Bristol Speech Linguistic and Folk Views on a Socio-dialectal Phenomenon

Diplomarbeit zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades einer Magistra der Philosophie an der Geisteswissenschaftlichen Fakultät der Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz

vorgelegt von Katharina Oberhofer

am Institut für Anglistik Begutachter: Univ.-Prof. Mag. Dr. Bernhard Kettemann Graz, im März 2011

Acknowledgments

First of all, I want to thank Univ.-Prof. Mag. Dr. Bernhard Kettemann for always having an open ear and his continuous academic guidance throughout the writing of this thesis. Thanks also to Dr. Nils Langer, who provided me with the spark and fundamental idea for my thesis and a lot of inspirational thoughts and support on the way. Thanks also to Tim Shortis and Julie Blake for being extremely generous with their expertise. Not only did they open their door for me but also supported me on my exciting trip through Bristolian. Further thanks also go to all the experts on Bristolian who were willing to share their knowledge and experiences and to all people offering their opinions, thoughts and views in my online questionnaire. Thanks to my parents for everything else. TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. INTRODUCTION...... 1

2. GENERAL CONCEPTS AND FORMER RESEARCH IN DIALECTOLOGY ...... 3

2.1 IMPORTANT TERMS AND NOTIONS IN DIALECT RESEARCH...... 3 2.1.1 Dialectology, dialect and accent...... 3 2.1.2 Standard English and Received Pronunciation ...... 7 2.1.3 Prestige of varieties...... 9

2.2 INTRODUCTION TO DIALECT RESEARCH IN THE BRITISH ISLES...... 12 2.2.1 The beginnings of dialect research in the UK...... 12 2.2.2 The sociological direction of dialect research...... 14 2.2.3 Urban dialect studies in the UK...... 15

3. IMPORTANT CONCEPTS AND APPROACHES WHEN RESEARCHING FOLK ATTITUDES...... 17

3.1 INTRODUCTION TO SOME APPROACHES AND TERMINOLOGIES IN THE FIELD...... 17 3.1.1 Language attitude research...... 17 3.1.2 Folk Linguistics...... 20

3.2 THE IMPORTANCE OF AN ATTITUDE STUDY FROM A FOLK LINGUISTIC VIEWPOINT IN

DIALECT RESEARCH ...... 23

4. THE BRISTOL STUDY ...... 27

4.1 PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS...... 27

4.2 BRISTOLIAN DIALECT AND IDENTITY ...... 29 4.2.1 General introduction to dialect and identity...... 29 4.2.2 About Bristol ...... 32

4.3 BRISTOLIAN FROM A LINGUISTIC POINT OF VIEW ...... 33 4.3.1 Which linguistic features are described as typically Bristolian in research...... 35 4.3.1.1 Bristolian at the level of pronunciation...... 36 4.3.1.2 Bristolian at the level of lexis...... 38 4.3.1.3 Bristolian at the level of grammar...... 39 4.3.2 Is Bristolian a regional and/or social variety? ...... 40 4.3.3 Conclusion regarding the linguistic view of Bristolian ...... 42

4.4 HYPOTHESES ON BRISTOLIAN FOLK LANGUAGE IDENTITY...... 43

4.5 THE FIELDWORK ON BRISTOLIAN ...... 45 4.5.1 Method and data...... 45 4.5.1.1 The pilot run...... 46 4.5.1.2 The online questionnaire...... 47 4.5.1.3 The expert interviews...... 48 4.5.2 Outcomes of the fieldwork on Bristol speech...... 50 4.5.2.1 Bristolian speech – what it is, how it sounds and how it is liked...... 51 4.5.2.2 The self and the other – the “outsider’s” and “insider’s” perspective...... 57 4.5.2.3 The working urban class vs. the farming people...... 65 4.5.2.4 The typical Bristolian speaker and Bristol identity...... 69

4.6 CONCLUSION REGARDING THE FIELDWORK ...... 77

5. CONCLUSION...... 78

6. DEUTSCHE ZUSAMMENFASSUNG ...... 80

BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 84

LIST OF TABLE AND FIGURES ...... 92

APPENDIX ...... 93

ONLINE QUESTIONNAIRE...... 93

EXPERT INTERVIEWS ...... 100 1. Introduction

Language varieties are as old as language itself and so are prejudices against many of them. Although well researched by language professionals and detected to be of social inheritance without any factual linguistic reason these – often negative – attitudes still, in this day and age, remain in society. Being therefore of major interest for the holistic study of language diversity and its status within the general population, the main focus of the present thesis is put not only on a linguistic perspective but also on a lay linguistic one when investigating the British urban variety Bristolian. The focus on this specific dialect within this research paper seems of great interest since little attention has been paid to the English spoken in Bristol for many years. Nevertheless, evidence of Bristol speech (i.e. Bristolian) and increasing interest in this dialectal variety can be observed in current lay discussions as well as in the media (as for example in newspaper articles, characters in TV-series, popular T-shirt designs, publications etc.), which definitely draws at least some attention to this “neglected” British linguistic variety. In contrast, there are, to this day, surprisingly few academic studies devoted to Bristolian although dialect research as such has quite a long standing tradition in the British Isles. In order to provide a basis for a study from a linguistic and folk (i.e. lay linguistic) point of view on Bristol speech it is first of all necessary to have a look at the background of this research context. This will be done by discussing the major concepts and notions standing behind research in the three major sociolinguistic disciplines in this context within chapters two and three. Thus, next to the discussion of dialectology and language attitude research a short summary of folk linguistic theories will be given, highlighting the importance of folk linguistic investigation methods as well as attitude research. Additionally, when it comes to the collection of folk linguistic views, the socio-cultural aspect has to be taken into account as attitudes towards language are always connected to strong emotions, which can be regarded as highly interesting and significant. Subsequently, a brief introduction to dialect and identity is provided. As the focus of interest is a British variety, and the dimensions of these fields of academic research all over the world are enormous, this theoretical part primarily aims at the English speaking world and focuses, in many cases, on the UK. The theoretical basis is being followed by a mainly empirical part in chapter four in which these underlying concepts discussed will be applied to the concrete example of Bristol

1 speech. This practical research consists on the one hand of a literature analysis regarding linguistic descriptions and definitions of Bristolian and a folk linguistic approach in terms of a field study in Bristol on the other. It is trying to answer the research questions related to the basic hypotheses from these two quite different research angles. The field study itself consists of two phases: a pilot run in Bristol in February 2010 to test the methodology, as well as the methodologically revised data collection phase in May and June 2010, also done within the city of Bristol. The main research questions of this thesis are the following: A. Does a regional linguistic variety that is salient and, perhaps, geographically restricted to the urban area of Bristol actually exist? A1. To what extent is this confirmed by linguists and do they regard it as dialect or accent at all? A2. In which way is it distinguished from Standard English and other English varieties? A3. Which linguistic properties are assigned specifically to this language variety in terms of various linguistic features such as grammar, lexis and pronunciation by language professionals? A4. Do lay persons agree that there is something such as Bristolian? B. Is this specific British variety of high or low prestige and if so, why? B1. What does linguistic research suggest the situation to be like? B2. How do the folk linguists evaluate the prestige of Bristolian? My hypotheses based on the research questions rest on two assumptions: Firstly, Bristolian can be regarded as a regional British dialect and secondly, Bristol speech, being an urban variety and thus associated with the working class population is perceived as being of low prestige. It is the overall goal of my master’s thesis to be a concrete modern dialectal study which comes up with a significant and meaningful overview to approve the initially formulated hypotheses that Bristolian is a dialect with a rather low level of prestige among the people. Additionally, I primarily aim to answer the underlying research questions from a holistic point of view, taking two quite different angles: not only from the linguistic perspective but also, with a major focus, in terms of folk linguistic opinions. Coming back to the beginning of this introduction, I wish to conclude it with the wise words of a famous winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, who brings the discussion of language variety to a point worth thinking and reflecting about.

There is no such thing as an ugly language. Today I hear every language as if it were the only one, and when I hear of one that is dying, it overwhelms me as though it were the death of the Earth. - Elias Canetti (1905 – 1994) 2 2. General concepts and former research in dialectology

2.1 Important terms and notions in dialect research

When doing research in the field of dialectology it is, within a first step, necessary to clarify some major linguistic concepts in this field. Especially in folk linguistics it seems crucial to bear these linguistically defined notions in mind as one is bound to recognise that many terms used by participants in meta-linguistic discussion do not, in their meaning, always resemble their linguistic definitions. Terms such as dialect, accent, variety etc. are readily used by non- linguists when talking about or describing their personal attitudes of a language issue. These words are generally used in a non-professional context in everyday discourse and the folk notions of these concepts lead to ambiguity in use and imprecision in meaning (cf. Bähr 1974: 28). As these rarely coincide with their linguistically defined equivalents one must not only be careful with an interpretation but also a precise linguistic definition needs to be established first. It is highlighted though that people possess (more often than suspected) knowledge and awareness of linguistic concepts, even though their way of expression might differ from the professional linguistic definition (cf. Niedzielski & Preston 2003: 24).

2.1.1 Dialectology, dialect and accent

To begin with, “dialectology, obviously, is the study of dialect and dialects” (Chambers and Trudgill 1980: 3). The general major aim of this linguistic field, according to Lesley Milroy, is to research linguistic differences and their geographical occurrences in order to produce maps which broadly show the boundaries of dialect phenomena (cf. 1990: 8). This definition clearly refers to a very traditional approach to dialectology, excluding many other more initiative viewpoints towards this linguistic discipline. Apparently the definition of dialectology previously requires a definition of the term dialect. The probably most frequent and also very comprehensible definition is amongst others given by Hughes, Trudgill and Watt who refer to dialects as “varieties distinguished from each other by differences of grammar and vocabulary” (2005: 2). A dialect also includes the patterns of sounds (phonology) as specified by Wakelin (cf. 1972b: 2), although a variation in only pronunciation is the common linguistic definition of an accent. This distinction is also supported by Meyerhoff who observes that accents only refer to how words are pronounced by speakers, whereas dialect is used by language professionals “to refer to distinctive features at the level of pronunciation and vocabulary and sentence structure” (2006: 27). The

3 distinction between dialect and accent, although they usually go together (cf. Trudgill 1990: 2) is shortly summarised by Trudgill in one of his earlier works:

The term dialect refers, strictly speaking, to differences between kinds of language which are differences of vocabulary and grammar as well as pronunciation. The term accent, on the other hand, refers solely to differences of pronunciation, and it is often important to distinguish clearly between the two. (1974a: 17)

As pointed out by Trudgill above, the drawing of boundaries between these two concepts of accent and dialect are of major importance, although these are not always easily established (cf. Trudgill 1975: 22). Especially within expressed attitudes towards language these two concepts can be assumed to be used by linguists as well as lay linguists quite frequently and therefore call for further discussion. Moreover, Hughes, Trudgill and Watt highlight that a distinction between these two notions is not only possible on a logical level but also highly necessary for linguistic research in this field (cf. 2005: 11f.). Although Kortmann and Upton claim that there is a subtle blending of accents and dialects into one another (cf. 2006: 26) and O’Donnell and Todd argue that “unfortunately, both these terms tend to be somewhat misleading, in that both are popularly used with reference to sound quality” (1993: 17), one can find quite a range of linguists who do distinguish these two concepts quite clearly and who even highlight that in many contexts it is important to not confuse these two terms on a linguistic level (cf. Wardhaugh 1992:42f.).

‘Accent’ refers to the way in which a speaker pronounces, and therefore refers to a variety which is phonetically and/or phonologically different from other varieties. ‘Dialect’, on the other hand, refers to varieties which are grammatically (and perhaps lexically) as well as phonologically different from other varieties. (Chambers & Trudgill 1980: 5)

This distinction is also pointed out by a number of other linguists (cf. e.g. Wakelin 1972b: 1; Hughes, Trudgill & Watt: 2005: 11f.; Beal 2006: 22) and leads to the theoretical possibility that any dialect could be spoken with any accent (Trudgill 1975: 20), although this does not seem very likely in praxis. In a more practical way, Glanville Price presents an example for the distinction between accent and dialect when he argues that nowadays only about 3 percent of English people do not speak with a regional accent (and everyone does have an accent (cf. Trudgill 1992: 7) whereas only very few speakers of English can be defined as dialect speakers (cf.

4 2000: 154). Furthermore, Hughes, Trudgill and Watt outline another practical example of a better understanding of this distinction: “Unlike RP, Standard English is not restricted to the speech of a particular social group. […] most users of Standard English have regional accents” (2005:12). Although these arguments highlight the importance of differentiating between the concept of dialect and accent, as stated above, the argument in itself seems to be quite rustic as Price obviously bases his assumption on the quite obsolete definition of dialect as a merely geographical phenomenon without taking the social structures of urban centres into account and seeing dialect also as a social phenomenon. This is a more modern approach already prevailing in the mid 1990s which does not only include “Traditional Dialects, which are most often spoken by older people in geographically peripheral, more rural parts of the country [but also] Mainstream Dialects, which are more like Standard English, and are more associated with younger, urban speakers” (Trudgill 1994: 17). All this shows that, although linguists emphasise the importance of a distinction between the terms accent and dialect, this differentiation is not often easily made in real life. Wright argues that “the question of where accent ends and dialect begins may be answered differently depending on the situation and region being examined” (1996: 270). To distinguish dialects from accents and to define these two concepts in terms of their differences are only the most basic necessary definitions in dialectology. For further understanding of the research area dialectology, some other characteristics and facts about dialects have to be taken into account.

Dialects are both regional and social. The dialect with the greatest prestige is Standard English, which has slightly different forms in different parts of the English speaking world. […]”. The relationship between regional and social dialects is rather complicated in Britain. (Trudgill 1986: 5)

The situation regarding Standard English in the United Kingdom and its prestige will be turned upon again in the next chapter in more detail. For a definition of the term dialect Trudgill’s statement about the complexity of the social and regional dialect situation in Britain is nevertheless of extreme importance. In short, the major difference is that social dialects are based among social groups; regional dialects are related to geographical factors (cf. Wardhaugh, 46). A more detailed distinction is that regional dialectology is based on “the identification and mapping of boundaries between different varieties on the basis of clusters of similar and different features in particular regions, towns or villages” (Meyerhoff 2006: 11), whereas “social dialectology in its most basic sense is the study of the relationship 5 between language, variety, or dialect and social class” (Davis 1983: 84 cited in Mihalevejec 2002: 45). But later Trudgill also highlights that English dialects, just as dialects in other nations, are in general neither only social nor only regional – they are both at the same time (cf. 2000: 123). This of course makes sense as usually speakers do not only obligatorily have a regional background from which they come from or where they live, each speaker is also subject to a variety of social factors such as age, sex, social class, ethnic background etc. These definitions move dialectology away from being merely research in the field of dialect or accent boundaries and localities in a more sociolinguistic direction of dialect research as factors such as age, gender and peer groups generally are the target of interest in social dialect studies. This leads to the next question of who can be regarded as a dialect speaker. Coupland claims already in the late 1980s that “dialect is communal property, since every speaker – urban or rural, young or old, at any point in history – is a dialect speaker. Modern approaches to dialect-study are based on this assumption” (1988: 8). Trudgill too argues that “it is important to emphasise that everybody speaks a dialect. Dialects are not peculiar or old- fashioned or rustic ways of speaking” (1994: 2). Here again, in Coupland as in Trudgill, the concept of accent is more or less included in the term dialect as the sound system also being one property of dialects, which does not indicate that the distinction earlier made is of no importance, it only highlights that it is not easily made. Trudgill summarises these assumptions and refers to the concept of idiolect in the following way:

Your dialect is the particular combination of English words, pronunciations and grammatical forms that you share with other people from your area and your social background, and that differs in certain ways from the combination used by people from other areas and backgrounds. (1994: 2)

We have now reached a definition of dialect which makes it difficult to actually define a dialect area or a community of dialect speakers. As each individual speaker has his or her own idiolect, differing from every other speaker’s personal variation it is not easy to claim that dialect communities exist, let alone such a thing as a ‘pure’ dialect which is spoken by all inhabitants of a town or city (cf. Chambers & Trudgill 1980: 56). Due to this utopian character of an areal limitation of a certain dialect in neat borders, many linguists speak of isoglosses (i.e. borders in which individual dialect phenomena occur) (cf. Bähr 1974: 31ff.). But these artificial dialect boundaries are not at all indisputable. In general, no person or community is limited to only one single way of speaking (cf. Hymes 1972 cited in: Giles & 6 Powesland 1975: 113). Additionally, not all speakers of one variety use the same set of dialect features in all situations in the same intensity but change between their personal repertoire of varieties. The definition of a fixed, tidy dialect area is therefore difficult to accomplish or even mythical (cf. Kortmann & Upton 2004: 26f). This again points to the fact that it is often very difficult to define a dialect area in which only one specific variety with a number of homogenous dialectal features is used. As pointed out by others it is specifically difficult to investigate urban dialects as the language diversity and multi-lingualism seems to be present to a higher extent in larger cities. Additionally, the intensity of dialectal use depends on each individual speaker with his/her individual social, geographical and personal background. To summarise this issue, it can be hypothesised that describing a dialect and restricting it to certain criteria such as a geographical area in which all speakers use the same typical dialectal features in the same intensity is impossible. Whether it is possible or not to come up with certain characteristics typical for a specific regional or social dialect will be looked at closer in the practical section of this work when talking about the specific dialect of the urban area of Bristol and its linguistic features. To conclude, it was shown that dialectology as a linguistic research area is highly complex, as are the terms dialect and accent themselves. Dialect research in the British Isles will be focused on after having clarified some other major relevant concepts. Regarding Bristolian it seems necessary to highlight that it is not clarified yet which kind of dialectal phenomenon it is. Furthermore, many negative and often also complicated associations of the terms dialect and accent in our everyday speech determine linguists to avoid these and use the more neutral form “variety” instead (cf. Meyerhoff 2006:28). As long as it is not clarified whether Bristolian can be definitely regarded as an accent or a dialect (i.e. according to the above definitions) it will be further on referred to as variety or speech. This seems to be a far more neutral technical term than accent or dialect.

2.1.2 Standard English and Received Pronunciation

The definition of local varieties in the UK is often done by comparing them to “the Standard dialect” (i.e. Standard English) or the most prestigious accent in the British Isles, Received Pronunciation (RP). Moreover, many of the underlying language identities are based on the assumption that there is such a superior standard English norm. Furthermore, many people hardly accept that all dialects of a language are equally ‘good’ (cf. Trudgill 1975:27f.) – although on a linguistic level all dialects are equally valid linguistic systems (cf. ibid. 26). It

7 therefore seems necessary to preliminary clarify the notions Standard English and RP before dealing with British dialect research and perceptional approaches. St. Clair describes “language” as the dialect of the dictionary, the public media, the school system, literature and government, being an idealized form of speech, legitimated by the government (cf. 1982: 164f.). Other linguists use the term Standard English to refer to the same notion but make it more explicit than St. Clair that the standard form of speech is not the language itself but merely one of many dialects (cf. Wardhaugh 1992: 36; Trudgill 2000: 123). The notion of what exactly defines the Standard English language has changed ever since and will, of course, continue to change due to the dynamic and fluid character of all language varieties (cf. Trudgill: 1984: 43)1. Initially influenced by written language (cf. Cheshire 2000: 130) the high social status of Standard English has become especially evident since mediaeval times (cf. Giles & Powesland 1975: 25). Usually used in written English, the majority of native English speakers seems to have internalised the view that this variety is superior to all others (cf. Cheshire & Milroy 1993: 14f.). Standard English is the most prestigious English variety, which is little surprising, as it is the variety spoken by people with money, influence and education, in short, by the elite of society (cf. Trudgill 1994: 6f.). Nevertheless, it is claimed that Standard English puts all local varieties under an enormous pressure. The “dialect of BBC newsreaders is not linguistically superior to the dialect of Bristol dockers or Suffolk farmworkers” (Trudgill 1994: 2). The concept of a superior standard dialect or standard way of pronunciation, nonetheless exist in the heads of many people. So, many traditional English dialects have forfeited some of their vigour and become closer to the standard form (cf. Wardhaugh 1992:32), as it is the underlying ideology of such a belief in a standard that there is solemnly one correct form of language (cf. Milory L. 2000: 174). Furthermore, the prestige of the standard variety of English brings with it certain educational or social disadvantage. “Language can certainly act as a barrier to upward social mobility, although we cannot be sure to what extent” (Trudgill 1975: 77). The assumption that dialects are inferior to the standard variety leads to a curious paradox: on the one hand, people who want to climb up the social ladder assimilate their language more to standard forms, whereas on the other hand, there is a high stability in the use of non-standard, often socially disfavoured varieties as they are an important status symbol regarding group cohesion and identity (cf. Milroy & Milroy 1995: 109f.).

1 For further information about the historical development of Standard English see also (Banickel 1982a: 30ff.). and for more information regarding the process of standardisation see (Davis & Langer 2006: 23ff.). 8 The same applies for the RP accent, which originated in London, where the aristocracy and public authorities were located since the 11th century (cf. Bähr 1974: 52). Thus, it has traditionally been the accent with the highest prestige in Great Britain being associated with aristocracy and upper class (cf. Wakelin 1975: 154; Barnickel 1982a: 42). Viereck describes the upper class and those in power responsible for the prestige of this specific variety of English. In 1975 he foresaw that this prestige – as the variety was spoken by only a small minority of the population – would further decrease as in his days, he argues, this accent does not anymore refer to the degree of received education (cf. 1975: 49). Remarkably, Viereck’s optimistic foresight does seem to have turned out to be right in some ways. At first, it does not seem that these underlying associations with non-standard varieties have changed so much ever since. At the end of the last century, RP was still generally accepted as a teaching norm (cf. Gimson 1984: 53), although, according to Trudgill few children outside of public schools indeed spoke RP (cf. 1975: 46). That said, there nevertheless seems to be a slight tendency towards more acceptance of other regional accents from the 1980s onwards, when those could even be heard e.g. on the BBC (cf. Cheshire 1984: 546). 30 years later, Hughes, Trugill and Watt describe that the RP accent has remained the number one accent of the upper classes even if on estimate only about 3 per cent of the population are speakers of RP in England2. Despite this still existing prestige they nonetheless highlight that the “long- standing association of RP with affectation, social snobbery, aloofness, and so on, is increasingly out of keeping with the kind of image many of the accent’s younger speakers would wish to project of themselves” (2005: 3f.). A study by Sarah Wood in 2002 brought similar results: west London and Norwich accents were judged as being as high in social status as an RP accent. Furthermore, RP was also assessed as ‘less pleasing’ than these accents. This implicates that “despite its continuing association with intelligence (and competence), an RP accent no longer has the ‘statusfulness’ or ‘attractiveness’ that it did a generation ago” (ibid. 11), as Viereck anticipated. As one can see, the status of RP and Standard English is a quite complex issue which makes it necessary to have a closer look at the roots for this prestige and prestige of dialects in the UK in general.

