Rhyming slang, is still part of the true Cockney
  culture even if it is sometimes used for effect.

32
Rhyming slang

• Cockney rhyming slang is an amusing, widely
  under-estimated part of the English language. It
  began 200 years ago among the London east-end
  docks builders. Cockney rhyming slang then
  developed as a secret language of the London
  underworld from the 1850's, when villains used
  the coded speech to confuse police and
  eavesdroppers. Since then the slang has continued
  to grow and reflect new trends and wider usage,
  notably leading to Australian rhyming slang
  expressions, and American too. Many original
  cockney rhyming slang words have now entered the
  language and many users are largely oblivious as
  to their beginnings.

33

• Cockney rhyming slang uses substitute words,
  usually two, as a coded alternative for another
  word. The final word of the substitute phrase
  rhymes with the word it replaces (for example -
  the cockney rhyming slang for the word 'look' is
  'butcher's hook'). When only the first word of
  the replacement phrase is used, as is usual, the
  meaning is difficult to guess (ie 'butchers'
  'look'). (photocopy)

34
Pygmalion (G.B. SHAW)

• George Bernard Shaws Pygmalion tells a story of
  a phonetics professor Henry Higgins, who makes a
  bet with Colonel Pickering that he can transform
  Eliza Doolittle, a thick-accented Cockney flower
  girl or a "squashed cabbage leaf" (as he himself
  describes her) into a fine duchess within three
  months. Professor Higgins is a man who can say
  where a person comes from by his or her accent.
  In the play (and film) the emphasis in changing
  ones social class is more on learning to speak
  the right accent than on other significant
  factors. Higgins stresses that Eliza has to
  abandon her "Kerbstone English that will keep her
  in the gutter to the end of her days" and learn
  how to speak beautifully. In Shaws days (that is
  at the beginning of the 20th century) Britain was
  a very class-ridden society, and accent was a
  very good marker of ones social class.

35

• Preface
• It is impossible for an Englishman to open his
  mouth without making some other Englishman
  despise him.

36
Song Starz in their eyes ()
37

• Emergence of a new replacement variety first
  dubbed Estuary English by Rosewarne (1984)
• Estuary English is a name given to the form(s) of
  English widely spoken in and around London and,
  more generally, in the southeast of England
  along the river Thames and its estuary.

38

• ... a variety of modified regional speech. It
  is a mixture of non-regional and local
  south-eastern English pronunciation and
  intonation. If one imagines a continuum with RP
  and London speech at either end, Estuary
  English speakers are to be found grouped in the
  middle ground. (Rosewarne 1984)

39

• From a geographical point of view, EE is said to
  have been first spoken "by the banks of the
  Thames and its estuary" (Rosewarne 1984, 29),
  then became "the most influential accent in the
  south-east of England (Rosewarne 1984, 29) and
  is now spreading "northwards to Norwich and
  westwards to Cornwall" (Rosewarne 1994, 4). From
  a sociological point of view, EE is reported to
  be used by speakers who constitute the social
  "middle ground" (Rosewarne 1984, 29). This
  definition includes speakers who want to conform
  to (linguistic) middle class norms either by
  moving up or down the social scale. The first
  group aims at EE in order to sound more 'posh',
  the second to sound less 'posh', both avoiding
  the elitist character of RP. This social
  compromise is also reflected in the linguistic
  makeup of EE. It comprises features of RP as well
  as non-standard London English thus borrowing the
  positive prestige from both accents without
  committing itself to either. This vagueness makes
  it extremely difficult to pin EE down
  linguistically.