Language and Region

*Howard Giles:* Matched-guise approach: personality and accent ranking

RP: seen as self confident, intelligent, ambitious, cold and ruthless Northern-accented speech: honest, reliable, generous, sincere, warm, humorous.

*Dennis Freeborn:* Attitudes to accent varieties: Impreciseness

Some accents are described as 'lazy' and 'sloppy' such as Estuary English, where sounds are omitted or changed e.g. the glottal stop.

*Dennis Freeborn:* Attitudes to accent varieties: Ugliness

Some accents don't sound nice, this seems to be linked to stereotypes and negative social connotations, especially as the least liked accents seem to be found in poorer, urban areas.

Prescriptivism

The attitude or belief that one variety of a language is superior to others and should be promoted as such. Correctness is absolute, and based on rules set in the past.

*Thomas Pear, 1931*: Perceptions of accents

Found people had different perceptions of a speaker according to the accent they heard them talk with.

*Howard Giles, 1973:* Accommodation Theory

- Suggests we adjust our speech to accommodate the person we are addressing - Convergence- when we use language to resemble that used by those around us -Upward = making your accent more refined -Downwards = making your accent more regional - Divergence ~ when we use language to distance ourselves from others

*Dennis Freeborn:* Attitudes to accent varieties: Incorrectness

-All accents are incorrect compared to Standard English and the RP accent. -Freeborn refutes this stating that an accent's popularity originates in fashion and convention. -RP became the standard because it had social prestige, rather than being more correct than any other variety.

*William Labov:* Martha's Vineyard

A small group of fishermen on a popular American holiday island seemingly subconsciously altered the pronunciation of several diphthongs in order to diverge from the visitors. They established themselves as a superior social group to the summer visitors. They did this to epitomize old values and maintain regional identity of the island. Example of covert prestige.

*Peter Trudgill:* Norwich Study

A study of the '-ing' at the end of words such as 'swimming'. The higher the class, the stronger the 'g' at the end of the word. This was also similar for the 's' sound.

*Dixon, Mahoney and Cocks, 2002*: Accent perceptions and guilt

Also used matched-guise approach. Wanted to see if there was a correlation between how we perceive guilt and accent. Used Birmingham accent. Suspect was perceived to be more guilty in the results when using non-standard Birmingham accent.

Descriptivism

Belief that the acceptability of language is dependent on context; descriptivists take their norms from observing what the majority of people do, and not just one authority

*Seligman, Tucker and Lambert, 1972:* Perception of students

Found that teachers' perceptions of students were heavily influenced by their speech.

*Howard Giles:* Matched-guise approach

Conducted research into accent in the 1970s. He wanted to know how far responses to speakers were down to to the individual's accent, or to his/her character. He created an experiment called the matched guise technique to rule out the effects of different character traits. He asked the same speaker to perform a speech to a series of audiences, using a different accent for each delivery.

*Dennis Freeborn:* Attitudes to accent varieties

Dennis Freeborn in 'Varieties of English' summarises them as the following: -the incorrectness view -the ugliness view -the impreciseness view

*Peter Trudgill:* Overt Prestige

Generally socially acknowledged as 'correct' and therefore valued highly among all speakers of the language. It is the prestige that comes with using the type of language that is nationally recognised and is used in official and educational contexts. Speakers who use standard English are therefore considered well educated, intelligent because they are using the "correct" and "best" version of English. (e.g. RP)

*Howard Giles:* Matched-guise approach method

He tested responses using three parameters: -Status: how powerful/important was the speaker? -Personality: how traits of character came across -Persuasiveness: how believable a person seemed

*Jenny Cheshire:*

Identified 11 non-standard features and measured their frequency of use in boys and girls in a Reading playground, differentiating between those who approved or disapproved of minor criminal activities "They calls me names." "I come down here yesterday." "You ain't no boss." Children, in particular boys who approve of crimes, were more likely to use non-standard grammar and vice versa (in particular girls) Perhaps variation in dialect is a conscious choice, influenced by social attitude Males are more susceptible to covert prestige, but social attitude is more of a determining factor than gender

*William Labov:* The Social Stratification in New York Study

Labov carried out research in a department store in New York City. He created an environment where staff needed to say "fourth floor". This was a study of the post-vocalic 'r' sound in words like 'force'. The results showed that the higher the class of the person, the stronger the 'r' sound.

*Peter Trudgill:* Covert Prestige

Prestige that comes from not identifying with the standard language; comes with group loyalty and solidarity, e.g. in minority groups. Working-class speakers show solidarity with class/region by sticking to non-standard forms. Gives the appearance of being "macho" and tough.

*Howard Giles:* Matched-guise approach: status and accent ranking

RP National accents (Welsh, Irish, Scottish) Regional rural Regional urban

*Peter Trudgill:* Prestige theory

Traditional and modern dialect are equally correct; they only differ because of their social significance. Accents can be closely associated with levels of prestige; value and respect.

*Howard Giles:* Matched-guise approach: persuasion and accent ranking

Yielded more complicated results. Someone can seem persuasive because of social status or friendliness. It was found that in one of his experiments, when the speech was concerned with capital punishment, only those who had heard the regional speakers appeared to have been persuaded by the views proposed.

*Choy and Dodd, 1976*: Perceptions of students

found teachers make judgements on students' ability and personality based on the way they speak.