2.1.3 Prestige of varieties

Different nations have different language politics and therefore also different language situations. Language politics is part of the overall politics of a nation, although it is not only

2 “The vast majority of English speakers in the British Isles speak with the nonstandard [!] regional accent typical of the area in which they grew up” (Cheshire 1984: 546). 9 practiced by the government but also by certain non-governmental organisations. These language policy makers have a considerable influence on the use of language (i.e. to constitute a standard that is taught in schools etc.) and therefore also trigger language attitudes of the people which, of course, has a considerable influence on language attitudes of lay linguists (cf. Hansen, Carls & Lucko 1996: 21ff.) as well as on the prestige of specific dialects or accents. An essential part of our personality is built on our heritage. Language is an immediate indicator for this part of our personality as it generally reveals which area we are from (cf. Trudgill 1990: 1). And although there is no objective or linguistic reason for the preference of one variety over the other (cf. O’Donnel & Todd 1993: 23) social prejudices are important factors in the context of dialect research, as they have a longstanding tradition and are not highly likely to disappear soon (cf. Edwards 1979: 79). Generally, sociolinguists distinguish between two types of prestige in dialect research: overt and covert. Overt prestige refers to variants which have a fixed position in the speaker’s awareness and can be talked about, whereas covert prestige means a target a speaker orients to subconsciously (cf. Meyerhoff 2006: 37). We therefore see that this notion is quite a complex value which speakers are not always consciously aware of. Labov termed this notion covert prestige referring to attitudes which differ significantly from known mainstream social values and are usually not overtly expressed (cf. Trudgill 1974a: 89). Covert prestige can therefore be observed when the performance of speakers differs from their self-assessment about their own language. As the performance of speakers is not the focus of interest within this thesis it will therefore be focused on overt prestige of dialects and accents in the British Isles. When talking about overt prestige it is of interest to look at the etymology of the word dialect itself to understand how current definitions and associations with this notion were established. Being from Greek origin, the first record of the word dialect in the English language can be traced back to the sixteenth century, when it was borrowed into English through Latin and French. The Greek word from which the word dialect is derived originally simply referred to ‘discourse, way of speaking’ (cf. Brook 1963: 17f.). Interestingly, this primary definition of dialect did not include any references concerning inferiority of dialects and consequently superiority of languages over dialects. In ancient Greek five dialects dominated. None of these dialects were seen as being superior to the others, but as alternatives to each other. The opposition between “language” as a superior standard and “dialects” as later developments or even as subordinate to the more prestigious concept of

10 language was introduced later in Italian Renaissance writing. It can therefore be summed up that the conceptualisation of “dialect” as developed from Greek and Latin has undergone several structural changes. During these times the term dialect received a social mark that was initially not intended (cf. Alinei 1980: 19ff.). With the beginnings of the influence and importance of Standard English in Great Britain in the first six decades of the 18th century, the need to create the notion of a standard language for the nation arose (cf. Watt 2000: 40) and this described social mark regarding dialects increased. This development leads to some interesting common ideas about the term dialect as used in everyday language:

In common usage, of course, a dialect is a substandard, low status, often rustic form of language, generally associated with the peasantry, the working class, or other groups lacking in prestige. […] And dialects are also often regarded as some kind of (often erroneous) deviation from a norm – as aberrations a correct or standard form of language. (Chambers & Trudgill 1980: 3)

Most experts would readily agree that biased attributions are commonly made regarding the concept of dialect and accent. It is nevertheless important to highlight that it is not a definition a lot of linguists would be ready to support on a linguistic level nowadays (although this might of course not always have been the case). This is a very crucial point when investigating language not only from a linguistic but also from a folk linguistic perspective in terms of its prestige: this superiority of standard language over all other national varieties in the United Kingdom is often analysed in linguistic works and debunked as a wrong stereotypical not linguistically acceptable opinion (cf. Alinei 1980; Cheshire 1984; Trudgill 1975 etc.). Nonetheless, this does not necessarily imply that this has changed the folk attitude about this issue a lot since. Dialects are still often equated with nonstandard or even substandard forms and these (although from a linguistic point of view maybe not accepted) connotations are often carried over to dialect speakers themselves (cf. Wardhaugh 1992: 25). Although RP is not necessarily a prerequisite for rising in the social scale anymore and modified regional accents have been rising in their prestige over the last decades (cf. Barnikel 1982: 221) there still seems to be a tendency to dismiss regional and social dialects. This addresses “a key issue in the language-dialect distinction, since speakers usually feel that languages are generally ‘better’ than dialects in some sense” (Wardhaugh 1992: 30). It can therefore be hypothesised that although the general linguistic opinion these days has accepted the fact that all dialects of a language are equally correct and that standard forms are in no way superior over non-standard varieties, the folk, being influenced by politics and the

11 media which are often still proclaiming these assumptions, might provide different views on this question. People generally have the wish to identify with the power elite often done via the accepted form of speech (cf. St. Clair 1982: 173). However, it is important to bear in mind: “It is the speakers of languages, and not the languages themselves, who live in a moral universe” (Milroy J. 2000: 16), which implies that the matter of prestige of language varieties is socially determined rather than from the nature of language itself (cf. http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/sounds/regional-voices/). The example of the ambivalent prestige of postvocalic /r/ (i.e. in the USA it is of high prestige to use rhotacism whereas in the UK this is associated with low prestige) depicts that the matter of prestige of linguistic phenomena is an arbitrary one (cf. Trudgill 1974a: 21; Milroy & Milroy 1995: 20f.; de Leeuw 2010)). Furthermore in England, there is no sense-changing contrast between words with initial /h/ and words with initial vowels (e.g. [hotel] vs. [otel]), nevertheless the latter of the two is seen as low status form, whereas, on the other hand, varieties that lack a contrast between words with and without rhotacims (e.g. court vs. caught) have high status (cf. Milroy & Milroy 1995: 20f.).

2.2 Introduction to dialect research in the British Isles

2.2.1 The beginnings of dialect research in the UK

In Britain, dialectology has quite a long and multifaceted tradition. Within the scope of this paper it will not be possible to include all areas of dialect research and scientific findings in this area in Great Britain. It still seems of relevance to look at least at some major former dialect studies done in Great Britain which are significant for the present research. This step can be regarded as a significant basic background for the topic of this thesis as it does not only provide former findings of other scientific research in this area (including possible differentiated methods) but also assists in better understanding why the specific area of Bristol has been chosen for this research - not only by what has been found and described but also often by what has been left out and why this is the case. Such an analysis of some relevant sociolinguistic research also helps to reveal certain presuppositions and assumptions about attitudes, opinions and stereotypes that might occur within an analysis partly based on the voice of the folk. As to the beginnings of dialect studies in the UK there does not seem to exist complete consensus among experts as their assessments regarding the validity and range of dialect studies in the British Isles vary. The interest in dialects can be dated back to the first

12 written remarks on dialects, starting in the 14th century, although this does not necessarily mean that there was no interest in dialect before then (cf. Barnickel 1982a: 143). The author of the Vocabularicum Saxonicum, Dean Lawrence Nowell, (circa 1565) was convinced that the etymology of certain dialect items dated back to Old English (cf. Mihaljević 2002). This shows that dialect tradition is actually much older than often suspected and that its beginnings are not easily traceable. Price, for example, dates the beginning of dialect studies in Britain back to 1674 when John Ray published his Collection of Words not Generally Used. (cf. Price 2000: 155). Other milestones in dialect research in the UK were Alexander Ellis’ The Existing Phonology of English Dialects 1889. This was a prototype for many later descriptions of the pronunciation of English dialects. Furthermore, Joseph Wright’s Dialect Dictionary, including an enormous amount of different dialects and their lexical peculiarities (cf. Bähr 1974: 101ff.; Barnickel 1982a: 145ff.; Beal 2010: 220). th New movements in philology, starting from the beginning of the 19P P century, brought a new approach to dialect research “culminating in the systematic and scientific description of dialects as viewed historically, and the abandonment of the old prescriptive attitude” (Wakelin 1972b: 42). The Survey of English Dialects (SED) by Harold Orton et al. 1962 - 71 is often viewed as the beginning of the modern tradition of dialect enquiries (cf. e.g. Barnickel 1982a: 148; Upton & Widdowson 2006: 2). The SED was the first research which focused on the collection of recordings of dialects nation-wide and has been used as scientific basis for many dialectal studies in Great Britain ever since (cf. e.g. Francis 1983: 22ff). The recordings were taken in rural areas by what Orton called ‘traditional vernacular, genuine and old’, and to that end SED took special pains over the selection of elderly, native informants who would represent this type of speech” (Wakelin 1972a: 1f.). This focus on rural areas of the country is seen as one major weakness of SED by other linguists but can be explained by the major complexity of dialect research in urban centres in which social dialects might be relevant as well as local ones, where the methods used in rural settings might not have been sufficient (cf. Wakelin 1986: 19). Despite this criticism the SED was undoubtedly the first major British dialect study aiming at a description of a large variety of dialects and accents in the country. Many dialectologists before, and surely also after, have focused on the so called ‘North-South divide’ as a single isogloss in Britain and no further distinction was often made (cf. Gramley & Pätzold 1992: 308). A more recent attempt to describe dialects across the British Isles in a more detailed way was made by Hughes, Trudgill and Watt who describe various rural and urban accents in terms of their dialectal features with a focus on pronunciation. Furthermore,

13 within their book they also include an audio CD which offers the opportunity to listen to the theoretically described dialects (cf. 2005).

2.2.2 The sociological direction of dialect research

According to Meyerhoff the pioneer regarding this direction towards a more social approach within dialectology was the American linguist William Labov. In his study on the island off the east coast of the US, Martha’s Vineyard, in 1961 he investigated the existing forms of pronunciation. A milestone in dialectology was that he also included the question of more and less prestigious forms of pronunciation (cf. 2006: 16ff). In the 1970s Wakelin claimed that in the British Isles the majority of dialect research had focused on the speech of older inhabitants. Nevertheless, he also acknowledged that the intention and methods had developed into the direction of recoding what was heard instead of hunting after ‘pure’ forms of dialects (cf. Wakelin 1972b: 48). Also Chambers & Trudgill th state that the methods of 19P P century dialectology, which focused on the countryside rather on cities and towns have changed little since their beginnings (cf. 1980: 18ff.). However, the direction of dialectology has made a change regarding the issue of its field of investigation. Already Wakelin anticipated an upcoming change in dialect research. “Since the investigation of older regional and occupational dialects has already made headway, however, it looks as if future research in dialect studies will almost certainly take an urban and sociological direction, the former inevitably entailing the latter” (1972b: 62). This basic change within the field of dialect studies is described by Mihaljević as a sociolinguistic turn in dialectology, which she dates back to the socio-political developments of the 1960s and 1970s, as the result of “dissatisfaction with merely data orientated traditional approaches” and leading to three different research areas: bilingualism research, urban language research and ethnographic research. Furthermore she emphasises that the changes brought about by the sociolinguistic turn were the greatest in the field of urban dialectology (2002: 41ff.). As discussed above, dialects can be differentiated into regional and social dialects and sociolinguistic dialect research uses “categories (or social variables) like class, age, sex and ethnicity to describe what defines a collection of speakers as a speech community” (cf. Wright 1996: 276). This means that because of the sociolinguistic turn dialectology moves away from traditional approaches (i.e. structural and generative) that focus mainly on the underlying surface of dialects, the structures and basic systems (cf. Mihaljević 2002: 40f.) and turns towards an approach more influenced by social sciences such as social psychology, anthropology, human geography and sociology (cf. Trudgill 1974a: 32). 14 2.2.3 Urban dialect studies in the UK

The social aspect of dialect research is often associated with research in urban areas as one can find a broader social spectrum among the population in the “context of complex, heterogeneous cities” (Coupland 1988: 8). It is a remarkable fact that “in England, as elsewhere, linguistic geography has usually concentrated upon the speech of the older inhabitants of rural villages” (Wakelin 1972b: 3). In another work, Wakelin states three main reasons why the study of urban dialects has been neglected in the beginnings: Firstly, because of England’s imitation of European methods to “put sound-laws to a practical test in rural situations”. Secondly, because in Great Britain collecting dialect data in rural areas was seen as a mission to rescue possibly dying forms of speech. Thirdly, because of the assumption that town dialects were ‘impure’ mixtures of different forms of speech due to the heterogeneous structures of urban areas, which complicate research (cf. 1972b: 59f.). In addition, Chambers and Trudgill highlight that due to the size and complexity of social structures in towns and cities, it is “difficult for any individual to have a reliable idea of what speech forms are ‘typical’” (1980: 57). In general, urban dialects are not different from rural varieties, with the exception of their ‘structured heterogeneity’, meaning that the variation of phonological systems can be great within a single city and often correlates with the social characteristics of speakers (cf. Milory L. 1984: 214). Thus, due to their more complex social structure, migration and heterogeneity (cf. Wardhaugh 1992: 47) towns and cities have been neglected in linguistic dialect studies for quite a long time (cf. Brook 1963: 22; Wakelin 1972b: 59f.; Chambers & Trudgill 1980: 55). These common claims that dialect features of larger urban areas are harder to investigate, certainly do not eliminate the existing high demand to investigate urban dialects. The majority of the population is settled in towns and cities and urban dialects need to be captured just as rural dialects in our ever fast, ever changing communication society (cf. Coupland 1988: 8; Wardhaugh 1992: 136). Urban varieties and their tendency to be a mixture of various linguistic systems (cf. Milroy L. 1984: 213), as well as being relatively new and less conservative, especially from the 1930s onwards, triggered a trend for a more synchronic language research approach towards the study of social and urban dialects (cf. Chambers & Trudgill 1980: 55). Another, very current reason for the interest in urban dialectology is highlighted by Beal, who claims that “perceptual studies carried out in England indicate that the dialects that are perceived as distinctive today are not those identified with counties, but the urban dialects of the major cities and conurbations” (2010: 220).

15 Despite this ongoing discussion regarding the complexity of urban dialect research, quite a few studies in this linguistic field have been done in Great Britain in the meantime (cf. Wakelin 1986: 20), which have “looked more to the relationships that obtain between language and social features” (Chambers & Trudgill 1980: 67). Usually studies in this specific dialect research area are often focusing on the dialect of a specific urban area, e.g. on Bristol in Weissmann’s work (cf. 1970)3, Norwich in Trudgill’s study (cf. 1974b), Reading in Cheshire’s research (cf. Trudgill 1983: 188f), Leeds in Houck’s research, Cannock in Heath’s survey, London in Bowyer’s study, Dublin in Bertz’s work (cf. Milroy, 1984: 206f.). In Urban Voices even more accent studies in urban areas of Great Britain are described, e.g. Glasgow, Edinburgh, Cardiff, Newcastle upon Tyne, just to name a few. However, it is highlighted by the editors of this volume that there still is a lack of research and studies in some other British areas such as Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol and Leeds (cf. Foulkes & Docherty 1999: 6f.). According to Lesley Milroy urban dialectology can also be separated into earlier and more recent research, which can be differentiated in the way “that the latter examine alternative linguistic forms, seeing this alternation as a significant property of language rather than admitting the concept of the ‘pure’ or ‘genuine’ dialect” (1990: 14). Although Weissmann’s and Trudgill’s studies are not so far apart concerning their time of accomplishment, this difference as described by Lesley Milroy is quite obvious in these two studies. The new paradigms and methods of dialect research that focus more on the social structures of more populated areas – typically for urban dialectology – (cf. Foulkes & Docherty 1999: 2ff.) can be observed clearly in Trudgill’s work on the Norfolk dialect (cf. 1974b), whereas Weissmann’s research on Bristolian, although only done a few years earlier, draws back on traditional methods usual for research in rural areas (cf. 1970). As one can see, even if some linguists claim that “although English dialects are full of interest, England has lagged behind some continental countries in dialect research” (Brook 1963: 152), there has been quite some major research on dialects in the British Isles. And this not only regarding traditional rural areas with older inhabitants - especially since the 1970s one can observe more and more dialect research focusing on larger towns and cities. Nevertheless, approaches that focus on the views of the people in the context of dialectology have a much shorter history, which will be discussed shortly within the scope of the next chapter.

3 Weissman’s study on Bristol speech will be of course analysed in more detail when talking about the specific dialect area of Bristol. 16 3. Important concepts and approaches when researching folk attitudes

3.1 Introduction to some approaches and terminologies in the field

Despite the fact that the tradition of investigating lay people’s attitude to language is generally relatively short all around the world there exist quite a few approaches to study attitudes within academic linguistic research. In sociolinguistic literature quite a number of terms occur referring to this specific type of research focusing on the folk as a source of information for linguistic purposes. In the following sub-chapters the major basic concepts as well as the main differences and similarities of the definitions of research in the field of lay people’s attitudes about language are outlined.

3.1.1 Language attitude research

Experimental social psychologists conform in their assumption that attitudes are triggers of general and enduring (positive or negative) feelings about objects, persons or things (cf. Cacioppo & Petty 1982: 187). Attitudes that people hold towards different languages or language varieties, dialects, accents and their speakers are called language attitudes (cf. Trudgill 1974a: 44; Barnickel 1982b: 152). Being social in origin, they are complex phenomena often described to have a tripartite structure by having cognitive, affective and behavioural components. As “stereotyped responses to community-bound ways of speaking, to discourse styles as well as to dialect varieties in the conventional sense” (Garrett, Coupland & Williams: 2003: 3) they often awake a set of beliefs about individuals (cf. Niedzielski & Preston 2003: 9). Language attitudes are, just as language itself, often required at an early age and are therefore in most cases relatively enduring (cf. Garrett, Coupland & Williams: 2003:2f.). Values, in contrast to attitudes, are generally seen as underlying ideals, beliefs are viewed as more cognitive in nature and expressed opinions do not necessarily reflect the true attitude of a person although all three concepts are not easily distinguishable from the notion of attitudes (cf. ibid. 10). As beliefs and opinions, especially, are quite similar concepts to attitudes they will be used frequently within this thesis with consideration to this brief and minimal distinction, when necessary. The most general term within this field of investigation is the term language attitude research. This approach not only focuses generally on people’s attitudes about language, as

17 the naming suggests, but also investigates the effects of attitudes on people’s behaviour and is concerned with “what it is that determines and defines these attitudes” (ibid. 13). According to Buchard Ryan, Giles and Sebastian the field of language attitude research can generally be subdivided into three approaches: the societal treatment of language varieties (i.e. known as ‘content analysis’ of the public ways in which views on language varieties are treated), direct measurements (i.e. direct questions to evaluate language beliefs) and indirect measures (i.e. mostly associated with ‘the matched-guise technique’) (cf. 1982: 7f.), each of which obviously possesses strengths and weaknesses (cf. Garrett, Coupland & Williams: 2003: 14f.). Within the field of sociolinguistics, attitude research is often mainly associated with the so called matched-guise technique, one specific method, which is “linked to specific analytic objectives of showing the status and social attractiveness of prototypical speakers” (ibid. 228). This research technique tries to determine reactions of laypersons to different language varieties (i.e. dialects, accents etc.) (cf. Joseph 2004: 24f.). In order to gain their spontaneous response the participants of such studies hear various spoken material (usually always the same passages of e.g. a text) which they assess according to a prepared rating scale or bipolar adjective scale (i.e. for example, in terms of their liking or the pleasantness of the various verbal outputs). Although the participants are informed that they will hear different speakers, usually only one person is the speaker of the various guises (cf. Giles & Powesland 1975: 7), a fact that has often been criticised as it seems unlikely that one speaker can imitate various dialects to the same perfection (cf. Montgomery 2006: 46). Linguists describe many practical studies in this field, where people were asked to rate dialects4 according to the above mentioned method. The outcomes of these usually reveal that standard speakers are rated more favourably regarding their intelligence and their superiority in social class and less positively in terms of sincerity, whereas speakers of different dialectal varieties (e.g. Birmingham, South Wales, Bristol, etc.) are in general connoted vice versa (cf. Trudgill 1974a: 19, Giles & Powesland 1975; Trudgill 1983: 211; Gramley & Pätzold 1992: 313; Niedzielski & Preston 2003: 8). This tendency regarding these stereotyped outcomes in the reaction to speech samples is also described by John Edwards who argues that standard accents are generally associated with high status and competence, whereas regional accents are usually connoted with greater integrity and attractiveness (cf. 1982: 25). Furthermore, Beal summarises the study of Strongman and Woosley, where urban accents were evaluated less positively than rural ones (cf. 2006: 29f.). These reactions, often being very strong, are

4 Giles and Powsland do not only refer to English varieties here, studies in this field have obviously been carried out all over the world. 18 generally based on stereotypes, which obviously exists among many participants of matched- guise studies (cf. ibid. 41). Edwards, furthermore, highlights that this associated low prestige and competence mostly connected to non-standard language outweigh positive attributes (cf. 1982: 25). Importantly Edwards also highlights, as many other linguists do, that

unfavourable linguistic attitudes cannot reasonably be said to reflect any inherent linguistic or aesthetic inferiorities in the varieties concerned. Rather, they represent social judgements, ones of taste, preference and convention. To say so is, however, to do no more than to clear the air. For social judgements are not only endemic and powerful, they are also by their nature singularly resistant to change. (1982: 30)

This statement, which is frequently occurring in linguistic literature (cf. also e.g. Trudgill 1975: 28f., http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/sounds/regional-voices/), is of great importance as it highlights the significance of attitude studies in the field of dialectology. Statements about forms of language and varieties do indeed reveal beliefs about a speaker and the community he/she is part of (cf. Garret, Coupland & Williams 2003: 3), rather than judgements about the speakers themselves (cf. Trudgill 1975: 29). As a matter of fact that shows that attitude research on language varieties is mainly a matter of sociolinguistic research. The matched-guise technique has been used very frequently in research of people’s attitudes about language. A restriction to use only this method when investigating lay linguistic opinions is claimed as deficient by most linguists as it is only one small part of a variety of methods possible within language attitude research. “Language attitudes research can develop with a richly differentiated set of techniques and perspectives able to fill out our understanding of the complex subjective worlds in which sociolinguistic varieties exist” (Garret, Coupland & Williams 2003: 228). A social treatment approach is often done in terms of a content analysis of a specific corpus of collected data (e.g. written or oral material). Within dialect research, unfortunately, there seems yet little research focusing solely on this method of investigation. For this thesis this approach will only be of very marginal importance since only a few newspaper articles and websites have been collected regarding Bristolian. A holistic content analysis will not be undertaken. Finally, there is also the direct approach to investigate language attitudes, which embraces a diversity of techniques and methods. The direct approach is generally far more obtrusive than societal-treatment methods. “It is characterized by elicitation: the asking of

19 direct questions about language evaluation, preference etc., usually through questionnaires and/or interviews” (Garrett, Coupland & Williams 2003: 16). Hence, the difference between such direct methods and the matched-guise technique is that in the former people are more obtrusively interviewed about their attitudes towards specific language varieties or phenomena. In the latter, on the other hand, the participants are made listeners and are usually asked to rank their feelings and opinions on what is heard. Usually they have no elaborate information regarding what exactly they are rating (i.e. a specific regional accent or social dialect) (cf. ibid. 24f.). Within the research of my thesis an explicitly direct method is applied, asking people directly about their attitudes and opinions regarding Bristolian. The matched-guise technique and its results regarding attitudes on specific varieties, as described above, will nevertheless be borne in mind as evidence of what lay people may think about language varieties when indirectly inquired.

3.1.2 Folk Linguistics

Although, as described in the previous chapter, this present study could be defined as a socio dialectal attitude study using a direct approach there is also a large amount of folk linguistic method included in it as well. It is therefore necessary to look at the definition and approaches of folk linguistics due to the differences between these two sociolinguistic fields. As described by Niedzielski and Preston, “in general, language attitude research seeks folk information but tries to get around the conscious, reflective processes of folk reasoning and/or interaction. It avoids a report of the attitude, inferring it from responses to samples of use” (2003: 9). So, one can observe these two types of attitudes – conscious (the informant knows what the questioner is asking) and unconscious (the informant is unaware of the questions) – that differentiate folk linguistics from attitude research (cf. Montgomery 2006: 45). In other words, attitude research generally describes lay linguistic responses, whereas folk linguistics tries to dig deeper into people’s conscious language attitudes by asking them more direct questions. It is also important to keep in mind who one is talking about when referring to the folk. “We use folk to refer to those who are not trained professionals in the area under investigation […]. We definitely do not use folk to refer to rustic, ignorant, uneducated, backward, primitive, minority, isolated, marginalized, or lower status groups or individuals” (ibid: xviii). Also professional linguists will sometimes utter folk linguistic beliefs “when

20 guided by their native instincts rather than their official academic views” (Davis & Langer 2006: 20). Folk linguistics, or perceptual dialectology5, as many other sociolinguistis call this field of investigation, was pioneered by the American sociolinguist Dennis Preston (cf. Meyerhoff 2006: 66). He defines folk linguistics as “the study of people’s subjectively held beliefs about different dialects or linguistic varieties” (cf. Preston 1989: 1), a sociolinguistic field having been neglected until the mid 20th century6. He based his initial investigations on Hoenigswald’s “A proposal for the study of folk-linguistics” in 1966 in which Hoenigswald argues that “we should be interested not only in what goes on (in language), but also in how people react to what goes on (they are persuaded, put off, etc.), and in what people say goes on (talk concerning language)’ (cited in: Garrett, Coupland & Williams 2003: 45). Niedzielski’s and Preston’s foremost intention therefore is not to simply collect language opinions of the folk but to investigate the organizing principles behind these beliefs (cf. 2003: 32). In this context Preston does make a clear distinction between attitude research and folk linguistics insofar as he describes the first as leaving out overt linguistic statements (which could e.g. be gained by direct questions such as “Where do you think the speaker you just heard comes from?”), focusing only on reactions towards specific linguistic phenomena. Folk linguistics, in contrast, tries to put its focus especially on overt comments about language (cf. 1989: 3f.). This approach is also pointed out by Meyerhoff:

In perceptual dialectology, the beliefs and thoughts that non-linguists have about language are used to distinguish varieties. People’s perceptions about language, whether descriptively accurate or not, are just as important to the researcher as the objective facts about how speakers talk. (2006: 65)

Folk linguistics and perceptual dialectology might differ in their definitions, as folk linguistics look at lay opinions about language and its use more generally whereas perceptual dialectology is often quite similar to studies in the field of social psychology researching more detailed language attitudes (cf. ibid. 65f.) (i.e. attitude research, matched-guise technique etc.). Nonetheless, it can generally be assumed that these two fields of investigation are highly correlative in their methods. In both areas the lay opinion is the

5 More on the history of perceptual study in Great Britain can be found in (Montgomery 2006: 56) 6 In 1984 Milroy still claims that there is a very limited amount of linguistic studies which focus their interest on dialect perception, especially regarding urban dialects (cf. 1984: 208ff), which is about the time when Preston started pioneering in the field of perceptual dialectology. 21 centre of focus of investigation and is regarded as highly important for sociolinguistic research. In order to locate folk linguistics within the general study of language the following figure is helpful.

a´- cognitive states and processes which govern a

What people say

a

Conscious Unsonscious reactions to b1 bn reactions to and comments language on language

b´- cognitive states and processes which govern b

Figure 1 The place of folk linguistics in general study of language, revised by Preston and Niedzielski, 2003, xi

Within this figure dialect research is generally located at the top of the pyramid (a) with the purpose of collecting data on people’s language outputs. What can nicely be seen is that traditional attitude research, often used as an equivalent of the matched-guise technique, is located near to or at bn, whereas the present study of attitudes in a folk linguistic tradition is rather located near or at b1. Within the range of folk linguistic studies one can investigate the most conscious utterances and comments about language to the “most deeply subconscious reaction to language” (cf. Niedzielski, Preston, xif.). For the present research the method aims to learn more about conscious reactions and comments on language, meaning that the folk linguistic approach used here is located much nearer to b1 than to bn. This is demonstrated in Figure 1, although overt utterances usually imply deeper meanings regarding language, attitudes and identity, which will also be taken into consideration within this thesis. Regarding Preston’s concrete method this is described by Garrett, Coupland and Williams in the following way, 22

Respondents rank regions for correct and/or pleasant speech, reflecting the prestige and solidarity dimensions well documented in language attitudes research […] Respondents are asked about the research tasks they have carried out, and are involved in open-ended conversations about their beliefs and practices concerning language varieties, speakers of such varieties, etc. (2003: 46).

This means Preston does not only investigate unconscious reactions to language but he also discusses them overtly with his participants. In their volume Folk Linguistics, for instance, Niedzielski and Prestion interviewed 68 respondents with the help of native and non-native fieldworkers (2003: 33ff). The interviews were transcribed, presented to the readers and interpreted in terms of their convergences and contrasts to the beliefs of linguists (cf. ibid. vii). Furthermore, it is also a quite common folk linguistic method to ask lay linguists to do map drawing, a technique also used by other folk linguistic studies, e.g. investigating the north/south divide in England (cf. Montgomery 2006). “In short, folk linguistic considerations must be made a part of social psychological studies of language attitude” (Niedzielski & Prestion 2003: 45) as there is a world outside a professional linguistic framework in which people also care about and are interested in language with their comments having the same justification as linguistic ones (cf. ibid: 302). Further reasons for studying the attitudes and opinions of the folk are outlined in the next chapter

3.2 The importance of an attitude study from a folk linguistic viewpoint in dialect research

The relevance of language attitude research of the folk is already mentioned by Labov in 1984. The basic reasons for focusing on a folk perspective on a dialectal phenomenon such as Bristolian speech is in short explained by Niedzielski and Preston as, “[…] the beliefs about, reactions to, and comments on language by what we call “real people” (i.e., nonlinguists) are interesting, illuminating and empowering from ethnographic, linguistic, and practial (or applied linguistic) points of view” (2003: vii). They furthermore describe these three major points of view which justify a careful research of folk linguistic beliefs in more detail to stress the importance of folk linguistic research in general. Firstly, ethnolinguistics contributes to ethnographies of a culture and the study of folk beliefs about language is an important part of this research area. Secondly, folk linguistics plays a major role in applied

23 linguistics, meaning that whenever linguists desire to have influence on the public it is essential to know about popular linguistic beliefs as language is ubiquitous and strong. Thirdly, due to lay people’s beliefs about language being relevant for language change, folk linguistic opinions might “help determine the shape of language” (cf. ibid. xvii f.). This leads to an important fact regarding language power: the beliefs of linguists matter very little in the language debate whereas those of non-linguists constitute exactly the real situation that needs to be described (cf. ibid. 43). In their statement Nancy Niedzielski and Dennis Preston bring the most obvious reason for folk linguistics to the point. It might be true that linguists possess the knowledge and terminology to describe and discuss language matters but if the people are of a different opinion, the professional view matters little in daily linguistic affairs. It is therefore of extreme importance that linguists acknowledge the fact that it is the “nonspecialist [!] views of topics which touch the lives of all citizens. These views are worth knowing for their bearing on public life in general, on education in particular, and, most specifically, on the regard in which those who are prejudiced against are held” (ibid. 323). It can therefore be said that the power of the folk regarding language issues must be accepted and acknowledged by language professionals in order to describe the sociolingustic situation completely, especially for those engaged in the broad field of applied linguistics. As an integral part of the ethnography of a speech community, folk linguistics needs to be integrated into any research about such a specific speech community (cf. ibid: 323f.). Another argument for a folk linguistic viewpoint is the debate about a standard language. Like most other linguists Trudgill argues that the English language appears in numerous social and regional varieties, which are – on a linguistic level – all equivalent. There is no linguistic superiority of one of these varieties over others (cf. 1994: 1). However, this linguistic fact about varieties is not always only seen from a language experts point of view. When it comes to language performance, emotions and attitudes immediately arise within the listeners. Trudgill points out that the standard is defined by educated people and especially by those in power, who also trigger the notion of superiority over other national varieties (cf. 1974a: 18). James Milroy describes that language attitudes against non-standard forms have been in existence for a long time – especially in the mid 20th century - by the media, politics and so called language judges, bringing with it disadvantages and exclusion from certain professions up to today (cf. 2000: 19f.). Such disadvantages in the job market, where language might be a possible handicap are also described by John Edwards (cf. 1979: 97). It has to be highlighted that these prejudice against maligned dialectal varieties in

24 professional life start very early already in education. Teachers tend to also possess underlying opinions which need to be seen in a very critical light as, according to Cheshire, “attitudes towards nonstandard [!] varieties constitute the major language obstacle in education” (1984: 548). Although there seems to have been knowledge about this fact for quite some time, as Cheshire points out, little had been done to change this situation:

It seems, then, that although there have been considerable advances in our knowledge of the linguistic characteristics of nonstandard English, this knowledge has not yet eradicated negative attitudes and ill-informed prejudices towards nonstandard varieties. In education, confusion, ignorance and prejudice concerning nonstandard English can have extremely serious consequences, and clearly there is an urgent need for consistent policy on nonstandard English to be implemented in schools. (ibid: 557)

Ten years later, there seems to be at least an increasing awareness among teachers of English that non-standard varieties are not inferior to the standard (cf. Cheshire & Milroy 1993: 16). However, this suppression of dialectal variety (often starting in school) seems to exist up to today. RP is still described as the spoken standard and often used in teaching materials of English learners (cf. Milory L. 2000: 174) and the vast majority of teachers are still of the opinion that local or social varieties need to be corrected and “standard English norms have been taught in all schools for as long as English has been a school subject, and this will continue” (Milroy J. 2000: 21). Furthermore, a folk linguistic investigation is expecially significant because of another reason. Language plays a major role in everybody’s daily lives. It’s our primary means of conversation and the majority of people use it everyday. One must bear in mind: “language is always about itself, no matter what else it is about” (Johnstone 2010: 32). This means that language is always also metalanguage, highlighting the fact there is no utterance that does not include linguistic and social meaning, being therefore of interest for social language research. “What this means is that, whenever we isolate language from the people who speak and interpret it in the context in which they speak and interpret it, we are not getting closer to some kind of essential truth about language” (Joseph 2004:24). Folk linguistic judgements will be made, no matter what language specialists may say about them (cf. Milroy J. 2000: 23). It is linguistic stereotypes which “make it into the Letter to the Editor section of local papers” (Meyerhoff 2006: 22) which is an indicator for the fact that most speakers are highly interested in language, especially in language variation as Upton and Widdowson point out. “Paradoxically, variation in dialect, and especially in

25 pronunciation, is a subject about which most people when pressed, and many people without requiring any invitation, are quite prepared to express an opinion” (2006: 2). Also Niedzielski and Preston highlight the willingness of the folk to talk about heir opinions and language theories (cf. 2003: 261). As the folk seem highly interested in their own speech and as the folk should be in the main focus of a sociolinguistic study, it seems extremely relevant to also inquire about and listen to their attitudes and perspectives on language. Furthermore, linguists are prepared to view these folk opinions as important within the study of linguistic change (cf. Trudgill 1974a: 22). Additionally they “provide an independent measure – perception data, rather than production data – of how central language is to the formation and maintenance of social and personal identities” (Meyerhoff 2006: 69) as they reveal a lot about how the speakers of a certain variety are perceived (cf. Edwards J. 1982: 20). This powerful link between attitudes about a language or an accent and attitudes towards the speakers of such, is also highlighted by Wright as a major reason for investigating subjective language attitudes (cf. 1996: 285f.). As already pointed out, judgements about language varieties are social rather than linguistic statements (cf. Milroy & Milroy 1995: 90). They are essentially value based which is in no way an effective argument to ignore them as O’Donnel and Todd suggest when they state that value judgments do not reveal much information about the dialect themselves and must hence be dismissed (cf. 1993: 16f.). From a sociolinguistic perspective these attitudes are incredibly interesting and should therefore not be ignored by dialect researchers. Although arguably for the description of a dialect not always useful, rather than not always correct, Preston has nevertheless shown that even when mapping dialect areas, the folk perspective can be an enormously enriching one in this context (cf. 1989). Furthermore, it can simply be regarded as dangerous to leave out people’s opinions about and their reactions to language for a complete account of language and its users (cf. Niedzielski & Preston 2003: xiv). Even if the social nature of attitudes and the non-existing superiority of Standard English is discussed and the process of standardisation is explained over and over again on an academic linguistic level, it seems that this is not convincing enough to change the underlying ideologies in people’s minds. It is therefore highly necessary for professional linguists to at least – if they have a hard time changing them – know as much as possible about folk attitudes and beliefs.

26 4. The Bristol study

4.1 Preliminary observations

Within the present thesis the main focus is put on a direct approach in language attitude research. A content analysis or social treatment approach is taken into account but only marginally in terms of a general introduction to language and identity and possible assumptions, based on some publications and institutions engaging in the Bristolian discourse. Generally, the research is based on two basic columns: on the one hand a literature analysis regarding major works in the field of dialectology with the aim to coming to a conclusion what linguists have to say about Bristol speech and on the other hand fieldwork research to find out more about the folk perspective on this dialectal phenomenon. As to define the general type of research used for the fieldwork, precise boundaries are difficult to draw. Although the basic starting point was more in a folk linguistic direction, the method evolved by and by into the direction of attitude research applying a direct method of perceptual dialectology by concretely asking people about their opinions and beliefs regarding a specific linguistic variety (cf. Meyerhoff 2006: 65). It is therefore the case that this present study could be called a perceptual dialectal attitude study with its main focus on a folk linguistic perspective. Next to the linguistic approach towards Bristol speech, what this study primarily focuses on is the perception of people: what do people associate with Bristolian and what is their attitude about this variety of English. This of course means that within this thesis there can be no definite and concrete conclusion drawn whatsoever to which extent a certain phenomenon which is claimed by linguists to be a feature of Bristolian language might really be used by speakers of this specific accent/dialect or to which extent this feature really constitutes Bristolian as a independent variety of English. Conclusions in this thesis exclusively focus on people’s perception of the dialect claimed to be used in the city they themselves inhabit. Generalisations can only be made on the level of perception, attitude and assessment of the folk and be compared to the descriptions on a more linguistically academic level of previous research. Furthermore, generalisations can only be made in a quite small framework as the folk perspective was gained by 52 people within the online questionnaire. These opinions of course refer to conclusions such as how popular the urban Bristolian dialect is within the city and among Bristolians themselves, how often Bristolian speech can be heard within the city, which groups of people are mostly confronted with this issue and what people think are features that mark Bristolian as a specific English dialect.

27 When talking about language and dialects with non-linguists and also when analysing their statements, one must always bear in mind that terms such as language and dialect are used quite freely in contrast to linguists (cf. Wardhaugh 1992: 24). Non-linguists may use linguistic terms but connote them with a different meaning than linguists would. One therefore has to be cautious not to confuse common known and used terms by “ordinary people” with linguistically used technical terms. But this does not mean, as already pointed out before, that non-linguists do not know anything about language or dialects or do not get the concept behind these terms (cf. Niedzielski & Preston 2003: 24). Also lay people might be able to explain typical features of dialects or language but his may not always be in the usually used terms of the linguistic scientific world. It is important to clarify the term “Bristolian” first as this will be the group of people put in the centre of the perceptive analysis of this thesis. For a holistic analysis the term “Bristolian” is applied to all persons living in the city of Bristol, ignoring the component of how long a person has been living in the urban area of Bristol. In this context it would be too complicated to draw a valid borderline. Within this survey all people living in Bristol are included as when claiming that there is something like a specific Bristolian language it is necessary to include all inhabitants of this urban area to get a holistic picture of the dialectal situation within the city. Moreover, it is difficult to distinguish Bristolian-native-speakers from those who are not as the degree of a dialect varies from person to person and it, yet again, would be nearly impossible in terms of years of inhabiting the city to draw a valid borderline separating Bristolian speakers from non-Bristolian speakers. Nevertheless, it is an interesting aspect to ask people about their self-evaluation regarding their identity as Bristolian speakers or non-Bristolian speakers, as they obviously have a certain concept in mind, as to what a Bristolian speaker is. Based on this self-assessment it will be differentiated between speakers of Bristolian and non-speakers of Bristolian. Lesley Milroy cuts right to the heart of the matter “the task of describing the speech of a city is a daunting one” (1984: 203f). If it is even daunting for scholars to describe the dialect of a city it might be a very challenging thing to do for lay people. Therefore the main focus of this thesis is to research language attitudes of people and their perception of the Bristolian dialect rather than asking them too much about the characteristics of the dialect7. Nonetheless, some questions regarding their evaluation of what features of Bristolian could be, were made to ascertain whether the folk agree with linguists in this point.

7 This became also evident during the pilot run, where it was rather difficult for randomly addressed and interviewed persons to describe specific features of Bristolian dialect when directly asked. 28 4.2 Bristolian dialect and identity

Due to several linguistic changes in different parts of the country and different sections of the community, various regional and social variants of English exist in Britain. As these have symbolic value or are an important part of group or individual identity, they are usually maintained in their differences or, in some cases, even exaggerated (cf. Trudgill 1975: 16f.). It therefore seems extremely interesting to look at some general concepts about dialect identity before turning to the centre of interest for this thesis – the perception and existence of a specific Bristolian language (and with it) identity.

4.2.1 General introduction to dialect and identity

Identity is our understanding of who we are and who other people are, and, reciprocally, other people’s understanding of themselves and of others (which includes us). It is a very practical matter, synthesising relationships of similarity and difference. (Jenkins 2008: 18)

Thus, it is important to have a precise attitude and a clear image towards others from whom we are different and a vivid picture of ourselves in order to come to a conclusion regarding our own identity. We can therefore see that establishing identity is an intense act of comparing ourselves to others in terms of existing similarities and differences (cf. Jenkins 2008: 17). In short, our identities are perceptions that we actively construct (cf. Joseph 2004: 6). This definition of identity can be neatly used for establishing language identities as well. In order to obtain a personal language identity one must accomplish a clear picture of what is different and what is similar to the speech of others which is immediately connected to language attitudes again. The research of language attitudes “has consistently shown how quickly we form strong conceptions of each other’s identities based on the way we speak” (ibid. 12) and it is a fact that language can never be used without implying identity, meaning that we immediately make a conclusion about a person’s personality when we hear him or her speak (cf. ibid. 30). According to the British sociolinguist Robert LePage, any speech act performed by an individual is immediately also an act of identity. Speakers will choose from their personal repertoires of varieties in order to project a specific personal and social identity, which can change depending on the speaker’s intention (cf. Trudgill 1992: 8). This is also a marker for being a member of one or more social groups (cf. Wright 1996: 288) and furthermore,

29 varieties are not only an important indicator for group membership, there is also a clear connection to a person’s identity (cf. Trudgill 1975: 57). Our personal accent or dialect immediately reveals personal information about us (where we are from, our background) for the listener (cf. Trudgill 1974a), who immediately draws very powerful inferences about the speaker (cf. Meyerhoff 2006: 54). In short, being a powerful symbol of cultural, ethnic and personal identity, language is much more than simply a means of communication (Day 1982: 128). Interestingly, as Giles and Powesland point out, the term ‘personality’ in its original Latin meaning is highly associated with the voice of the speaker, and –although as a current and valid definition of the word not sufficient anymore- it still highlights the importance of speech in the context of identity and subsequently the definitions of ourselves (cf. 1975: 51). This unavoidable assessment about our personality might not always turn out positively. Hence, one must assume that having a specific accent might also sometimes be something negative. Lesley Milroy states that language identity in the context of local and social varieties is not a phenomenon occurring morally neutral in society (cf. 2000: 175). ‘Accent-reduction’ programmes (cf. Beal 2006: 32) (and many incidents in teaching situations) show that having an accent is viewed by the majority of society as a deficit which needs to be compensated or overcome. Yet, Beal also notes that certain regional varieties in some kinds of occupations can also evoke positive responses (cf. ibid. 32). On the other hand, she also argues that although in the 21st century there is an obvious macdonaldisation going on in Britain and the world, there still is a sense for local identity which is highly connected with local language and this accounts for cities and larger town especially, where globalisation is specifically visible (cf. ibid.15). As we can see, the notion of dialect and identity in the British Isles has two strong, quite opposing directions: On the one hand, strong accents or dialects are viewed as a hindrance in the educational and professional world as well as entering the upper social classes, although it “would be naïve in the extreme, however, to think that it is language alone which stands in the way of all our citizens having an equal opportunity to participate in these areas of social life” (Cheshire & Milroy 1993: 17). On the other hand globalisation and the fact that more people are globetrotters, moving wherever the wind blows them, heritage – and with it language particularly – becomes an important jigsaw-piece of one’s personality. Since language is highly connected with emotions, as we have seen, this part of identity in this context might evoke strong pride in the speakers, according to Beal especially if their home town or region is affected by great distinctiveness (cf. 2006: 5).

30 However, dialect identity is not solely a matter of geographical heritage, especially regarding the linguistic situation in the UK. Lesley Milory describes that due to class conflicts – and the United Kingdom has a characteristically class-orientated language ideology based on the quite prominent and important British class system- and the threat of the urban British proletariat throughout the 20th century the language of this part of the population, as closely linked with class, became highly stigmatised, a stigmatisation which lasts on till today. This is truly remarkable as with all these concrete arguments she shows that language ideologies are something obviously nation-based and even within the English speaking community all over the world there are underlying ideologies which are of significant difference. For Britain, she concludes that this nation’s language ideology is very much a matter of class and social rank, influenced by the monarchical background of the country and the political and social developments mainly in the twentieth century, which, according to Milroy, lead to a preference for rural dialects among the general population in the British Isles up till today. Yet, these developments and their influence on language ideology are not easily and readily recognised neither by scholars nor by lay people (cf. 2000: 188ff.). This leads to the basic assumption that Bristolian will be generally perceived quite negatively by the folk even though Brook argues that strong views on dialect among the folk grow from experiences. As experiences can be positive or negative, so can opinions on specific language varieties. Therefore, language beliefs are highly underlying experiences rather than rational thinking processes (cf. 1963: 17). Furthermore, Hansen, Carls and Lucko argue that different cities are associated with quite strikingly diverse images, which leads to the fact that some urban varieties are rated more positively than others. In this context they exemplarily mention Bristol as being perceived more positively than Birmingham (1996: 40). Although of course this is only an example, it is nevertheless interesting, that these distinctions between different urban varieties seem to exist. It will therefore be highly most interesting to investigate the identity forming underlying beliefs of the folk on Bristol and its language.

31 4.2.2 About Bristol

Geographically, the city of Bristol is located in the area of Great Britain generally known as South-West England. “The core of the west country, the west of England, is formed by the cider counties of Gloucestershire, Avon, Somerset, and Devon, with Bristol as the main centre of population. (Wells 1982: 335). Since medieval times, the South-West has been a well-established dialect area, with linguistic properties truly unique to this area (cf. Kortmann & Upton 2004: 32; Wagner 2004: 172). Bristol up to the end of the 17th century counted only 30,000 inhabitants and the South West of England was generally a predominantly rural area. With the enormous growth of towns over the 19th and 20th century, Bristol and

Plymouth became the two major towns in the SW. Figure 2: Map of the UK - Bristol was established as the capital of the region http://de.justmaps.org/maps/images/uk/bristol- map1.gif and with it a great mercantile port of medieval times and has held the status of a cathedral city and university town since 1909 (cf. Wakelin 1986: 5). Today, Bristol is a multifaceted city with not only a significant history but also a large range of cultural events, places of interest and possibilities for leisure activities – making it not only a place worth visiting but also an attractive town for living. Bristol generally has little heavy industry despite the fact that the city is known for its engineering industry, especially since 1900 when the production of aircraft began (cf. Wakelin 1986: 5). This is the only branch of heavy industry within the city still operating today, after major shifts and economic changes in which economy and also maritime trade have diminished (cf. Elmes 2005: 38f.). However, Bristol is currently the 10th largest city in the UK with around 380,000 inhabitants (cf. http://www.ukcities.co.uk/populations/) and with this population number Bristol is still the biggest city and the unofficial capital of the whole of the South-West and “stands like a sentinel on the M4 and M5 [i.e. motorways linking London with South Wales and West Bromwich to Exeter]” (Elmes 2005: 24). Due to its rapid growth over the last two centuries it can be assumed that the forms of English found in the city of Bristol are more mixed, the local variety having been influenced by external sources, but nevertheless with remaining traditional elements (cf. Wakelin 1986:

32 17). But as in many other important cities of the UK, the speech of the inhabitants appears to be of hardly any interest to linguistic research (cf. Foulkes & Docherty 1999: 7). Therefore it will be interesting to investigate Bristolian as an urban dialect. As mentioned above, cities are regarded as being more innovative and quicker in change due to higher immigration from other parts of the English speaking community or even internationally. Nevertheless, or even more so, it is of interest to obtain a holistic picture of a dialect such as Bristolian from a perceptive point of view. Although in bigger cities many accents or even dialects may coexist it seems fascinating what people consider to be their own typical way of speaking and what lay linguist Bristolians consider their personal dialectal variety to be like. Opinions might be very different as depending mainly on whether someone considers him or herself to be a speaker of Bristolian dialect or not. But not only this major factor plays an obviously important role when comparing attitudes on language. Also sex, social class, age etc. need to be considered as major factors within such a major city as Bristol.

4.3 Bristolian from a linguistic point of view

Academic coverage of Bristolian has been sparse by comparison with some other dialects. Bristolian tends to feature in brief sections in standard accounts of English and accents and dialects rather than as an entity in its own right, and the focus is often on technical phonetic details for the specialised readership. There is more on pronunciation and accent, and rather less on dialect vocabulary and grammar. (Shortis 2006: 4).

Research on Bristolian seems to be only marginally existent within the linguistic discourse of dialect research within the UK, as Tim Shortis points out. Thus, it does not only seem highly significant but also to a certain extent compulsory to have a look at what major linguists have to say about Bristol speech within their works. In this part folk opinion will therefore be excluded and the focus put on linguistic statements about Bristolian, although even linguists, whom Trudgill suggests to resist value judgements (cf. Trudgill 1983: 201), are not always untroubled by the ideology that triggers popular views towards language (cf. Milroy J. 2000: 39; Davis & Langer 2006: 44). As Peter Trudgill puts it: “[…] language varieties do not readily lend themselves to definition as such” (2000: 117). Isoglosses are not very easily definable and also socio- economic factors do not always automatically and readily lead to classifications and,

33 furthermore, speakers always possess an idiolect – an individual dialect which is unique to a single person – even if some of them can be classified as being speakers of the same variety (cf. Price 2000: 153). Therefore, Beal sees a need for a ‘fluid’ sense of region, depending on what people themselves view or hear as different dialect from another in the geographical as well as in the social sense of the word (cf. 2006: 4). Trudgill describes quite briefly that it is never easy to define a certain language variety. Out of this reason he speaks of “characterisation” of language varieties rather than of a definition (cf. 2000: 117). As no urban centre can be regarded as linguistically homogeneous, Coupland suggests investigating language in the context of relatively permanent inhabitants, primarily of the inner city centre. Furthermore, he takes up the view that a speech community consists of people regarding themselves as speakers of the same variety which can therefore neither serve as a concrete definition of a dialect area (cf. 1988: 4). It is not the purpose of this thesis to present a valid and elaborated landscape and description of the Bristolian dialect as such with all its grammatical, semantic, lexical features or ways of pronunciation. Nonetheless, a few of these dialectal features – as described in various previous studies8 have been picked out to show main linguistic opinions about the Bristol speech in order to clarify how linguists classify and describe this English language variety. Regarding professional linguistic opinion about language one would in general expect a basic tolerance about different varieties of language, which is usually also the case. Awareness of professionals in the field of sociolinguistics in comparison to an average listener should be expected to “go below the level of social stereotypes” (Meyerhoff: 2006: 28). But just like the ever ongoing discussion about language decay (i.e. “Sprachverfall”) (cf. e.g. Davis & Langer 2006) also in dialectal research some stereotypical value judgements about varieties exist among linguists. Trudgill claims that there are three major areas in which value judgements about language can be made: in terms of its correctness, adequacy and aesthetic value. He argues that linguists should not make such value judgements at all as they are linguistically incorrect (cf. 1983: 201). Nevertheless, he argues that in the case of aesthetic judgements about languages, varieties, dialects and accents “many linguists are prepared, at least informally, to make as many value judgements as laymen” (for example in research using matched-guise techniques), although there seems to exist little evidence for

8 Bristolian is frequently mentioned in research which is focused on placing, naming and describing a global picture of the dialect landscape in Britain. The dialectal features described here have been selected as they were suggested in the majority of these studies. 34 this statement (Trudgill 1983: 209). Thus, in this chapter only professional linguistic work will be investigated, lay opinions will be blended out. The first impression, if one reads through various dialectal works in the British Isles (cf. e.g. Brook 1963; ; Trudgill 1990; Price 2000; Hughes, Trudgill & Watt 2005;) is that the Bristolian variety, if mentioned at all, is in all cases treated as dialect or at least, in a few rare cases, as accent. This leads to the hypothesis that Bristolian is an urban dialect with diverse specific grammatical, lexical, syntactical and phonological features which are mentioned in various dialectological research. Wells, for example, generally speaks of an accent when mentioning Bristolian, although it has to be highlighted that in this study also e.g. Cockney, Scottish and Southampton are described as accent (cf. Wells 1984). Whether this classification of Bristol speech as accent can be regarded as correct calls for a more precise inspection. Having a closer look at what is described as Bristolian in literature it has to be mentioned that by linguists Bristolian is usually referred to as an urban dialect (cf. e.g. Weissmann 1970). Although by linguists there seems to be little doubt about that there actually is something like a distinctive Bristolian variety it might be argued that it is not only restricted to geographical boundaries of the city but is also limited to socio-cultural boundaries such as class and age, which is typical in the case of urban dialects.

4.3.1 Which linguistic features are described as typically Bristolian in research

Many studies have been done on rural varieties of the South-West area rather than putting the focus on an urban perspective by filtering the largest city of this area out. This might also be due to the fact that varieties in cities still tend to be changing and the phonological differences between different urban dialects increasing (cf. Trudgill 1983: 191f.). There are quite a few linguists, talking specifically about the Bristolian variety and its features. As dialects are characterised by their specific pronunciation, lexis and their grammar it will therefore be analysed in how far this applies to Bristolian. The major phonetic differences to the standard English variety are briefly summarised by Weissmann who mentions the postvocalic /r/, the linking /l/ and the dropping of /h/ at the beginning of a word (cf. 1970: 230ff). Additionally, differences in the phonetic use of vowels can be observed in various linguistic descriptions. These phonetic differences are often viewed as the most obvious differences to standard English. Furthermore, specific grammatical Bristolian features can be observed as well as quite a number of distinctive vocabulary that seems to be very specifically used within the urban area of Bristol. It seems therefore adequate within this thesis to describe Bristolian as an English dialect rather than an 35 accent when considering some major notions of the term ‘dialect’ and ‘accent’ as defined in the beginning. This opinion is also reflected in the fact that scientific works which mention and describe Bristolian highlight more features than merely differences in pronunciation. These Bristolian dialect features can also be listened to online as the British Library within their sound archive “Sounds Familiar” offers a recording of a female Bristolian speaker where certain peculiarities in choice of vocabulary, grammar and lexis as discussed above in theory can be observed actively by listening to them being used by a native Bristol speaker

(cf. http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/sounds/text-only/england/bristol/H ).H

4.3.1.1 Bristolian at the level of pronunciation The most typical and thus very frequently described Bristolian feature is the so called “Bristol l”, meaning the addition of an /l/ to each word ending with a vowel. This feature is described by various linguists as a quite singular phenomenon

Thus derided and stigmatised, Intrusive /l/ seems always to have been a pretty local phenomenon, not occurring beyond the boundaries of Avon; even within them it is by now quite rare. Its origin must presumably lie in hypercorrection after the loss of final /l/ after /ə/, a hypothesized ['æpə] for apple. When the /l/ was restored under pressure from standard accents, it was added analogically to all words ending in [ə]. Bristol itself was once Bristow. (Wells 1982: 344f)

9 This phenomenon, in the UK obviously strictly restricted to the urban area of BristolTP ,PT is obviously also evident in the name of the city itself. Formerly, according to documents, Bristol was known as Brycgstow (meaning the site of the bridge in Old English) with the first recorded instance of ‘Bristoll’ being around 1200 (cf. Elmes 2005: 40). Although /l/ addition is a quite uncommon phenomenon in languages in general and further explanations for this local feature can hardly be found anywhere – or maybe exactly out of these reasons – the “Bristol l” is broadly known among the British population (cf. Trudgill 1986: 78ff.). Another phonological feature typically of Bristol speech, although not uniquely used within this area, is rothacism – also known under the term postvocalic /r/ - which is generally one of the most prominent features of west-country accents (cf. Wells 1982: 336; Blacker 1993). In rhotic accents the /r/ in words like car, for or carry is pronounced (cf. e.g. Trudgill 1994: 19; Wright 1996: 264). Elmes distinctively refers to Bristol when talking about accents

9 TP PT A similar but absolutely independent phenomenon can also be found in the variety of the South-East of Pennsylvania (cf. Hughes, Trudgill & Watt 2005: 65). 36 with postvocalic /r/, where this feature is very strongly voiced, a phenomenon which he actually calls “Bristol ‘r’” (cf. 2005: 31). Also Shortis describes that the postvocalic /r/ can frequently be heard in Bristol and has become a typical feature of the West Country but “has no presence in Swindon, just 40 miles away” (Shortis 2006: 4). On the other hand, Trudgill states that both types of pronunciation, with and without postvocalic /r/ can be heard in the city of Bristol (cf. 1974a: 21). Furthermore, Beal describes rothacism as becoming rarer and being – in contrast to the US, where this form of pronunciation is associated with high prestige – judged as ‘country bumpkins’ or comic Northern (cf. 2006:41f.), uneducated and rural (cf. Trudgill 1975: 35). According to Wells this phenomenon can be found in the cities of the South-West, including Bristol, well up the social scale (cf. 1982: 341), a statement which he contradicts only two years later when describing the urban speech of Bristol as “variably rhotic, the degree of rhoticity being reduced as one moves up the class and formality scales” (cf. Wells 1984: 58f.). Generally the assumption can be made that his latter statement is true. Also Milroy and Milroy describe rhotic accent as prestigious in the USA, whereas in England they have little prestige” (cf. 1995: 20f.). In a study in 2009 Esther deLeeuw performed a linguistic experiment with her students based on exactly this assumption and on Labov’s study in New York (i.e. where Labov concluded that rhotic accents have more prestige than non-rhotic ones (cf. Trudgill 1974a: 21; Barnickel 1982b: 155) in Bristol clothes shops (cf. 2009), where their basic assumption was that rhotacism will be found more in low prestige contexts. Prestigious or not, it is evident that postvocalic /r/ is, if not exclusively, a prominent feature of Bristol speech. A further phenomenon of Bristol speech – although not unique to the city – is the so called h-dropping, i.e. the dropping of initial /h/ in words like house, hammer, heart (cf. Chambers & Trudgill 1980: 69; Blacker 1993). It is certainly very frequently described as a typical feature of the language used in the city of Bristol. Nevertheless, this cannot be seen as a regional phenomenon as such, occurring frequently all over the British Isles, especially in the urban centres of the country it seems to be rather a social variable (cf. Wells: 1982: 345). Additionally it seems to be a phenomenon particularly associated with cities and lower class (cf. Milroy L. 2000: 85; Hughes, Trudgill & Watt: 2005: 66; Beal 2006: 48f.) as well as high stigmatisation (cf. Upton & Widdowson 2006: 59). This is due to the fact that RP and other middle-class accents tend to maintain the initial /h/ (cf. Trudgill 1975: 32). Moreover, a number of distinctive vowel sounds can be regarded as typical for Bristolian pronunciation. Short vowels generally tend to be lengthened in certain environments (e.g. [plein] for playing or [goin] for going), although this is typical for the

37 rural south-western area too (cf. Wells 1984: 61ff.; Elmes 2005: 35). There are also some other typical vowel sounds described for Bristol speech (cf. e.g. Hughes, Trudgill & Watt 2005: 82; Blacker 1993). Weissmann describes the vowel sounds in Bristol speech as well as a number of other features of Bristolian pronunciation in more detail (cf. 1970: 211ff.) and Elmes talks about a typical ‘Bristol Upspeak’ in intonation, “a typically fast speech which runs words together and has a rising questioning inflexion” (cf. 2005: 39), also being described as a prominent Bristolian feature by Tim Shortis (cf. 2006: 4f.). Those will not be discussed in this thesis more closely as with the examples above it could already be shown that on the level of pronunciation Bristol speech is certainly a dialect. Furthermore, the examples also show that Bristolian is not only a regional phenomenon with unique forms of pronunciation that can be found within the borders of the city (i.e. Bristol /l/) but also a social one. This is evident when considering e.g. h-dropping or rhotacism being supralocal features, i.e. used in various parts of the UK. This phenomenon is becoming more prevalent in all parts of the UK as, due to mobility and language contact, highly local dialect features are beginning to diminish in favour of more widely spread ones (cf. Britain 2010: 197). Nevertheless, Britain also highlights that “it is extremely unlikely that all local features would ever be levelled away” (2010: 203), which indicates that also Bristol will retain at least some of its specifically Bristolian dialect features.

4.3.1.2 Bristolian at the level of lexis Whereas non-standard grammar is often valued to be ‘bad’ or ‘incorrect’, this, apparently, does not apply to the use of non-standard vocabulary (cf. Cheshire & Milroy 1993: 15) Trudgill shows that there is local vocabulary restricted to specific regions of Great Britain, which can be said to be not Standard English vocabulary. Standard English vocabulary, as not subordinated to geographical boundaries, is available to all speakers of English. This, as he shows, is not true for regionally restricted dialects, which usually possess their own specific vocabulary (cf. (2000: 127). Although it is often claimed that there is a loss of dialect terms (i.e. lexical attrition) observable in the British Isles, young people are still coming up with new regional dialect terms (cf. Beal 2006: 55ff.) This is also (with all probability) the case in Bristol. Some traditional Bristolian vocabulary is even described in literature such as Ullo, my luvver! (Elmes 2005: 37, gurt (Wakelin, English Dialects 98f.) or slider, keener, cheers drive and many more (Shortis 2006: 6).

38 Some more expressions and words described as typically Bristolian came up during the experts interviews within the fieldwork on Bristolian for this thesis. Tim Shortis’ questionnaire which he did with his students (see below for more detail) is a rich source of dialect expressions and quite a number of words and expressions can be found in Chas Blacker’s collection of features of Bristol speech (cf. 1993). Furthermore, during the interview with Lucy Wheeler as well as Tim Shortis quite an elaborate number of lexical items came up. The most prominent ones being: smoothin the cat, ark at ee, babber, slider, gurt lush, alright, my luvver?, keener, kiddy, coopey down and many, many more. Concluding, it can be said that there are quite a few lexical items typical for the city of Bristol and it can therefore be concluded that on the level of lexis, Bristolian indeed has dialectal character. Whether these expressions described by experts are also known and used by Bristolians themselves will be an issue within the fieldwork when asking the folk about their attitudes.

4.3.1.3 Bristolian at the level of grammar Studies from the 1980s onwards have shown that the grammar of regional UK dialects could, due to their high individuality, cause misunderstandings between speakers from two different areas (cf. Beal 2006: 72). Every dialect must be considered to have grammar, the underlying structure of language. Nonetheless, traditionally dialectology took more interest in dialect pronunciation and vocabulary than in grammar (cf. Edwards Viv 1993:214). Of course, as already shown with dialects themselves, all the different dialect ‘grammars’ are all equally correct (cf. Trudgill 1975: 39). But in reality it is still the case that “grammatical forms which are most typical of working-class dialects have low status, because of their association with groups who have low prestige in our society” (Trudgill 1983: 205). As Bristol, due to its urban character, is often associated with a working class population, it could hence be assumed that the Bristolian variety in terms of grammar is associated with little prestige. Cheshire, Edwards and Whittle did a study on dialect grammar with a number of schools mainly in urban areas all over Great Britain. They found that the most widely reported feature in cities was demonstrative them (e.g. such as in ‘Look at them people!’) (cf. 1993: 65f.), a phenomenon also reported for Bristolian and west country dialects (cf. Wagner 2004: 159). Additionally, they argue that there are certain features such as them as demonstrative, absence of plural marking on nouns of measurement, what as relative pronoun, non-standard was, adverbials without the –ly suffix and ain’t/in’t, which are widespread features in all urban centres of Britain (cf. 1993: 75f.). But Cheshire, Edwards 39 and Whittle also came up with features found to be especially typical for urban centres of the South as, for instance, the general use of was as past tense form. Furthermore within the grammar survey in schools, non-standard were could also be found as grammatical indicator typical for the South of England (cf. 1993: 71f.). Double negation (e.g. such as in He didn’t do nothing.) is a dialectal phenomenon found in most English dialects, although described as frequently occurring within the south- western dialects (cf. Wagner 2004: 170; Blaker 1993) in contrast to northern dialects, where it is reported less frequently by the pupils in the above mentioned study (cf. Cheshire, Edwards & Whittle 1993: 76). Double negation can therefore not be described as a typically Bristolian feature as such but can nonetheless be seen as a grammatical dialect indicator for the urban dialect of Bristol. Another very remarkable construction, this is again described as typical for Bristol speech, is the addition of a to to questions build up with where, such as Where’s that to? or Where do you work to? (cf. Brook 1993). Again, when looking at the grammar of Bristol speech, it is quite obvious that most of the features mentioned above are not merely restricted to regional boundaries. Many features of grammar can be found all over Britain, although interestingly, there seems to be a higher frequency of certain grammatical features in urban centres. It can therefore be concluded that at the level of grammar, Bristolian does have typical characteristics of a dialect, in this case especially in terms of social peculiarities, such as the frequent use of double or multi negation which is often reported to be a typical indicator for urban sociolects especially among younger speakers (cf. Cheshire, Edwards and Whittle 1993: 75f.).

4.3.2 Is Bristolian a regional and/or social variety?

In this thesis the basic assumption is that Bristolian is indeed what Trudgill calls a non- standard dialect, which uses grammatical forms that do not equal the standard version of grammar (cf. 1994: 6). Weissmann undertook a quite traditional dialect study in the urban area of Bristol (cf. Wells 1984: 55). Within his phonology analysis he interviewed eight male, mainly young Bristolians (cf. 1970: 154f.). Despite criticising voices like Lesley Milroy speaking of a “static description of some kind of ‘extreme’ phonological system” that is produced by Weissmann by selecting only men as informants in this study (cf.. 1984: 201f), it has to be highlighted that Weissmann also focused clearly on persons whom he considered to have a very strong Bristolian accent and who would be less shy than their female counterparts to use it within an interview situation - a fact which in one of her later works Milroy – although still with a critical tone – mentions as being probably correct (cf. 1990:

40 15). Weissmann’s focus on the traditional, old forms of this urban variety by his selection of informants who, in his opinion, are most likely to produce such forms, as usually not everybody coming from a specific geographical area will use all typical pronunciations (cf. Trudgill 1994: 43), nevertheless shows that Bristolian as specific dialectal variety does exist within the city of Bristol, although his outcomes can only be interpreted to this extent. Fischer uses the method of dialect geography to construct isoglosses within this area, his study being based on previous research findings. Since his primary source is the SED, which left out Bristol as a dialect area completely, Fischer subsequently also does not investigate Bristol speech at all. Also the other towns of the south west region have been neglected completely (cf. 1976: 353). Jonathan Robinson traces this lack of research on Bristol back to the fact that historically the two universities in Bristol did not put their linguistic focus on the topic of dialect research within the area. Furthermore, he argues for the necessity to have more research on the dialect of Bristol (cf. 2010). One must of course highlight that this has changed in recent years and that the University of the West of England does have experts who focus their academic interest on local dialect research (cf. de Leeuw 2009; Coates 2010). Fischer, who has another fascinating explanation for the neglect of Bristolian:

The population pattern of the South-West is clearly the rural- agricultural one, which is only occasionally disturbed by the urban- industrial one of cities like Bristol, Southampton, Plymouth or Exeter. These cities, however, are still small in comparison with the conurbations in other parts of the country and their influence was obviously not so great as to make itself felt in the SED material. (1976: 355)

It is most interesting that the urban centres in the South West, especially the city of Bristol10, were neglected by a major survey like the SED. Shockingly, this was seen as justified by other linguists at least until 1976, which clearly is the major reason why research in the urban area of Bristol is so rare. This quite explicit statement about the cities in the South-West as „disturbers“ of the rural South-Western areas and simultaneously their unimportance compared to other major cities in Great Britain is very interesting as this might also mirror the folk views on these areas in terms of their dialectal background. Fischer, moreover describes the South-West area in terms of its rural character and its remoteness to larger industrial centres such as London, leaving the role of Bristol within the area completely out,

10 Although, as seen above Bristol is indeed the 10th largest city in the UK. 41 coming to the conclusion that this is an old, stable and conservative dialect area, where dialectal characteristics have survived especially well (cf. ibid. 359f.). Research has blinded out urban areas of the South-West, acting as if there were no existing reasons to investigate the urban dialects of these towns and cities. The South-West of the UK is described as a “homogenous dialect area” (cf. ibid. 322) which cannot even be considered true, even if there were no cities at all. Out of these scientific views of a coherent dialect continuum it seems quite natural that there might be the folk opinion still held by a majority of people that Bristol is actually no dialect area of its own within its urban boundaries, but merely the same as the speech which surrounds it. In their summary of investigations on urban British dialects done by various researchers, Gramley and Pätzold refer to ten general conclusions that can be made regarding urban dialects. The first four seem of special interest for this investigation on perception of Bristolian dialect, as they might be shared or dismissed by the folk:

1. Urban accents are related to the pronunciations of the regions in which they are situated, sometimes with a high degree of koineization. 2. There are relatively few local lexical items. 3. Non-standard grammatical features are often sheared over a wide geographic range (nationally or even internationally). 4. Phonetic features are most suited as social indicators (class, gender, age). (1992: 328)

As described by language experts Bristolian is not only a geographical variety but also a social one as it is connected to certain social factors (cf. Barnickel 1982a: 179) such as for example the use of certain lexical dialectal items depending on the age of speakers or their social background influencing the probability of their use of postvocalic /r/.

4.3.3 Conclusion regarding the linguistic view of Bristolian

Based on a literature analysis of many relevant dialect researchers and their work, Bristolian can indeed be regarded as a regional as well as a social dialect. Bristolian has the properties of a dialect in grammar, lexis and pronunciation. As some of the dialect peculiarities are obviously restricted to at least the greater area of the city of Bristol it is highly probable that there is something like – in some ways – a geographically restricted urban dialect of Bristol. Furthermore, linguists indicate that there are also, as common for urban centres, social factors that are connected with Bristolian speech.

42 But one must not forget to bear in mind that this is only the linguistic view on this socio- dialectal phenomenon based solely on an analysis of the most prominent works on dialect research in the British Isles. In a next step it will be interesting to have a look at the folk view on Bristolian and compare the overall professional perspective on this urban variety to the probably quite different view of lay people.

4.4 Hypotheses on Bristolian folk language identity

As we have seen, the starting point for dialectologists is that at a linguistic level all dialects are equal (cf. Trudgill 1994: 2). So, one can assume that for language professionals dialects are the subjects of an objective research and they are therefore bound to have a neutral opinion towards different dialects. Presumably, the folk know a lot about language as they use it every day and additionally might also think or talk about language on a metalinguistic level. Nevertheless, they most likely hardly ever think about it in a neutral, scientific way as linguists are expected to do – and of course, people living in the city of Bristol are no exception to these characteristics. Although Trudgill describes the folk themselves, who have grown up in England and are familiar with the fact that different dialects exist, as very good dialectologists as well (cf. Trudgill 1994:2f.), it can be assumed that the folk have a far more biased view on dialects than this is the case with scientists working in this field. Additionally, language use is never something abstract theoretical and predictable like many linguists like to portray it, when those in theoretical linguistics put it on a very abstract level of signs, rules, grammar etc. When it comes to language use – and consequently the involvement of people – there is also the level of the individual, emotional, not always predictable. And this emotional level is especially high when it comes to the metalingusitic level of talking about language and dialect, especially when this concerns one’s own linguistic variety. It is a fact that the folk definitely have specific attitudes about their own and other languages and dialects (cf. Day 1982: 116). Niedzielski and Preston argue that the folk often come to similar conclusions as professionals when talking about language (cf. 2003: 279). There still seems high potential for contradiction between these two groups which is described by them as a “considerable difference in the basic, underlying philosophical definitions of language itself by the folk and linguists” (ibid. 22). This difference is also described by Milroy and Milroy, who highlight that expressed language attitudes by the folk are usually prescriptive whereas linguists generally view their academic discipline as a descriptive one, where there is no place for value judgements (cf. 1995: 11).

43 Although Bourchard Ryen, Giles and Sebastian refer to standardisation of distinct languages (rather than national varieties of the same language) as a major influence factor of people’s language opinions (cf. 1982: 3f.), one can assume that standardisation also has an influence on people’s attitudes on other non-standard dialects of the same language, as already discussed above. As I have shown that based on linguistic descriptions Bristolian can be regarded as a social as well as a regional variant of English (cf. chapter 4.3.2), this leads to the assumption that whatever people’s opinion about Bristolian might be, it has also been influenced by Standard English. A lot of evidence exists that the folk operate with a concept of a correct or standard form (cf. Milroy L. 2000: 75) and it is therefore necessary to bear this fact in mind when investigating folk attitude on a specific variety such as Bristolian. Nearly everybody has a preference for one or the other variety. This is not aesthetically based but in fact socially (cf. Trudgill 1975: 36) and lay people have always made value judgement about specific words, grammatical phenomena and ways of pronunciation (cf. Milroy & Milroy1995: 12). Therefore, in the context of an online questionnaire asking questions about the personal opinion on Bristolian dialect, attitudes of different kinds will be expressed. Furthermore, Milroy and Milroy assume that there is a ‘yawning gap’ between professional (i.e. linguistic) and lay opinions on language (cf. 1995: 13). Due to the readiness to make value judgements and the fact that the folk have a specific concept of one ‘correct’ form in mind, it is highly likely that the assessment of ordinary people will differ significantly from the one of linguists. This is also due to the fact that in general language politics and with it the press, TV and in a more local sense identity forming initiatives such as regional dialect dictionaries or Lucy Wheeler’s T-shirt company do indeed influence peoples’ opinions on Bristolian speech. Although maybe supra-regional press article headings like “Few find the West Country twang seductive. Region’s accent ‘lacks sex appeal’” referring to a survey where people voted the sexiest accent in Britain (cf. Snook 2003, Feb. 11) are mildly smiled at, others – although on the same level of plausibility - evoke highly emotional reactions by the public. So is the case with the article “Our Dad is proud of Bristle’s twang” from the year 1989, which parodies Bristol speech (cf. Trewella 1989, Jan. 20). Readers reacted with highly emotional and polarising letters to the paper stating their attitudes towards Bristolian. Also an article called “Bristle dialect is, like, diluting” which describes the danger of Bristolian dialect to slowly changing and dying out (Allen 2004, Sept. 2) might provoke strong emotions and attitudes within people. Furthermore, TV characters such as Vicky Pollard11 in

11 See http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/littlebritain/characters/vicky.shtml 44 Little Britain or Gareth Keenan12 from The Office, both speaking Bristolian, trigger the national folk view on Bristolian language. But also more localised statements on Bristol speech seem to be quite well known among the Bristolian population. Lucy Wheeler’s T-shirt company, which on its homepage includes audio examples of Bristol speech and explanations for certain expressions (cf. http://www.beast-clothing.com/school.php) or “A Dictionary of Bristle” (Stroke & Green 2005)13 are local identity markers one can find being present in many parts of the city and widely known among the population. Other lay linguistic references, which can, despite their non-academic background be quite helpful, include an online urban dictionary (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=gert%20lush). These seem important as for lay people it is often difficult to distinguish between such foremost lay linguistic and truly academic approaches. Very thought-provoking in this context is Richard Coates’ collection of sources including not only an impressive amount of bibliographical data about academic literature on the dialect of Bristol and its surrounding areas but also a massive number of bibliographical sources of humorous and literary works on those (cf. Coates 2010). Summarising, one can observe awareness among the public regarding Bristolian. Not only locally but also nationwide Bristolian speech seems to be known. It can therefore be hypothesised that a local Bristolian identity exists and that not only linguists can describe the forms and facts of Bristol speech but also the folk are highly aware of linguistic features of this variety.

4.5 The fieldwork on Bristolian

4.5.1 Method and data

The initial aim was to do a folk linguistic based study as defined by Preston. Within the process it however proved that Preston’s underlying techniques of how to gain relevant data for a folk linguistic study are difficult to accomplish. In their folk linguistic study Niedzielski and Preston had quite a number of different native and non-native field workers, all interviews were highly diverse and they possessed much more resources in terms of researchers and time (cf. 2003). Since it seemed extremely challenging to achieve similar results with a limited scope of resources the methodical focus for this thesis was put on a folk linguistic perspective with a huge influence on language attitude research in terms of a direct

12 http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/theoffice/characters/profile_gareth.shtml 13 A review of this book together with some comments of users regarding Bristolian language can be found online at the BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/bristol/content/articles/2005/10/25/newdictionary_feature.shtml 45 approach. In 2006 Christopher Montgomery did a similar folk linguistic study as Niedzielski and Preston did in the US in 2003 in Great Britain focusing very much on a geographical/topographical approach (cf. Montgomery 2006). His study concerned the north/south dialect division of Great Britain and for the folk linguistic approach towards this issue he used a mapping process. My Bristol fieldwork consists of a pilot run in February 2010, in which ten interviews with people on the streets were held. After this, the investigation method was, due to various reasons described below, changed in its basic approach and six expert interviews as well as an online questionnaire for people living in the city of Bristol were performed in May and June 2010. In the next three chapters these three basic parts of the fieldwork in Bristol will be described in more detail.

4.5.1.1 The pilot run After having achieved a pilot run, which consisted of ten face-to-face recorded interviews on the streets of Bristol in February 2010, it became clear that for the main run of the data collection this method proved to be inappropriate for various reasons. First, it is a difficult task to actually find people in the streets who are willing and interested in spending ten minutes for an interview about Bristol speech. Thus, one obvious advantage of questionnaires over face-to-face interviews in this context is surely that data can be collected from a large number of participants in less time (cf. Garrett, Coupland & Williams 2003: 33f.). Second, the test run showed that people would rather give modified answers when directly asked about their opinion, not wanting to directly reveal their personal thoughts and attitudes. This is described as the social-desirability bias or later on also as anonymity, a term that describes people’s tendency to give ‘socially appropriate answers’. In interviews this tendency seems to be of greater significance than in surveys without direct interaction between the interviewer and the respondent. (cf. Ibid. 28ff.). Third, the quantitative comparability of the face-to-face interviews would have been enormously difficult. Since each interview (as can be also seen with the experts face-to-face interviews) is highly individual and result comparison, a major goal, was not without considerable complication, with elaborate answers to qualitative questions inevitably leading to very diverse follow up questions. The advantage of the online questionnaire is therefore the possibility for more quantitative questions and consequently higher comparability of the answers, a positive effect that cannot be denied (cf. Niedzielski & Preston 2003: 324). But this of course is an ambiguous effect as it is also the main disadvantage of the online questionnaire over the face-to-face interviews, as within the online 46 procedure it is not possible to react spontaneously with follow up questions on interesting answers made by the interviewees (cf. e.g. Garrett, Coupland & Williams 2003: 35). Due to the problems that occurred during the pilot phase of this thesis, an online survey – i.e. a very structured interview, not necessarily on the basis of face-to-face contacts (cf. Garret, Coupland & Williams 2003: 26) - for the final investigation of the folk’s attitudes towards Bristolian speech was chosen as a research tool. Furthermore, a few other reasons might be mentioned in this context, as they seemed relevant for the choice of this specific method. When doing personal interviews, another aspect that needs to be taken into account: “public attitudes as they are openly expressed may not always be identical with the views that people hold privately” (Milroy & Milroy 1995: 11). During the pilot run it turned out that public places are not ideal to take quite elaborate interviews as people seemed rather shy to express their opinions openly. Although within an online questionnaire, of course, this matter cannot entirely be excluded, this approach is much more anonymous and therefore, one might suggest that this aspect about people not sharing their actual attitudes becomes less prevalent within this investigation by doing it online rather than face-to-face as attempted during the pilot run. Moreover, the interviewer is always a source of influence, when doing face-to-face interviews (cf. Giles & Bouchard Ryan 1982: 218). This factor does, if at all, only occur minimally in terms of linguistic suggestive language or implicit preoccupations of the interviewer, as people have the possibility to fill in the online questionnaire, whenever they feel like it, with absolute anonymity. Thus, out of the above mentioned reasons, the method of an online based questionnaire was chosen for the main data collection, as this could prevent at least the majority of the above mentioned difficulties. It has to, of course, be highlighted that an online questionnaire always includes the risk that the sampling is not easily controllable. Nevertheless, the sample of the participants within the Bristol questionnaire proved quite colourful and balanced, which will be described in more detail within the next chapter.

4.5.1.2 The online questionnaire The online questionnaire consists of thirty questions in total, although some of them were follow up-questions, meaning that each participant filled in a different number of qualitative and quantitative questions, depending on his/her individual answers14. It has to be emphasised that all qualitative questions were voluntary, whereas the quantitative ones were

14 The whole questionnaire can be found in the appendix. 47 obligatory for all participants. This free choice to answer certain open questions was given as not everyone might have an elaborate attitude on certain questions or does not wish to provide one and the goal was not to alienate the participants and to put them off from finishing the questionnaire. The survey was designed in order to achieve two possible types of analysis: a qualitative and a quantitative representation of attitudes of the participants. For this purpose the questions within the survey were of combined, open-ended and close-ended items. As both methods have their advantages and disadvantages, a combination of these methods seemed adequate. This opened the possibility of achieving comparability by relatively few time consuming closed questions with multiple choice answers as well as spontaneous associations and elaborations of the participants by providing space for deeper insights into the respondent’s thoughts by open-ended items (cf. Garrett, Coupland & Williams 2003: 36f.). The survey was partly based on an existing questionnaire designed by Tim Shortis for his long-term students’ project, where a huge number of Bristolians were interviewed by his students from Bristol for their linguistics course (cf. Shortis 1995). This project from the 1990s will be reported in detail in a forthcoming conference paper in 2011 (cf. Shortis, Blake & Liponen 2011). In the end, 52 participants successfully completed the questionnaire in the period between May and July 2010. The sample of people participating within the Bristol study was quite representative, all age groups (from the youngest group of participants - 10 to 20 - to the oldest - 61 to 70) were present, the ratio between female and male participants was 57,69: 42,31 per cent; participants were from all over Bristol (13 different post codes were specified as living area by the interviewees) and had been living in Bristol between one and 67 years. It has to be highlighted that all the participants can be considered as experts (cf. Froschauer & Lueger 2003: 36) in describing their personal views and attitudes as they have all experiences and opinions on Bristolian being either users of the variety themselves or having at least some personal experiences with it. Nevertheless, in order to not confuse these experts with the small number of experts interviewed in face-to-face interviews they will be further on referred to as folk or lay linguists.

4.5.1.3 The expert interviews In May 2010 six interviews with different people, who are considered to be experts on the topic of Bristolian were held. Although, in the field of linguistics the status of language experts is often difficult to define as many people consider themselves as such being able to talk about linguistic topics (cf. Davis & Langer 2006: 44), experts as opposed to the folk within the context of this thesis will be those people who were demonstrably and intensively 48 occupied with Bristolian language or Bristolian identity. The interviewed experts on Bristol speech are listed in the order of the interviews accompanied with a short description of their connection to the topic of Bristol speech. The transcript of the recordings can be found in the appendix. Lucy Wheeler is the founder and owner of “BEAST” (also available online: http://www.beast-clothing.com/), the successful and widely known T-shirt company producing T-shirts and other items with Bristolian expressions on them. She was born in Bristol and still lives there. Esther de Leeuw is a visiting lecturer in linguistics at the University of the West of England in Bristol. She completed her Ph.D. in speech and hearing sciences in 2009. During one of her courses she, in cooperation with her students, examined Bristolian /r/ in relation to Labov's study of postvocalic /r/ in New York City. Jonathan Robinson: is the leading expert on UK accents and dialects in the British Library in London and is also one of the initiators of the famous “Sounds Familiar” Website of the British Library (http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/sounds/index.html). Phil Gibbons: is the station manager of BCFM, Bristol’s first community radio, a radio station with presenters from all over the city of Bristol, broadcasting since May 2007 with and for the people of Bristol. Tim Shortis: is a lecturer at the King’s College in London, member of various linguistic committees, the author of various articles in newspapers and magazines about Bristolian speech, who has, among other research efforts on Bristol dialect, completed a huge linguistic and attitude survey together with his students at St Brendan's Sixth Form College during the major part of the 1990s (cf. Shortis 2005). Chas Baker: is a linguist and teacher of GCSE and A-level English at the city of Bristol community college. During his work with his students he also focused on language variety research and on Bristol speech specifically.

With the exception of Phil Gibbons and Lucy Wheeler, who can be seen as informants mainly in the area of cultural and social identity of the city of Bristol, all these experts have their occupational focus in some way on an aspect of professional linguistics. Each of the experts works in a quite different professional field and therefore has a distinctive view on the phenomenon Bristolian, which makes the interviews wide-ranging in their perspectives. Due to this fact, the qualitative, semi-structured interviews were constructed quite differently from each other as each of them had a different angle on Bristolian and revealed issues of

49 language and identity from one very specific expert point of view. Furthermore, the interviews were built up in a way that allowed the interviewer to follow certain topics or answers made by the experts, precise guidelines were avoided, as suggested by Froschauer and Lueger, the interviewed experts were given the opportunity to structure the interviews by their answers themselves (cf. 2003: 33f.). Additionally, as Häder suggests, a relatively neutral strategy for the interviews was chosen. Norms of communication (e.g. “mhm”s, laughing when something is entertaining) were kept, comments were to a large extent avoided (cf. 2006: 188).

4.5.2 Outcomes of the fieldwork on Bristol speech

As there are so many aspects interesting for an investigation regarding language attitudes towards Bristolian, some emphasis and priorities need to be made. One of the first questions within the online questionnaire “When you hear ‘Bristolian’ what springs to your mind?” was intended to provide a first impression of people’s associations and opinions about the city of Bristol, connotations with this area and maybe also about the language spoken there. The term ‘Bristolian’ is quite open for various interpretations of the questions, which is also reflected by the answers the participants gave. The answers are very heterogeneous, some being quite short associations e.g. of famous persons connected to Bristol, some quite elaborate descriptions about thoughts, feelings, attitudes and associations with ‘Bristolian’. Only 2 of the 52 participants did not provide any answer to this question. The answers in itself are quite diverse, each of them being extremely interesting in terms of culture and Bristolian identity, quite easily being grouped into four rough overall categories. Based upon this first open question of the Bristol online survey “When you hear ‘Bristolian’ what springs to your mind?” the following categories of answers could be established:

a. Language or language items b. Associations with people living there and/or speaking this variety c. Rural associations d. Cultural and personal associations

Based on these five categories four interesting fields of investigation regarding the fieldwork on Bristolian can be outlined. In addition to the answers of the Bristol online questionnaire,

50 the answers by the experts on Bristolian collected within the face-to-face interviews will be included in the description of the outcomes.

A. Bristolian speech – what it is, how it sounds and how it is liked Having already considered the professional linguists’ view on what constitutes Bristolian as a variety of English, it seems highly relevant to also have a look at what the folk think about Bristol speech in terms of linguistic judgements. Furthermore, as the positive or negative evaluation of specific English varieties is often discussed in literature regarding language attitude research, this point will also be looked at closer in the context of the urban Bristolian variety.

B. The self and the other – the “outsider’s” and “insider’s” perspective Giles and Bouchard Ryan point out that little attention has been paid to the question of whether people are themselves speakers of the variety they are talking about or not (cf. 1982: 212f.). A focus will therefore be put on the question whether there is a difference between the insiders’ and the outsiders’ perspective on Bristolian.

C. The working urban class vs. the farming people The next emphasis will be put on the question whether it true that Bristolian, being a variety spoken in a large city, is stigmatised. As “in Britain, speakers of stigmatised urban dialects constitute the lowest layer of all” (Milroy L. 2000: 183) it could be assumed that Bristol, being an urban centre in the UK is home to one of these stigmatised dialects.

D. The typical Bristolian speaker and Bristol identity Last but not least there will also be an emphasis on the question whether the folk share views in terms of who is likely to be a typical speaker of Bristolian and if there exists such a stereotypical Bristol speaker at all. Is it older speakers who are associated with Bristol or is the typical speaker a young, educated woman? Furthermore stereotypes and association with speakers of Bristolian will be analysed.

4.5.2.1 Bristolian speech – what it is, how it sounds and how it is liked What Bristol speech is characterised by was already outlined from a linguistic perspective above. Within the internet survey already the first question regarding the connotations with Bristolian is an enriching source for vocabulary on what the folk think the language of Bristol 51 is. Although the question in no way suggested any association with the linguistic component of this phenomenon, a large number of participants commented on this issue. There were some spontaneous comments about lexical items, pronunciation and typical Bristolian ways of speaking such as:

"My love", calling objects he and she like the plumber and pipes e.g. she'll go round the bend, having "see" at the end of a sentence, having " ol" at then end of a word that shouldn't have it (wasn't Bristol Brigstow?), putting l's in the middle such as "drawlings", fascinating to listen to, impossible to sound "hard", friendly accent not harsh like Glaswegian, going "up" at the end of sentences (before it became generally popular with teenagers in which case it doesn't sound as appealing).

"alright my lover?" "cheers babs!" "where's that to then?" words ending in r, long "farmer-style" drawl at the end

Gurt, a word used originally by people with strong Bristolian accent, usually from a working class background. Word is also used to describe people who speak like this sometimes.

the questioning lilt at the end of the sentence (cf. 2010)

These cited examples from various participants of the Bristol online questionnaire show that the folk do indeed have quite a vivid and concrete picture of what constitutes Bristolian speech and language, also in terms of diverse linguistic descriptors. Moreover the lay linguistic answers highlight the initial assumption that there actually is something in the minds of the people that is called ‘Bristolian’ with cultural, personal but also language associations. Furthermore, when asked if Bristol speech is used by many people, the answer of the folk within the survey was quite clear, as the following pie chart in figure 3 shows.

52

Figure 3 “Do you think many people speak Bristolian?”

Later in the survey Tim Shortis’ specific method of asking whether people have heard or used certain Bristolian expressions was used (cf. 1995). As not only speakers of Bristolian were filling in the questionnaire, the results unfortunately cannot be interpreted in the quite fascinating way Tim Shortis describes within the interview situation (i.e. high recognition and high use - it’s intact; low recognition, low use - it’s not there, it’s either dying out or it’s marginal and high heard, low use - possible stigmatisation). He also outlines that within his experience Bristolian features are quite highly stigmatised in some context as for example the often very fussed about Bristol L, especially used in the form of ideal, areal and humoural as he points out. This certain existing stigmatisation of the language of Bristol people he traces back to some facts which he also outlined within a radio show in which he contributed his expertise to this topic

And I remember on that radio programme I talked about how parts of Bristol university, BBC and so on were like colonised by this highly mobile, highly, well privileged often middle-class group who were then very dismissive of the Bristol people […] but it is more complicated than that, I think, there are plenty of Bristolian people […] who really had the problem of the Bristol accent in their own childhood and the kind of discrimination they’d experienced, you know, people, I can remember good friends who were being sent to private school primarily to get rid of their accent or to…And I think it’s probably…, well the way I understand it is that it may be around particularly the rhotic “r” and the connotations of rural stupidity. (2010)

53 Unfortunately such an evaluation as done by Tim Shortis with his students from St. Brandan was not possible within the scope of this thesis. Within the present survey the answers of the interviewed folk however demonstrate quite neatly whether some selected expressions of Bristolian can be heard within the city and to which extent some of them are even in use.

Expressions heard and used heard neither heard nor used Gurt Lush 40,2% 46,2% 13,5% Where's that to? 42,3% 44,2% 13,5% How bist? 3,8% 46,2% 50% I didn't do nothing 21,2% 76,9% 1,9% Slider 17,3% 17,3% 65,4% Keener 40,4% 30,8% 28,8% Emphasis of R 23,1% 76,9% 0% Bristol L 17,3% 61,5% 21,2% Silent initial H 38,5% 61,6% 0%

Table 1 “Have you ever heard these expressions?”

Table 1 very neatly indicates that most of the exemplary selected expressions and features of pronunciation have at least been heard by the majority of the participants. As this question was not only addressed to speakers of Bristolian and some features (i.e. emphasis of R, silent initial H or I didn’t do nothing) must be regarded as supralocal non-standard features rather than locally restricted ones, no conclusions whatsoever can be made whether these are solely Bristol speech features or whether they can also be found in other non-standard varieties of English. It nevertheless shows that certain dialectal expression in the context of the city of Bristol are indeed widely known and even quite broadly used, as for examples the first two expressions (Gurt Lush, Where’s that to?) which were within the academic discourse indeed described as quite typical for the urban Bristolian area. This, as well as the open answers described above, indicate that the folk do indeed have a quite clear conception of Bristolian features. Surprisingly, during the expert interviews, when directly inquired, linguists tend to be quite careful regarding their definition of Bristolian as a dialect. Jonathan Robinson, for instance, when asked whether he would regard Bristolian to be an accent or a dialect points out:

Very, very difficult to define. I mean, it is certainly instantly recognisable as a regional variety. There are, at the very broad end of Bristol speech, there are some features that I would argue I would identify speakers as dialect speakers. So, certain grammatical features, certain archaic historic forms that only exist in Bristol. So,

54 for instance, the very famous ‘Bristol L’ is peculiar to the city itself. There are older speakers who retain the Old English ‘hin’ or ‘un’ form of ‘him’ etc. etc. So they are, I would argue, at the dialect end of speech. But there are probably few and far between. But certainly in terms of accents, it is instantly recognisable […]But in terms of history it is, I would say, purely an accent. There is nothing about its vocabulary and his grammar that is necessarily different from many, many forms of non-standard English, if you like. So, it’s difficult to say. Unlike maybe, something like Geordie, so the speech of Newcastle upon Tyne, where there are large numbers of speakers who you could identify as using dialect features, I would say that Bristol has a small numbers of speakers who are dialect speakers (2010)

Interestingly, Jonathan Robinson argues that there are dialect speakers of Bristolian but he also refers to Bristolian being an accent with other speakers, referring to the lack of typical grammatical and lexical features in some cases. This is a quite surprising perspective as usually one would try to define a specific variety probably as the one or the other. There seems no doubt about a typically Bristolian pronunciation, regarding grammatical dialect features there seem to be some, although rightly they might not be unique in their restricted use in Bristol. In terms of vocabulary on the other hand, there seem to be quite a few typically Bristolian expressions, at least as observed by other linguists and also mentioned within the online questionnaire. That some speakers use all of these phenomena and some only have a typically Bristolian accent is a quite innovative and highly interesting thought and Bristolian could therefore be an accent as well as a dialect, depending on the use of features by the individual speakers. After having determined that the folk indeed have quite a few linguistic items in mind when thinking and expressing attitudes about Bristolian, the next issue would be the question whether this language variety is perceived in a biased way by the population of the urban centre. As to the liking of Bristolian from a lay linguistic perspective, the participants were directly asked in terms of an open ended question (“Do you like the way Bristolian accent/dialect sounds?”). The distribution of the answers is being shown in figure 5 in terms of a pie chart:

55

Figure 4 “Do you like the way the Bristolian accent/dialect sounds?”

Within the Bristol online survey, the majority of participants claimed to like or at least quite like Bristol speech (more than 65 percent). Only about 30 percent do not like this variety very much and only less than 4 percent of participants say that they do not like it at all. This is quite surprising as linguists usually claim a dominant preference for standard varieties and very limited acceptance of non-standard dialects (cf. e.g. Niedzielski & Preston 2003: 157). Furthermore, as Jonathan Robinson points out, many popular surveys around the nation tend to show that certain urban varieties, among them often Bristol, seem to be not very well perceived by the public, a tendency which he traces back to the lack of “quite cool, young people identified with that accent in the same way as the Beatles did in the 60s with Liverpool” (cf. 2010) A possible explanation for this outcome could be what a lot of language professionals have been claiming over the past decades: there seems to be an increasing tolerance of non- standard accents (cf. e.g. Trudgill 1983: 198). When Bristolian is perceived rather as accent than as dialect as such, and there seems to be at least some indication that the role of an accent is predominant in this case (cf. e.g. Robinson 2010 above), this quite favourable evaluation of Bristolian could be explained. To gain more insight as to the reasons for liking or disliking Bristol speech, the participants of the online survey were asked the follow up question, what in particular they like (or don’t like) about Bristolian as it seems important what people (relatively) spontaneously connote with Bristol speech. The participants’ answers regarding the negative

56 evaluation15 of Bristolian focused mainly on the “harsh, grating sound”, the “emphasis on 'errrr' or 'rrr' sounds”, the difficulty to understand it and that “it sounds stupid”. The positive answers were more heterogeneous, although generally focusing on the personal associations with the sound of the language (“friendly”, “honest”, “warm”, “funny”, “homely”), positive associations with it (“Reminds me of Bristol”, “home”, “rural connotations”, “Many of my friends had it so I've grown up hearing it all around me.”, “it is a marker of the Bristol people and its sense of history and identity”) and some more linguistically based reasons (“grammar”, “the added L and pronounced R, it's fairly unique”, “Glottal stops, the word "gert", the rounded"o" (go/snow)sound”, “the rrrolling rrrrs”, “sayings such as, "cheers babs", when getting off a bus, "cheers drive" and adjective "lush"). A number of quite linguistically based answers were given which again is an indicator for the argument that many participants are actually aware of quite a few features that constitute the Bristolian dialect. Furthermore, all these associations regarding Bristol and also the connotations with the sound of the language clearly demonstrate that people do indeed have strong emotions and even clear painted images when thinking about a certain language variety. As often described in theory, they immediately associate images and feelings with a specific language variety, in this case, Bristolian.

4.5.2.2 The self and the other – the “outsider’s” and “insider’s” perspective One of the first online questions in this context concerned the self-assessment of the participant’s own accents. On the basis of this data it can be shown whether participants see themselves as ‘ingroup’ (i.e. speakers of Bristolian) or ‘outgroup’ (i.e. non-speakers of Bristolian). As figure 5 shows, 21,15 percent of the participants evaluated themselves as speakers of Bristolian, 26,92 percent Figure 5 Accents/Dialects of described to have other English accents/dialects, the participants majority of 32,69 percent claimed to be speakers of RP and nearly 20 percent declared to

15 These statements are quite common citicism, although maybe paradox as pointed out by Halliday in the following way: “though it is the rural dialects which provide the only instances of pairs of mutually unintelligible varieties remaining in England, it is often on grounds of incomprehensibility that criticism is directed at the urban dialects […] A second accusation has been brought against the urban dialects that is somewhat different from that of slovenliness, in either its moral or its utilitarian form. This is an aesthetic criticism. The dialects are labelled ‘harsh’, ‘grating’, ‘guttural’ […] or simply ugly” (1968: 163f.). 57 have no accent at all. Although this self-assessment might not be true as many people misinterpret their own accent, and this seems evident as 19,23 percent of the interviewed folk linguists declared that they do not have any accent at all, it could nevertheless be seen as one clue – next to the years having lived in this area (although this might not mean anything in terms of accent or dialect in Great Britain) – of how different outsiders and insiders think about a certain dialectal phenomenon such as Bristolian. As in Great Britain it is usually RP speakers who are described by others and also describe themselves as “having no accent” (cf. Milory L. 2000: 174) they will be regarded as non-speakers of Bristolian as it seems little likely that if they actually had any other regional or social accent than RP or near RP they’d probably be aware of this just as everyone else is. John Edwards describes a “general tendency of non-standard speakers to accept the larger, and negative, stereotypes of their speech styles. The feeling that one’s own speech is not ‘good’ is a common phenomenon, for the reasons of status and prestige already mentioned” (1979: 87). Harsh and strong stereotypes which often end in personal attacks are the main reason for this tendency (cf. Trudgill 1983: 199) and urban dialects studies “have shown that most speakers are prepared to praise prestige varieties as ‘pleasant’, as well as, often, to denigrate their own speech as ‘ugly’” (ibid. 212; Barnickel 1982: 230). Beal even goes one step further by suggesting that, at large, “speakers evaluate their own accent in the same way as ‘outsiders’ do” (2000: 33f.). This argument is based on the assumption that many speakers of Standard English [or at least RP, as according to Trudgill only 3 percent of the population are speakers of SE] have an antipathy towards local dialects and their speakers (cf. Brook 1963: 25). Based on these arguments it can be hypothesised that participants of the Bristol survey who rated themselves as being speakers of Bristolian have little self-esteem regarding their language, a view that will be affirmed by the ‘outsider’ group. In terms of a direct approach this question was raised to the participants in order to gain a picture of how the ‘insider’ vs. the ‘outsider’ group feels about Bristolian, the outcomes of these two closed-ended questions being summarised in figure 6 in the form of two circle diagrams. The relation between participants claiming to be speakers of Bristolian and those, claiming to be speakers of other accents or no accents at all is unfortunately not at a ratio of 1:1 (11 speakers of Bristolian, 41 non-Bristolian speakers). It is most interesting to have a look at the self-perception of Bristolian speakers in contrast to the perception of the external observer (i.e. persons living in Bristol, speaking another accent/dialect).

58 Liking of Bristolian according to own accent

Participants with Bristolian Participants with no Bristolian accent/dialect accent/dialect

Figure 6 Liking of Bristolian according to own accent

Interestingly, one can immediately see that the positive assessment of Bristolian accent/dialect differs significantly when asking these two different groups of Bristol inhabitants. Speakers of Bristolian within this survey obviously dislike their way of speaking much more than it is perceived from an outside (i.e. non-Bristolian speaker’s) point of view. Although there are some speakers of Bristolian within this survey who like their way of speaking very much, the number of people who do not like it is significantly higher. Interestingly, nobody in this group declares a complete disliking for their own accent/dialect. It is nevertheless quite obvious that there seems little self-esteem among the participants who claimed to be speakers of the discussed variety, a phenomenon which Halliday describes as rather harmful as feeling ashamed of ones own language is a “basic injury as a human being” (1968: 165). However, there seems to be a certain tendency for more pride regarding their own dialect among speakers of Bristolian. This is especially vividly pointed out by Lucy Wheeler, who experiences people’s reaction towards Bristolian language every day. She talks about very positive reactions towards the Bristol expressions on the T-shirts and other items, not only of non-Bristolians but especially of those who might have tended to be slightly ashamed of their language in the past (cf. 2010). The fact that the celebration of Bristolian language with these T-shirts is a huge success among the population of Bristol is (also for Esther de Leeuw) an indicator that Bristol speech is not as stigmatised as one might expect. And she

59 even talks about the pride of Bristol speakers regarding their own language in more detail, besides referring to the possibility that many dialect speakers probably do not even think about their own language. She believes in a certain pride, mainly depending on the degree of the accent/dialect:

[…] people from Bristol, I think, are a little bit proud of it, yea, if they are aware of it. Like, some people would not even be aware of it, that they have it. But, yea I think, some people are proud of it, definitely. I think it also kind of depends on the degree. Like if it’s really, really strong, like, you know, in Bristolian accent, then other people would maybe think of it a little bit much, but if it’s a little tinge of the Bristolian “r”, and people add words now too, you know, like ‘Alright, Me Luvver’. People would say that when they’re talking and even if you’re not from Bristol, people would say it, like ‘Choote Me’. (2010)

Furthermore, also the dialect expert Jonathan Robinson refers to a “returning sense of pride in […] local spoken identity”, especially among younger speakers in the past 30 years, which, according to him, also leads to a change in attitude in terms of people being more open minded towards language diversity (cf. 2010). This slight shift towards more tolerance for other non-standard varieties is also described as having been observable among the outsiders’ view on Bristol population by Tim Shortis, who traces back Bristol’s rise in social prestige to reasons such as the huge M4 motorway and the expansion of the universities within the city (cf. 2010). This tendency for new pride among non-standard speakers is already described in linguistic literature by John Edwards in the late 1970s (cf. 1979: 97). It could be assumed that there might also be a tendency for a certain hidden pride, that people, when directly asked might not easily admit. They might rate their own variety less favourably than they actually feel about it, because they feel that they should be ashamed about their variety as laymen have been persuaded and they still believe that there is one ‘correct’ form of language that is more pleasant than their own way of speaking (cf. Trudgill 1983: 162). Such a ‘schizophrenic’ tendency about ones own language is also described by Niedzielski and Preston (cf. 2003: 162). The outgroup on the other hand, does include participants who do not like Bristolian at all. Still, the general liking of the Bristolian variety is significantly higher than the ingroup’s. This is surprising as the self-perception does not seem to coincide with the perception from outside. A very nice statement, showing clearly this outside perspective on Bristol speech, is made by one of the participants in the open question why he/she likes Bristolian. 60

I think Bristol can sound a little strange, almost funny, to an outsider. I would associate this dialect with the working class and people who have lived in Bristol all of their life. Bristolian also reminds me of other southern dialects, such as Cornish (2010)

Furthermore, the ingroup rated their own speech significantly more negatively than the ‘outgroup’ which seems paradoxical at first, as one wonders why this can be. Niedzielski and Preston describe that “in previous research, however, nonstandard [!] speakers have provided the harshest ratings of nonstandard [!] performances (e.g. Labov 1966)” (2003: 66). This shows that this phenomenon of rating non-standard varieties as less appealing, even if (or precisely because) it is one’s own speech that is judged negatively, is already known in research. Although one must not forget in terms of overt vs. covert prestige that due to the assumption that Bristolian speakers are aware of the generally higher prestige of standard dialects, they overtly dismiss their own way of speaking but on the other hand, when performing (i.e. in terms of covert prestige) their dialect is not necessarily immediately dismissed as negative as it is a way to identify with ones own local community. This is a phenomenon generally known among dialect speakers (cf. Hansen, Carls & Lucko 1996: 20f.) and especially noticeable among young adolescents who want to show their membership to a certain peer group, often by using local or social varieties (cf. Cheshire & Milroy 1993: 20f.). Although this, at least within this thesis, will not be proved, the statistics, although of course from only of a small sample of speakers, show that there seems to be a tendency for speakers of Bristolian to rate their own speech more harshly than speakers of other varieties do. This might also be connected with the experiences of people who speak Bristolian. When asked, “Have you ever been discriminated against because of your accent?” more than 36 percent of speakers who claimed to have a Bristolian accent answered with yes16. The situations in which they were discriminated against range from school through people ridiculing or copying the accent to more serious discriminations. One participant even mentioned, that he/she has been discriminated against by not being promoted because of speaking Bristolian. This is of course a very negative experience, which has also been described in literature (see above) as being one danger of the downgrading of regional varieties.

16 It has to be highlighted that of course also participants who claimed to have another accent than Bristolian or are even speakers of RP did experience predjudice against their variety. As in this context the self-perception of Bristolian is the focus of analysis these are not further analysed. 61 Moreover, Tim Shortis, having been a teacher for a long period of time describes that within his focus on Bristol dialect as a wrongly stigmatised variety within his English language classes “the students who’ve been sort of looked down upon for being dialect speakers and also maybe looked down upon for being very chatty in class, for talking too much” (cf. 2010). Also within the face-to-face interviews Lucy Wheeler, being a native Bristolian having being born and having lived within the city, describes being discriminated against because of her speech variety when she was a child (cf. 2010). Even though, of course, from this single case one cannot draw further conclusions regarding the prevalence and frequency of such experiences, it has to be highlighted that this major form of discrimination, not only in social but also professional life is alarming and calls for a reassessment of language attitudes discriminating against non-standard varieties. That these negative stereotypes against one’s own variety can most effectively be overcome by educating people in the sense as to show them that negative evaluations are not based in linguistic truth is clearly detectable in Tim Shortis’ experience who when walking to Bristol “had students coming up to [him] and checking [him] out [because] they were affectionate about [his] work on Bristolian” (cf. 2010). These described negative stereotypes, if not overcome, then, lead to people being afraid of using their local variety in certain situations, generally a quite common phenomenon among dialect speakers (cf. e.g. Hughes, Trudgill & Watt 2005:15f.). This was also confirmed by some participants with Bristolian speech when asked. Some of the participants describe that they moderate or would not use their personal local variety in interviews, presentations, professional environments or on the phone. This is not a phenomenon, of course, limited to Bristolian speech but can be said to be generally observable among speakers with local or social varieties (cf. Giles & Powesland 1975: 113; Beal 2006: 32). This also shows that there may be increasing tolerance for local varieties, as having been described by some linguists since the 1970s. Moderate outcomes of the online survey do not erase the negative experiences and prejudice is still felt against peoples’ personal local speech variety, partly because some of the negative attitudes might still be existing (as can also be seen in the online survey in some very, very negative statements from non-Bristolian speakers) and partly because the discrimination against local variety has such a long and strong tradition that this is not easily eradicated from people’s heads. Phil Gibbons describes a fascinating observation about the self-perception of speakers of Bristolian, showing exactly this - probably existing - low self-esteem of speakers of Bristolian.

62 But an interesting comment we get is, ‘Oh, I can’t go on radio, I sound too Bristolian’. People say that. Real Bristolians don’t like the way they sound, which is weird, yea. I’m not Bristolian, so I can’t say. But yes, I’ve heard that so many times: ‘Oh no, I can’t speak on the radio because I sound too Bristolian’.

In this context it is also illuminating how Bristolians assess the attitudes of outsiders about Bristolian and vice versa. These two questions were raised to all participants, although it seems interesting to look at only one set of answers for each question. Looking at the pie chart in figure 7 displaying what Bristolians behold others think of their speech reveals nearly the same picture as the self-rating did. Within this survey, it is interestingly the case that the Bristolian ‘ingroup’ of speakers evaluates their impression of their own language just as they imagine how others judge their dialect. This mirrors the assessment of linguistic experts that self-perception is often drawn from generally prevalent stereotypes and attitudes triggered by speakers of a standard variety.

Figure 7 Participants with Bristolian accent/dialect about the outsiders’ view on Bristolian

Regarding the other way around, the picture non-speakers of the Bristolian variety have on the self-perception of Bristolians, another tendency can be observed.

63

Figure 8 Participants with no Bristolian accent/dialect about the self- evaluation of the ingroup

Although the answer categories were slightly different as they seemed more appropriate, the tendency among non-speakers of Bristolian to think that Bristolians are rather proud of their own way of speaking can be observed. The answer “they are embarrassed by it” was not chosen by a single one of the participants, whereas “they are proud of it” was chosen by more than 34 percent. Interestingly, this view of outsiders that there is an existing pride in Bristolian among speakers of the same is not confirmed by the answers the Bristolian speakers gave regarding their self-perception of their speech. Trudgill, in his Norwich study came to a similar result as to the rather positive evaluation of the variety from the perspective of the outsiders:

‘Outsiders’, however – unless they had been in the city for some considerable time – did not rate Norwich speech as more unpleasant that that of Norfolk and were in fact surprised to learn that local people felt that they were different. They had less access to information about differences between the two varieties, and did not know what the social connotations were. (1983: 220)

These findings of the Bristol online survey also lead to the next major outcome that could be observed within the Bristol study. There seems to be a tendency, also observable for Trudgill, that there is little distinction made by the folk between rural surroundings of the city and the urban centre itself. This quite remarkable phenomenon will be the focus of the next chapter.

64 All in all, the findings revealed in linguistic literature provide evidence that language users are generally ambivalent when it comes to displaying their opinions towards specific forms. The contradictory nature of these opinions appear further emphasized when reading comments on the subjects own way of speaking. During the Bristol study the experts did paint a quite different picture of the self-perception of Bristolian speakers than did the questioned speakers of this variety themselves. So it can be concluded that there is either a future rise in pride within Bristolian speakers or experts might still underestimate the pressure of the standard varieties on accent and dialect speakers, which leads to a insecurity about their own linguistic background and in further consequence to a downgrading of their personal variety. That these negative judgements do exist is once more confirmed by the statement of once again, one of the online participants having rated Bristolian as a dislikeable variety.

It's funny and sometimes difficult to understand. I suppose also the negative stereotype that those who speak with a Bristolian accent are all stupid; however, this is only because I am a student – and none of use [us!] speak with that accent - and so we tend to look down on it as it is local, while we are all outsiders. (2010)

4.5.2.3 The working urban class vs. the farming people According to many linguists rural varieties - in contrast to urban varieties - are generally viewed as more acceptable in Britain (cf. e.g. Trudgill 1983: 196; Edwards J. 1979: 84), due to the fact that the majority of the population (and this already in the 1970s!) lives within larger cities and has a “romanticized nostalgic view of the countryside and the country way of life” (Trudgill 1975: 36; Trudgill 1983: 219). In addition, this is in particular one of the major outcomes of matched-guise studies, where urban accents were rated as ‘ugly’, ‘careless’ or ‘unpleasant’ and rural accents such as the West Country one as ‘beautiful’, ‘nice’ or at worst ‘charming’ (cf. Trudgill 1974a: 20; Trudgill 1983: 218). Barnickel argues that there is an existing tendency for rural dialects to be evaluated quite positively as to the fact that it is associated with certain positive emotions and experiences. These often include an own, problem-free childhood, natural living environment without the hectic rush of larger towns and cities and the expression of the ‘simple human being’ of the countryside in his/her pure, plain and honest style (cf. 1982a: 168f.). This is eventually another reason for the quite outstanding positive evaluation of Bristolian, especially by the outsider group of participants, a suggestion that might be quite surprising and paradoxically sounding at first. It is

65 observable that the city of Bristol is frequently associated with quite positive rural images and experiences, as, for example, pointed out by one participant of the online survey when directly asked what especially he/she likes about the Bristolian accent/dialect

Hard to say. The sound, I guess - it sounds friendly. It sounds similar to the accent people consider to be "farmer". People in my hometown - and elsewhere in England -sometimes say "Ah, yes, Bristol -" I be a farmer I be." (2010)

This seems to be a very interesting phenomenon, especially as this is something reported very frequently in the context of Bristol speech. Within the online questionnaire quite a few Bristol inhabitants immediately associated a large variety of items connected to ruralness 17 with the term ‘Bristolian’, which are listed belowTP PT

• Cider (5) • Farmer (3) • Farming Countryside (2) • bad farmers impressions • country folk • west country (2) • summer • Turnips • south-west • West Country accents from Bristol to Cornwall • Westcountry accent 18 • The WurzelsTP PT (2) (2010)

These answers were all provided by the online survey participants to the first open question, when asked what springs to their mind when hearing the word ‘Bristolian’. Surprisingly, these rural attributes were not only described by non-speakers of Bristolian. Three speakers of Bristolian used them to describe their spontaneous associations with Bristolian. A few connotations with countryside and farming came up again, when the participants were asked why they liked or disliked Bristolian (depending on which previous closed answer they had chosen), although only in very few answers and only among those people who claimed to like Bristolian. Countryside and these rural connotations with Bristolian therefore seem quite positively perceived by the folk linguists within this study. This opposes an assumption

17 TP PT Please note that the numbers in brackets indicate the frequency of the respective answer and that the number of answers in total given to this question differs as many people gave more than one type of answer which where then splitted into the four categories mentioned in chapter 4.5.2. 18 TP PT A ScrumpyH and Western H (i.e. humourous music from the West Country) band from Somerset formed in 1966

(cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_WurzelsHT )TH 66 Jonathan Robinson made who describes that “within the UK at large, the West Country dialect or West Country accent and the Bristol accent and dialect possibly have negative connotations of rural, sort of not urban, fast, peaky, cool, cutting edge, modern, contemporary, multi-cultural British life” (cf. 2010). Within the present survey on Bristolian Jonathan Robinson’s assumption is right in terms of Bristol being associated with a rural rather than an urban way of life. But this was not as negatively rated as the dialect expert predicts. Within the online questionnaire these comments on countryside and rural ideas were quite striking, although not entirely unexpected. Often mentioned in literature by linguists (cf. e.g. Trudgill 1983: 219), this phenomenon is also pointed out quite nicely by Chas Blacker as well as Tim Shortis, who both report of external views on Bristolian gained through quite similar experiences from their students

I think unless they have some knowledge of the city most people from outside the city wouldn’t readily distinguish Bristol accent or dialect from the West Country in general. […] And I think someone who does not come from this or doesn’t live in this area would just hear a West Country accent. And students report that if they are on holiday and they meet people from London, they are described by the Londoners as being Yokels19, as being country people. […]Even though they live in a large city. Londoner will say: where have you parked your tractor? You know, that kind of thing. (Blacker 2010)

[…] when, again I was teaching large numbers of students, I remember they would often talk about how they’d realised that they have a Bristol accent when they were on holiday in Spain or whatever and they were often asked where their tractors were or The Wurzels or whatever and they were really shocked as city kids being called rural […] I think the particular issue in Bristol is that the dialect features, some of the dialect features get stigmatised as rural features and stupid features (Shortis 2010)

These experiences are interesting and Esther de Leeuw, when asked whether she thinks if there actually is a stigma regarding the accent or dialect of Bristol, points out this association of people from Bristol with “farmer” as well. Nevertheless, some of the comments of the participants within the online questionnaire also referred to urban life and the working class

19 “Yokel is a derogatory term referring to the stereotype of unsophisticated country people” (cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yokel).

67 being associated with Bristol, such as for example “A lively vernacular working class culture, rich in humour, and secure in its deeply rooted cultural and historical identity”, “People from the more deprived areas of Bristol who are not very academic” or “chav “, which was even mentioned twice. Although much less frequent than countryside associations within the Bristol survey, associations with city life and working class did occur in it. Esther de Leeuw has an interesting explanation why the city of Bristol is less associated with working class than cities in the North of Great Britain, especially by Londoners,

[…] but Bristol is a little different because you don’t actually go in the North of London, to Bristol you just go West, so anything that’s kind of on the same level as London is to most Londoners kind of ok, like Brighton. But, when you go North, that’s when this is really much more associated with working class in the UK. […]It’s not in that sense, like, you associate with working class, like, those towns in the North, but it’s not Standard English, like Received Pronunciation either. I think it’s a bit of an oddball. (2010)

This explanation for the phenomenon that Bristol might be less associated with working class and therefore more with countryside and farming folk is surely one aspect, although one must not forget that Bristol also lacks a large heavy industry as many cities in the North of the UK have. Also there seems to be a greater link to its surrounding areas than many other cities might experience. Jonathan Robinson argues that “there is a clear relationship between speech in Bristol and the surrounding West Country areas: Somerset, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire”, although he foresees developments in this context:

Whereas in Bristol it would appear that speakers of all ages do have features that are clearly Bristolian. So, I suspect over time Bristol itself will have an extremely recognisable accent or dialect among all ages of its community, where in the West Country at large, arguably that will be less recognised. […]So, I think at the moment you could argue that there are many shared features across the whole of the West Country but perhaps Bristol will emerge as, as kind of like the beacon of that dialect in the next 50 years or so. (2010)

Thus, these associations cannot only be found within the online questionnaire, people who worked on Bristolian from a linguistic point of view have already experienced these reactions towards the speech of the inhabitants of Bristol quite frequently. This stereotype that Bristol accent/dialect is predominantly associated with countryside and rural ways of living, as paradoxical as it might be, does seem to actually exist among the folk. These associations are

68 quite surprising as Bristol can be claimed to be a major British city, very many people seem to associate “Bristolian”, as described above with a lot of attributes usually connected with the county and rural areas. Nevertheless, Gramley assumes that urban dialects are highly influenced by or embedded within the rural dialectal areas that surround a city especially in terms of pronunciation (cf. 1992: 328). Also Lesley Milroy describes a general agreement among urban dialectologists that city dialects are influenced by the surrounding areas due to the mixture of varieties during the rapid growth of cities (cf. 1984: 214). This argument might be an explanation for this widespread association of Bristol with the countrified. Trudgill describes this phenomenon as the “social connotations hypothesis” and mentions the city of Bristol and its accent as an example for such, since Bristol is more favourably evaluated in terms of language due to its association with beautiful landscape and little heavy industry (cf. 1983: 219). Thus, all in all, there seems to be a consensus about the slightly paradoxical fact that Bristol, although a major urban centre in the United Kingdom is often very vividly associated with rural areas, influenced by the surrounding West Country.

4.5.2.4 The typical Bristolian speaker and Bristol identity Within the questionnaire the typical stereotypes of non-standard speakers have been tested. According to Weissmann (and many others) the typical speaker of the local variety of Bristol is male (cf. 1970: 153f.). Furthermore, many linguists would agree that it is rather the older population who are dialect speakers as has been shown during dialect investigations such as the SED. These two stereotypes were addressed directly within the online questionnaire. As to class issues, another quite outstanding stereotype within dialectology, the matter was not addressed within the questionnaire as in literature professional sociolinguists frequently point out that class issues in Great Britain and classifying people into social classes is an extremely difficult task (cf. e.g. Trudgill 1974a: 37). In every society social class structures in the one way or other exist (cf. Francis 1983: 43) and there is no doubt their effect - especially on urban population - is interesting due to its complexity (cf. O’Donnel & Todd 1993: 32ff.). This issue is nevertheless subject to a lot of discussion as well as being, due to its complexity, a standalone subject. As Brook correctly points out that “until social classes can be defined with some degree of precision, it is unprofitable to try to achieve precision in describing the speech-habits of those classes” (1963: 165). The question whether Bristol is a phenomenon typical for a specific social class within the urban centre has mainly been dismissed. Within the scope of this thesis there will not, therefore, be conclusions whatsoever on Bristolian being a specific class phenomenon. 69 When asked whether there are more male or female speakers of Bristolian it was quite interesting to observe that there does not seem to exist the often described stereotype that men are more likely to be heavy dialect speakers whereas women are more likely to use fewer local forms and forms closer to the standard (cf. e.g. Trudgill 1974a: 85; Milroy & Milroy 1995: 95f.; Foulkes & Docherty 1999: 15f.). This is due to the facts, Trudgill argues, that women are more status-conscious than men and consequently more likely to use socially accepted linguistic forms and, furthermore, working class speech (i.e. dialect forms) are experienced as more masculine by society and therefore preferred by men over more standard near forms (cf. Trudgill 1974a: 87). On the other hand, Kramarae describes that dialect studies including the question of gender have shown that

gender does not have a constant, dominant salience across all situations, that some speech traits stereotypically linked to females or to males likely overlap and interact on many occasions with other discriminators such as those related to age, class, race, political ideology, ethnic or regional background (1982: 95).

Niedzielski and Preston too describe the stereotype that women’s speech is closer to standard forms than men’s, may simply being wrong (cf. 2003: 193). As can be observed within figure 9, the majority of the participants within the online questionnaire (more than 71 percent) were convinced that Bristolian speech is used the same amount by men and women. Although slightly more persons thought that the variety was more used by men (more than 21 percent), it can be concluded that the majority is of the opinion that the use of Bristolian is not a matter of gender.

70

Figure 9 “Do you think the Bristolian accent is used more by men or by women?”

As can be seen in various dialect studies, there is the tendency for linguists to focus on older inhabitants of certain areas when investigating specific local forms of speech. Traditional dialects are said to be on the verge of disappearing as younger people, especially in the urban centres, are more likely to use mainstream dialects, which are more similar to standard forms and even each other (cf. Trudgill 1994: 18). This is also connected to the changed situation in urban society. Modes of interaction have changed, individuals with different backgrounds need to relate to each other and the urban environment itself, which influences the identity of people (cf. Gumperez & Cook-Gumperez: 1982: 2) and consequently also their linguistic behaviour. Nevertheless, Barnickel argues that traditional dialect forms are traceable and observable (cf. 1982a: 177). It is, in the case of Bristol, therefore very difficult to hypothesise about the character of the dialect – is it a traditional, disappearing dialect or is it a mainstream urban dialect that is quite new in itself? – and therefore about the age group most likely to use Bristolian. Within the online survey the folk did not come to a consensus in their opinion as well. Although, again, more than half of the participants thought that Bristolian is spoken by older as well as younger people, more than 44 percent also thought that the variety is spoken more by the older population, whereas only less than 4 percent thought younger speakers are more likely to use it.

71

Figure 10 “Do you think the Bristolian accent is used more by older or by younger speakers?”

Within the face-to-face expert interview, Esther de Leeuw points out that one will find younger speakers of Bristolian, but she highlights that this “depends, first of all, on class, and then on immigrant background or not, so if the person has a lot of people who are from different countries around, or depending on the school”. In this context, she also refers to the study she did with her students (cf. de Leeuw 2009) where the primary indicator for the use of postvocalic “r” was social class (i.e. the lower the social class, the more use of postvocalic “r”). Moreover, she refers to the influence of the area of Bristol people live in, whether they would use Bristolian or not (cf. 2010). This immediately leads to the next remarkable aspect that has not been addressed directly within the online questionnaire but came up during the expert interviews. Bristolian seems to be a variety that one cannot find all over the city. Lucy Wheeler argues that “actually when you go out to the suburbs, that’s where you find the real Bristolian” (2010) and also Chas Blacker highlights that whether young people recognise a lot of dialect lexis and indeed identify with Bristolian speech is highly dependent on the area they live in and regardless of which social class they belong to (2010). In this sense, as many other British linguists claim, Chas Blacker highlights that “it’s [i.e. Bristolian] reached that kind of stage, I think, where a lot of the dialect lexis is dying out except where it’s being kept alive consciously in the Bristolian dictionary or the T-shirt people [referring to Lucy Wheeler’s business]” (2010). Barnickel on a more general level describes that dialects have increasingly retreated since the mid 20th century and are being replaced by forms closer to the standard norms (cf. 1982a: 163). This has been a major issue

72 for many dialect researchers in the past who therefore tried to concentrate on the traditional, rural dialects in order to capture them before they would disappear. Despite this apprehension Cheshire and Milroy argue that “there are no indications that non-standard syntactic forms are declining in use, although their nature and their geographical distribution may be changing” (1993: 18). This suggests that, due to the fact that language is constantly changing, dialects will not be dying out but are subject to language change, a phenomenon that is not threatening or new but lies within the nature of language and has been happening for as long as languages exist. Regarding the survival of Bristolian the participants of the online questionnaire had a rather positive view on this issue, as observable in figure 11 below. Fifty percent thought that there is no indication that Bristolian is either increasing or diminishing and more than 32 percent think that it is not going to die out. Nearly four percent of the lay linguists even think that the use of Bristol speech is increasing. This makes a total of more than eighty-five percent who oppose the view that Bristolian is an endangered dialect species whereas only around thirteen percent of the participants think it likely that this variety will disappear.

Figure 11 “Do you think the Bristolian accent is dying out?”

Within the expert interviews, Chas Blacker commented on this issue and pointed out that, according to his experiences with his students, that from the beginning on and then continuously over the years he observed “that in fact a lot of the words that we think of as

73 Bristolian words are completely unknown to a lot of Bristolians and that it’s a fairly small area of the city where they’re heard” (2010). Nevertheless, Chas Blacker also refers to a certain tendency of young people to use dialectal grammatical forms, although dialectal lexis seems to be rather diminishing. So, when asked whether young people still identify with Bristolian the English linguistics teacher concludes that “people are going to continue hearing about the dialect, but fewer and fewer people are going to be using it. It becomes a badge of identity and not much else almost, you know” (2010). This is also pointed out by Phil Gibbons who describes that “the accent might be dying out a little bit in Bristol, because a lot of people moved to Bristol, with two universities, students come in here and are staying” (2010). Moreover also Tim Shortis refers to dialect levelling in the urban area of Bristol mainly because Bristolian is perceived as a social handicap (cf. 2010), as also outlined above. As we have seen, the folk within the Bristol study seem to be more optimistic than some professional linguists that a traditional local variety such as Bristolian will survive. Nonetheless, there is still the question whether there is something as a Bristolian identity also connected to the way of speaking. Jonathan Robinson describes that, although maybe negatively perceived from outside, Bristol has a clearly local identity. He also describes that he sees no threat for this variety of dying out (cf. 2010). Regarding a specific Bristolian identity, there seems to be the consensus that there is something such as “Bristolian”, a clear definition is – as the nature of the concept identity brings with it – difficult to impossible. Nevertheless, in this context it again seems of major interest to take a look at the answers regarding the associations of participants with Bristolian that could be linked to the question of identity and characteristics of speakers of this variety. Although quite heterogeneous, these spontaneous associations can be divided into at least three different categories as follows and they draw a quite vivid picture of Bristol identity.

a. associations with Bristolian people • Contentedness Happy people Friendliness • Simple people. • sounds uneducated / unintelligent • roughness • Happy Unique 20 • CHAVTP PT (2) • friendly barmen • "stupid" • Awesomeness.

20 TP PT A chav is a stereotype of certain people in the United Kingdom. Also known as a charver in YorkshireH H and

NorthH East England,H "chavs" are said to be aggressive teenagers, of white workingH class background,H who repeatedly engage in anti-socialH behaviour H such as street drinking, drug abuse and rowdiness, or other forms of juvenileH delinquency H (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ChavHT )TH 74 • A derogatory term • For me personally it reminds me of people I used to go to school with. For that reason it holds connotations of being 'rough' and 'uneducated' although I obviously realise that this is not the reality, just old memories being evoked by the sound qualities of the accent. • People from the more deprived areas of Bristol who are not very academic • a word celebrating Bristol's sense of its own identity. I quite like this word. That we have a way of doing things here which is not London or Posh or metropolitan moderne. Creative, mellow, smart, • A lively vernacular working class culture, rich in humour, and secure in its deeply rooted cultural and historical identity (and pirates...) (2010)

b. individual personal associations • Bristol (2) • nothing in particular • Amusing! • Someone who lives in the same city as me. • Home (4) • dave prowse (darth vaders body actor, bristolian and apparently known as "darth farmer on set"). Tradesmen,couriers and bus drivers (the 3 richest sources of bristolian that I commonly experience) • Lush Outer areas of Bristol • the TV series Skins filmed in Bristol! • matt's dad. Even though he's from Pill.. • my Grandad! (2010)

c. famous personalities associated with Bristolian • Vicki Pollard (3) • Justin Lee Collins (3) [Bristol comedian] • Isambard Kingdom Brunel [leading British civil engineer] • Bill Bailey (comedian from the West country) • Pirates (2010)

These answers, once again, display that people’s sense of Bristol identity is hardly reducible to a common denominator. Although roughly grouped into three categories, each of the spontaneous reactions is highly individual. Next to personal comments of what people think of when hearing the term ‘Bristolian’ such as “home”, “my Grandad”, “matt’s dad” etc. there are also references to the cultural discourse around Bristol such as “the TV series Skins”, “Vicky Pollard” or “Justin Lee Collins”. Furthermore, some judgements about the speakers of Bristolian can be observed for example in statements like “People from the more deprived areas of Bristol who are not very academic”, “Simple people”, “stupid” or in a more positive

75 light “friendly barmen”, “a word celebrating Bristol's sense of its own identity”. These answers nicely reflect the heterogeneity of the notion of Bristol identity as also described by some of the experts within the face-to-face interviews. Phil Gibbons describes Bristol as a place with “lots of different areas, that have different types of people that don’t traditionally mix” (2010). In this sense he is convinced that a specific Bristolian identity exists, although this cannot easily be pinned down to a number of specific characteristics as it is made up of loads of different identities. He describes that “obviously there is the old Bristolian people, the working-class people, whose parents were probably Dockers or worked in the Tobacco Factory or in the mines”. But he highlights that this is only one aspect of identity within the multi-facetted, multi-cultural urban area of Bristol, with not only

Black, White, Chinese, Asian, there is different ages, there is people with different abilities, […] we have two universities, for instance, so lots of students, but we also have lots of people who’ve had drugs problems or teenage mothers or people who live in areas of what they call social deprivation. (Gibbons 2010)

This multiculturalism in Bristol is also described by Esther de Leeuw, who highlights the importance to consider this fact in research about a dialect like Bristolian, “You just don’t see things as clearly as you used to and I think what a lot of researchers then would tend to react would be to say: ‘Well, let’s try to find the ideal store, where we only have Bristolian speakers.’ But it actually does not exist anymore” (2010). Interestingly, when asked about speakers of Bristolian as presenters on BCFm, Phil Gibbons describes that “maybe 20 or 30 percent are bred and born Bristolians, the rest are being new people to Bristol, you know, incomers”. Although at first this might not seem such a large number, it must be considered that BCFm is a community radio and tries to include all different communities of Bristol, which are, as Gibbons also highlights, quite a large number. In this context then, 20 to 30 percent of presenters having a Bristolian background really is quite a large number. Furthermore, the radio station manager also describes that strong local accent is usually used by older inhabitants having lived in Bristol for all their lives (cf. 2010). It can therefore be summarised that the levelling of Bristolian seems viewed as highly ambivalent among experts and the folk, a homogenous tendency whether or not this variety is likely to be dying out could within the Bristol study not be observed. All in all, it seems highly difficult if not impossible to identify a stereotypical speaker of Bristolian. Nevertheless, this does not necessarily seem to be important. What could be

76 identified is a specific Bristolian identity that seems to exist as experts as well as lay people tend to refer to it constantly. As identity in general cannot be defined very easily, the same applies for a specific identity such as Bristolian. In this context it will therefore be enough to have gained a rough picture of what people feel about Bristolian language and to have seen that there at least seems to be something like a Bristolian identity and a vivid picture in many people’s minds what constitutes this identity.

4.6 Conclusion regarding the fieldwork

In order to put an emphasis on the major outcomes four primary categories of answers were established. Within these there were some quite remarkable results. Most of the outcomes of the online questionnaire filled in by the folk were also acknowledged by the experts within the face-to-face interviews. To summarise, although of course global conclusions in terms of valid numbers can - due to the relatively small number of participants within the online survey - hardly be made, certain trends and tendencies within the fieldwork on Bristolian can be stated. First of all, the hypothesis that there is something like a Bristolian identity could be verified within the online survey and expert interviews. The assumption that this is a salient entity that can be described in terms of certain social and linguistic similarities needs to be dismissed. The fieldwork showed how multi-facetted Bristolian is perceived by experts as well as the folk which leads to the conclusion that a homogenous characterisation of one single Bristol identity is impossible. Secondly, the perhaps most striking outcome of the Bristol fieldwork is that, despite its status as an urban centre within the UK, the Bristolian dialect is perceived as rural by the folk. Not only the online survey showed this outcome but also experts report this quite paradoxical phenomenon. Furthermore, also the differing self- and external perception of Bristolian speech could be viewed as a quite striking outcome. This also leads back to why a folk linguistic study is so important in a sociolinguistic research context. Results as this show how dangerous language value judgments indeed are and moreover refer to the need for action regarding people’s background knowledge and consequently improvement of self-esteem regarding their local varieties. Moreover, it was also extraordinarily interesting to see that so many people actually had a vivid picture of Bristol and the Bristolian language variety in their minds. Not only

77 experiences and cultural/social discourses could be observed among the answers but also very significant statements concerning language matters. This indicates that people actually do think about their own speech and speech of others and that there obviously still is hope that a variety such as Bristolian will not be dying out (at least within the foreseeable future).

5. Conclusion

Cities are multifaced melting pots, full of different kinds of people from all social levels, age groups with various backgrounds and ethnicities. The major aim of this thesis was to demonstrate that there, nevertheless, can be found a consensus to a certain extent what constitutes the particular identity of an urban variety using the example of Bristolian. Dialect research has been a prominent linguistic and sociolinguistic field of investigation in the UK. Different perceptual approaches within dialectology were outlined, being especially prevalent within modern linguistic research. Additionally, their rising importance was highlighted by the emerging focus of sociolinguistics more and more on aspects of folk perception of language and speech varieties. In the more empirically focused chapter four linguistic statements and descriptions of Bristolian were summarised, coming to the conclusion that from an academic point of view Bristol speech is mainly regarded and described as a regional and social dialect. Within the next step of testing some of the perceptual approaches on the particular example of the Bristolian variety the claimed importance of such approaches was confirmed by the interesting and manifold answers of the folk. The people seem to agree that there actually is something like ‘Bristolian’ – a quite identical outcome compared to the summarised professional linguistic opinion. Although their views and likings of this variety may be strikingly different, there nonetheless seems to exist a general underlying agreement that something like Bristolian language and identity exists. This verifies the hypothesis formulated within the introduction of this thesis that something like a notion of Bristolian does exist within people’s minds. As to the question whether Bristolian can be regarded as dialect restricted to a geographical area and having certain social functions, it is much more complex to come to a homogeneous conclusion. Generally, when referring to linguistic definitions of dialect one must indeed come to the conclusion that Bristol speech having specific dialectal features of grammar, phonology and lexis is an English dialect. Interestingly though, the majority of experts when directly asked within the interviews assessed Bristolian rather as an accent than as a dialect. Although on the other hand, when describing Bristolian, each expert did include 78 grammatical and lexical features additionally to phonological ones which would be markers for an accent. This was not investigated within the fieldwork within this thesis there will be no definite conclusion about whether dialectal phonological, lexical and grammatical features are used by speakers of Bristolian. What can be concluded is that, according to linguistic isoglosses and descriptions, there is a variety restricted to the city of Bristol spoken by at least some inhabitants which shows features of a dialect. In what extent and by which group of people these are most likely to be used could not be explicitly evaluated, neither within the literature research nor the fieldwork including the online questionnaire and the expert interviews. The hypothesis that there is a clear Bristolian identity can only be said to be partly correct. There actually seems to be something like “Bristolian” but a clear definition, just as regarding the linguistic constituent, is hardly possible within this thesis. One can conclude, however, that people have strong emotions and attitudes regarding this linguistic variety and with it also its underlying identity. These are highly diverse and cannot in any way be summarised to a consensus including all the different facets in which they occur. I generally hope to have shown that language judgements and attitudes have a long tradition within our society and should not be ignored by linguistic research. They are powerful within the social context in which they appear. And I truly hope it will make people think at least a little about how easily other’s language habits are judged and how much damage and loss of self-consciousness that brings about. Variety is desirable and should be seen in this way rather than a deprived form of English. Furthermore, I wish to have shown that one should rethink a negative self-perception regarding his or her own language as others might view it more favourably than the self-perception would suggest. In general, as a future perspective much more (not only linguistic) research should focus on language attitudes of the folk as it is evident that not all dialect speakers feel the often described higher tolerance for non-standard varieties in the British Isles. To conclude this thesis I want to bring up a last quote by G.L. Brook, who already in 1963 raised an extremely true argument for tolerating language variety. This can be claimed to have not lost its currency in the least and should stick in everybody’s minds when the next time tempted to judge any language variety in a negative way:

The best general argument in favour of tolerating variations from Standard English is that speech is an aspect of personality. Most people agree that variety of personality is desirable , and such variety finds its expression in variety of speech (Brook 1963: 26f.).

79 6. Deutsche Zusammenfassung

Sprachvarianten sind wichtige, spannende und unvermeidbare Komponenten unserer alltäglichen verbalen Kommunikation. Obwohl die Linguistik immer wieder betont, dass keine Variante innerhalb einer Sprache aus sprachwissenschaftlicher Sicht „besser“ ist als andere, bestehen in unserer Gesellschaft dennoch Vorurteile gegen viele Dialekte oder Mundarten. Es erscheint von einem wissenschaftlichen Gesichtspunkt daher wichtig, diesen vorgefertigten Meinungen auf den Grund zu gehen. In Großbritannien, wie auch in vielen anderen europäischen Ländern, hat die Dialektforschung eine langjährige Tradition im Bereich der Soziolinguistik. Verhältnismäßig wenig Forschung gibt es jedoch im Bereich der „Folk Linguistik“ (im Deutschen am gängigsten übersetzt mit „Laienlinguistik“), die sich primär mit den Meinungen und Einstellungen von Nicht-LinguistInnen gegenüber Sprache beschäftigt und Hintergründe für existierende mentale Konzepte in Bezug auf verschiedene Sprachvarianten aufzeigt. Alle SprecherInnen einer Sprache besitzen auch einen bestimmten Dialekt und/oder Akzent, was uns im Grunde genommen alle zu ExpertInnen auf diesem Gebiet macht, eine Tatsache, die von Seiten der Dialektforschung oftmals ignoriert wird. Die vorliegende Diplomarbeit mit dem englischen Titel „Bristol Speech. Linguistic and Folk Views on a Socio-dialectal Phenomenon“ richtet den Fokus der Aufmerksamkeit auf einen im englischen Sprachraum eher wenig beachteten Dialekt – das Bristolische, wobei es ihr vorrangiges Ziel ist, eine Analyse linguistischer Klassifizierungen und Definitionen von LinguistInnen mit Meinungen, Ansichten und auf Gefühlen von LaienlinguistInnen in Bezug auf den Dialekt der südwestenglischen Stadt Bristol zu kombinieren. Auf diese Weise versucht die vorliegende Arbeit, einen Beitrag zur Laienlinguistik-Forschung zu leisten, mit dem Hauptaugenmerk auf einen oftmals vergessenen britischen Dialekt. Im Rahmen der vorliegenden Arbeit sollen primär die folgenden Fragen geklärt werden:

a. Handelt es sich beim Stadtdialekt von Bristol um eine eigene englische Variante, die geografisch beschränkt verwendet wird? b. Sind sich LinguistInnen wie auch die befragten Nicht-LinguistInnen einig, dass es diesen Dialekt gibt? c. Welches Ansehen genießt der bristolische Dialekt bei den EinwohnerInnen der Stadt und wie ist dies begründbar?

80 Um eine geeignete theoretische Basis für eine empirische Studie zu schaffen, wird zunächst bestehende Forschungsliteratur, schwerpunktmäßig aus dem englischen Sprachraum, diskutiert. Geklärt werden sollen in diesem Teil der Arbeit vor allem jene wichtigen Grundkonzepte und Definitionen im Bereich der Dialektforschung, die für eine empirische Studie auf diesem Gebiet grundlegend erscheinen. In weiterer Folge behandelt diese Recherche auch die wichtigsten Ansätze und ein theoretisches Modell im Bereich der Laienlinguistikforschung, einem relativ jungen Zweig der Soziolinguistik, der jedoch mehr und mehr in den Mittelpunkt von vielen linguistischen Forschungsarbeiten rückt. Der anschließende Analyseteil der Arbeit kann wiederum in zwei größere Bereiche unterteilt werden: Einerseits wird Forschungsliteratur über das Bristolische herangezogen, um die Einschätzungen und Definitionen von LinguistInnen zusammenzufassen, auf der anderen Seite wurde im Mai 2010 eine empirische Studie vor Ort durchgeführt. Während dieser Datensammlung in Bristol wurden Daten in Form von persönlichen Interviews mit 6 ExpertInnen auf dem Gebiet der bristolischen Sprachvariante erfasst. Zusätzlich, um auch die Ansichten und Einschätzungen von Laienlinguisten zu erhalten, wurden Personen, die in der Stadt leben, gebeten, ihre Meinungen zu diesem Thema in einem Onlinefragebogen zu äußern. Dieser Fragebogen wurde von insgesamt 52 EinwohnerInnen der Stadt ausgefüllt. Die Kombination von offenen und geschlossenen Fragen innerhalb der Onlineerhebung ermöglicht eine quantitative Analyse, die mit interessanten qualitativen Antworten der TeilnehmerInnen unterlegt und durch die Antworten der ExpertInnen sinnvoll ergänzt werden kann. Die Ergebnisse der Fachliteraturanalyse sind, obwohl der bristolische Dialekt im Vergleich zu anderen englischen Varianten in der Forschung bisher relativ wenig Beachtung findet, ziemlich eindeutig. In allen Fällen, in denen Bristol als Dialektgebiet diskutiert wird, wird Bristolisch auch als Dialekt beschrieben. Es zeigt sich, dass es sich beim Stadtdialekt von Bristol in der Literatur nach linguistischer Ansicht um einen Dialekt handelt mit speziellen Merkmalen in der Lexik, Grammatik sowie auch Aussprache. Diese relativ klaren Beschreibungen werden von den befragten ExpertInnen in den Interviews jedoch auf direkte Nachfrage nicht sofort bestätigt. Obwohl die ExpertInnen teilweise auch grammatikalische und lexikalische Charakteristika aufzählen, bezeichnen sie das Bristolische eher als Akzent mit Ausspracheeigenheiten als einen Dialekt an sich. Die Auswertung der Daten des Onlinefragebogens zeigt, dass die von LinguistInnen beschriebenen Charakteristika des Dialekts zum größten Teil auch den LaienlinguistInnen bekannt sind und dem Bristolischen

81 zugeschrieben werden. Ob diese auch wirklich von Dialektsprechern in Bristol verwendet werden, wird im Rahmen dieser Arbeit nicht erforscht. Auf der Basis der Antworten der teilnehmenden Laienlinguisten? werden vier Hauptresultate herausgefiltert, die zusammenfassend folgendermaßen beschrieben werden können:

A. Durch die Angabe von vielen Beschreibungen im Onlinefragebogen sowohl spontan als auch auf Nachfragen wird deutlich, dass die TeilnehmerInnen tatsächlich über ein relativ deutliches Bild über den bristolischen Dialekt verfügen. Viele, oft sehr detaillierte Dialektmerkmale werden angegeben, die sich sehr häufig sowohl mit den Angaben aus der linguistischen Literatur als auch mit den Aussagen der ExpertInnen in den Interviews decken. Auch weisen die Antworten der TeilnehmerInnen in Bezug auf sprachliche Phänomene auf eine sehr hohe emotionale Beteiligung bei diesem Thema hin, vor allem in Bezug auf die Frage nach der persönlichen Einstellung zum Stadtdialekt von Bristol.

B. Bei der Gegenüberstellung von Personen, die sich selbst als Dialektsprecher des Bristolischen bezeichnen und Personen, die angeben, eine andere Sprachvariante zu sprechen, zeigt sich bei der Einschätzung des Status des Dialekts eine deutliche Abweichung. Generell wird durch die Antworten der TeilnehmerInnen ersichtlich, dass Menschen, die im bristolischen Dialekt sprechen, ihre eigene Sprachvariante als weniger prestigeträchtig erachten als die Gruppe von TeilnehmerInnen mit einem anderen englischen Dialekt.

C. Interessanterweise ergeben die Resultate des Onlinefragebogens eine starke Tendenz der TeilnehmerInnen, die bristolische Sprache mit „ländlichen“ Attributen zu versehen und mit dem Leben auf dem Land an sich zu assoziieren. Dieses Phänomen wird auch von einigen ExpertInnen in den vorab gemachten Interviews beschrieben. Erstaunlich erscheint dies vor allem deshalb, weil es sich bei Bristol um die zehntgrößte Stadt in Großbritannien handelt.

D. Die Vorstellung eines prototypischen Sprechers/einer prototypischen Sprecherin des Bristolischen in Bezug auf Alter, Geschlecht oder soziale Schicht kann innerhalb der empirischen Studie nicht ermittelt werden, obwohl einige Stereotype in Bezug auf DialektsprecherInnen im Onlinefragebogen ausgetestet werden. Nichtsdestotrotz lässt

82 sich feststellen, dass generell eine Vorstellung des Konzepts „Bristolisch“ existiert und es eine bristolische Sprachidentität zu geben scheint. Eine eindeutige Klassifizierung und Beschreibung dieser erscheint jedoch äußerst schwierig.

Alles in Allem versucht diese Arbeit zu zeigen, dass eine Befragung von LaienlinguistInnen sehr interessante, soziolinguistisch im größeren Kontext durchaus relevante Ergebnisse bringen kann. Vor allem im Vergleich mit linguistischen Definitionen und Aussagen stellen diese eine reichhaltige Quelle von Erklärungen und Hintergründen in Bezug auf bestehende Stereotype und gefestigte Meinungen dar. Die empirischen Erhebungen zeigten vor allem, dass Vorurteile über Sprachvarianten in unserer Gesellschaft trotz vieler Versuche der Klärung von Seiten der Linguistik immer noch bestehen. Ich hoffe, mit dieser Arbeit auch gezeigt zu haben, wie viele verschiedene Vorurteile es über einen bestimmten Dialekt geben kann, was solche vorgefertigten Einstellungen bei einzelnen auslösen können und dass es auf jeden Fall wichtig ist, sprachliche Vorurteile dieser Art zu überdenken. Diese bestehenden Meinungen können einzelne SprecherInnen nicht nur im Privaten diskriminieren, sie haben, wie von SprachwissenschafterInnen immer wieder betont, auch einen nicht zu unterschätzenden Einfluss auf Bildung und Sprachpolitik und dürfen deshalb nicht ignoriert werden. Wenn auch die Linguistik durch Aufklärung solche Stereotype nicht vollständig beseitigen kann, ist es für SprachexpertInnen trotzdem wichtig, ein akkurates Bild von bestehenden Meinungen und Einstellungen zu Sprachvarianten zu haben, um bewusst gegen mögliche Diskriminierungen handeln zu können.

83

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87 Montgomery, Christopher (2006). “Northern English dialects: A perceptual approach.” Phd. University of Sheffield. Niedzielski, Nancy, & Dennis Preston (2003). Folk Linguistics. Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter. O’Donnell, W.R., & Loreto Todd (1993). Variety in Contemporary English. 2nd edition. London, New York: Routledge. Preston, Dennis (1989). Perceptual Dialectology: Nonlinguists’ Views of Areal Linguistics. Topics in Sociolinguistics 7. Dordrecht: Foris. Price, Glanville (2000). “English.” In: Languages in Britain and Ireland. Ed. Glanville Price. Oxford: Blackwell. 141-158. Robinson, Jonathan (2010, May 20). Personal Interview. Transcript see Appendix. Shortis, Tim (1995). Heard/Use Method Questionnaire Survey: questionnaire designed for collaborative students’ dialect investigation project at St. Brendan's Sixth Form College. Bristol (administered from 1995-1999). Shortis, Tim (2006). “Proper Job. Voicing Bristolian. Don’t leave it to Vicki Pollard.” Bristol Review of Books. Issue 1. Summer 2006: 4-7. Shortis, Tim (2010, May 25). Personal Interview. Transcript see Appendix. Shortis, T., J. Blake and S. Liponen (2011) The Heard/Use method of surveying reported dialect change: re-analysing a student Bristolian dialect survey from the 1990s. (forthcoming conference paper for University of Bristol Bristolian Dialect workshop September 2011). Snook, Claire (2003, Feb. 11). “ Few find the West Country twang seductive. Region’s accent ‘lacks sex appeal’.” Evening Post. Stroke, Harry and Vinny Green (2005). A Dictionary of Bristle. 2nd edition. Bristol: Broadcast Books. St Clair, Robert N. (1982). “From social history to language attitudes.” In: Attitudes towards Language Variation. Social and Applied Contexts. Eds. Ellen Bouchard Ryan & Howard Giles. The Social Psychology of Language 1. London: Edward Arnold. 164- 174. Trewella, Edna M. (1989, Jan. 20). “Our Dad is proud of Bristl’s twang.” Bristol Evening Post. Trudgill, Peter (1974a). Sociolinguistics. An Introduction to Language and Society. Reading: Penguin.

88 Trudgill, Peter (1974b). The Social Differentiation of English in Norwich. Cambridge Studies in Linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge UP. Trudgill, Peter (1975). Accent, Dialect and the School. Explorations in Language Study. Eds. Peter Doughty & Geoffrey Thornton. London: Edward Arnold. Trudgill, Peter (1983). On Dialect. Social and Geographical Perspectives. Oxford: Blackwell. Trudgill, Peter (1984). “Standard English in England.” In: Language in the British Isles. Ed. Peter Trudgill. Cambridge et al.: Cambridge UP. 32-44. Trudgill, Peter (1986). Dialects in Contact. Language in Society 10. Ed. Peter Trudgill. Oxford: Blackwell. Trudgill, Peter (1992). Introducing Language and Society. Penguin English Linguistics. London: Penguin. Trudgill, Peter (1990). The Dialects of England. Cambridge (USA), Oxford: Blackwell. Trudgill, Peter (1994). Dialects. Language Workbooks. 2nd Edition. London, New York: Routledge. Trudgill, Peter (2000). “Standard English: What it isn’t.’ In: Standard English. The Widening Debate. Eds. Tony Bex & Richard J. Watts. London, New York: Routledge. 117-128. Upton, Clive, & J.D.A. Widdowson (2006). An Atlas of English Dialects. 2nd edition. London, New York: Routledge. Viereck, Wolfgang (1975). “Regionale und soziale Erscheinungsformen des britischen und amerikanischen English.“ In: Anglistische Arbeitshefte 4. Eds. Herbert E. Brekle und Wolfang Kühlwein. Thübingen: Niemeyer. Wagner, Susanne (2004). “English dialects in the Southwest: morphology and syntax.” In: A Handbook of Varieties of English. Morphology & Syntax. A Multimedia Reference Tool. Eds. Bernd Kortmann et.al. Vol. 2. Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter. 154-174. Wakelin, Martyn F. (1972a). “Introduction.” In: Patterns in the Folk Speech of the British Isles. Ed. Martyn F. Wakelyn. London: Athlone Press. 1-5. Wakelin, Martyn F. (1972b). English Dialects. An Introduction. Revised edition. London: Atholone Press. Wakelin, Martyn F. (1986). The Southwest of England. Varieties of English Around the World Text Series, Vo. 5. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Wardhaugh, Ronald (1992). An Introduction to Sociolinguistics. 2nd Edition. Oxford, Cambridge (USA): Blackwell.

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Online Sources:

“Accentuating the positive”. BBC [Online] http://www.bbc.co.uk/bristol/content/sop/brizzle/story.shtml [2011, Feb 15]. Beast Clothing. Homepage [Online] http://www.beast-clothing.com/ [2011, Feb 15]. “Bristol”. British Library [Online] http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/sounds/text- only/england/bristol/ [2011, Feb 15]. “Chav”. Wikipedia. [Online] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chav [2011, Feb 15]. “Gareth Keenan. Character Guide”. BBC [Online] http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/theoffice/characters/profile_gareth.shtml [2011, Feb 15]. “Gurt Lush”. Urban Dictionary [Online] http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=gert%20lush [2011, Feb 15]. “Karte von Bristol”. Justmaps [Online] http://de.justmaps.org/maps/images/uk/bristol- map1.gif [2011, Feb 15]. “Regional English”. British Library [Online] http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/sounds/regional-voices/ [2011, Feb 15]. “Soundarchive- Soundsfamiliar”. British Library. [Online] http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/sounds/index.html [2011, Feb 15]. “The Brizzle Language School”. Beast Clothing [Online] http://www.beast- clothing.com/school.php [2011, Feb 15]. “The Wurzels”. Wikipedia [Online] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wurzels [2011, Feb 15].

90 UK Cities [Online] http://www.ukcities.co.uk/populations/ [2011, Feb 15]. “Understanding the locals”. BBC [Online] http://www.bbc.co.uk/bristol/content/articles/2005/10/25/newdictionary_feature.shtml [2011, Feb 15]. “Vicky Pollard. Character Guide”. BBC [Online] http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/littlebritain/characters/vicky.shtml [2011, Feb 15]. “Yokel”. Wikipedia [Online] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yokel [2011, Feb 15].

91 List of Table and Figures

Figure 1 The place of folk linguistics in general study of language, revised by Preston and Niedzielski, 2003, xi...... 22

Figure 2: Map of the UK - http://de.justmaps.org/maps/images/uk/bristol-map1.gif...... 32

Figure 3 “Do you think many people speak Bristolian?”...... 53

Figure 4 “Do you like the way the Bristolian accent/dialect sounds?”...... 56

Figure 5 Accents/Dialects of participants ...... 57

Figure 6 Liking of Bristolian according to own accent...... 59

Figure 7 Participants with Bristolian accent/dialect about the outsiders’ view on Bristolian. 63

Figure 8 Participants with no Bristolian accent/dialect about the self-evaluation of the ingroup ...... 64

Figure 9 “Do you think the Bristolian accent is used more by men or by women?”...... 71

Figure 10 “Do you think the Bristolian accent is used more by older or by younger speakers?”...... 72

Figure 11 “Do you think the Bristolian accent is dying out?” ...... 73

Table 1 “Have you ever heard these expressions?” ...... 54

92 Appendix

Online Questionnaire

Bristolian Survey

Dear participants! Thank you very much for taking part in this survey about Bristolian speech. Please feel free to share whatever knowledge you have about it, as well as your attitudes and experiences! I am currently working on my thesis in English studies at the university of Graz, Austria and this survey will be a major part for my analysis. I am very interested in your personal opinions and experiences regarding this topic and I thank you very much for your effort and time! The data will only be used within the analysis of my thesis and will of course be treated anonymously and confidentially!

Questions

1 Which accent/dialect would you say you have? *T T

Please choose onlyT one T of the following:

• Received Pronunciation (also known as BBC-English) • Bristolian • No accent at all • Other

2 Have you ever been discriminated against because of your accent/dialect? *

[Only answer this question if you answered 'Bristolian' or 'Received Pronunciation (also known as BBC-English)' or ‘Other’ to question '001 ]

Please choose onlyT one T of the following:

• Yes • No

93 3 In which way have you been discriminated against because of your accent/dialect?

[Only answer this question if you answered 'Yes' to question '002 ]

Please write your answer here:

4 Are there situations in which you would not use your Bristolian dialect? *

[Only answer this question if you answered 'Bristolian' to question '001 ]

Please choose onlyT one T of the following:

• Yes • No

5 Please explain the kind of situations in which you would not use your Bristolian dialect and why you would not use it in this context.

[Only answer this question if you answered 'Yes' to question '004 ]

Please write your answer here:

6 When you hear "Bristolian" what springs to your mind?

Please write your answer here:

7 Do you like the way Bristolian accent/dialect sounds? *

Please choose onlyT one T of the following:

• Yes, a lot • Yes, quite • No, not very much • Not at all

8 What in particular do you like about the Bristolian accent/dialect?

[Only answer this question if you answered 'Yes, a lot' or 'Yes, quite' to question '011 ]

94 Please write your answer here:

9 What in particular don't you like about the Bristolian accent/dialect?

[Only answer this question if you answered 'Not at all' or 'No, not very much' to question '011 ]

Please write your answer here:

10 Do you think many people speak Bristolian? *

Please choose onlyT one T of the following:

• Yes, many • Yes, quite a few • Not so many • No, none

11 Do you think the Bristolian accent is dying out? *

Please choose onlyT one T of the following:

• Yes, it's dying out • It's neither dying out nor increasing • No, it's not dying out • It's usage is actually growing

12 Do you think the Bristolian accent is used more by men or by women? *

Please choose onlyT one T of the following:

• More by men • More by women • The same amount

13 Why do you think the Bristolian accent/dialect is used more by men?

[Only answer this question if you answered 'More by men' to question '018 ]

Please write your answer here:

95 14 Why do you think the Bristolian accent/dialect is used more by women?

[Only answer this question if you answered 'More by women' to question '018 ]

Please write your answer here:

15 Do you think the Bristolian accent is used more by older or by younger speakers? *

Please choose onlyT one T of the following:

• More by older speakers • More by younger speakers • The same amount

16 Why do you think the Bristolian accent/dialect is used more by older speakers?

[Only answer this question if you answered 'More by older speakers' to question '021 ]

Please write your answer here:

17 Why do you think the Bristolian accent/dialect is used more by younger speakers?

[Only answer this question if you answered 'More by younger speakers' to question '021 ]

Please write your answer here:

18 Can you name some features of Bristolian English?

Please write your answer here:

96 19 What do you think speakers of Bristolian think about their own way of speaking? *

Please choose onlyT one T of the following:

• They are proud of it • They are embarrassed of it • They don't care about it • They never think about this • They are ambivalent - sometimes they are proud, sometimes they are embarrassed about it

20 Why do you think speakers of Bristolian are feeling this way about their own way of speaking?

[Only answer this question if you answered 'They are proud of it' or 'They are embarrassed of it' or 'They are ambivalent - sometimes they are proud, sometimes they are embarrassed about it' to question '027 ]

Please write your answer here:

21 What do you think people from outside of Bristol think about the Bristolian accent/dialect? *

Please choose onlyT one T of the following:

• They like it very much • They quite like it • They don't like it very much • They don't like it at all

22 Have you ever heard/used the following words or phrases? *

Please choose the appropriate response for each item:

heard heard and used neither heard nor used Gert Lush Where's that to? How bist? I didn't do nothing Slider Keener Emphasis of R (e.g. neveR, alaRm, Right...) Bristol L (e.g. areaL for area, ideaL for idea, AmericaL for Amercia...) Silent initial H (e.g. 'ave, 'im, 'otel...)

97 23 How old are you? *

Please choose onlyT one T of the following:

• younger than 10 years • between 10 and 20 years • between 21 and 30 years • between 31 and 40 years • between 41 and 50 years • between 51 and 60 years • between 61 and 70 years • older than 70 years

24 Please tick your gender. *

Please choose onlyT one T of the following:

• Female • Male

25 Which type of school did you attend? *

Please choose onlyT one T of the following:

• Local State School • Other State School • Private/Independent • Other …………………

26 What is your occupational situation? *

Please choose onlyT one T of the following:

• student at a college or school • student at a university • working • other activity • Other …………………….

27 Which area of Bristol are you living in? *

Please choose onlyT one T of the following:

• BS1: Bristol city centre, Redcliffe • BS2: Kingsdown, St. Pauls, St. Phillips, St. Agnes • BS3: Bedminster, Southville, Bower Ashton, Windmill Hill, part of Totterdown

98 • BS4: Brislington, Knowle, Knowle West, St. Annes, part of Totterdown • BS5: Easton, St. George, Whitehall • BS6: Redland, Montpelier, Westbury Park • BS7: Bishopston, Horfield, part of Filton • BS8: Clifton, Hotwells • BS9: Coombe Dingle, Sneyd Park, Stoke Bishop, Westbury on Trym • BS10: Brentry, Henbury, Southmead • BS11: Avonmouth, Shirehampton • BS13: Bedminster Down, Bishophsworth, Hartcliffe, Withywood • BS14: Hengrove, Stockwood, Whitchurch, Withywood • BS15: Hanham, Kingswood • BS16: Downend, Fishponds, Frenchay • Other

28 How long have you lived in Bristol (in years)? *

Please write your answer here:

29 Please use this space to make any additional comments you want to make about the Bristolian accent/dialect.

Please write your answer here:

30 If you are interested in some results of this survey please leave your E-mail address and I will send you some information. Your e-mail address will not be linked to the answers you provided within the survey, all your answers will stay anonymous. Your e-mail address will not be used for anything else and will be deleted at the end of the survey process.

Please write your answer here:

THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR YOUR TIME AND INFORMATION! If you have any further questions or remarks please feel free to email me:

[email protected] H

99

Expert Interviews

Interview with Lucy Wheeler Lucy Wheeler is the founder and owner of “BEAST”, the successful and widely known T- shirt company producing T-shirts and other items with Bristolian expressions on them. She was born in Bristol and still lives there.

The interview was recorded in Bristol, Cheltenham Road on Monday, 17/05/10 from 11-12 a.m.

Interviewer: So, run a company selling T-shirts and other items with a lot of Bristolian expressions on them. So, I am wondering, how did you initially get this idea to run such a business? Lucy Wheeler: Ahm, well we’ve been printing T-shirts for a long time, since 1987, and we started doing Bristol souvenir T-shirts just with the word Bristol, UK. That’s how it started off: lots of different designs, how, I don’t know, well with our feelings of Bristol on there. And one day my business partner said: ‘Let’s put Gurt Lush on a T- shirt.’ He said, people liked Gurt Lush, everyone says that. So we argued about the spelling and about the design and eventually we came up with a good design, started to sell it and it sold really well. Interviewer: Mhm. Lucy Wheeler: And then I wanted to put Alright my lover on a T-shirt because that’s what I’d always said to my sister, especially on the phone. Interviewer: Ok. Lucy Wheeler: At the end of the phone call: ‘Alright my lover’, you know. And then we started to sell that, (MHM) we printed that and we sold that and that went really well. Then another customer came, pointed at the T-shirt Alright my lover and Gurt Lush and went ‘Ark at ee’, so I felt dandimous?? At heaven, he mate, the next one’s gotta be Ark at ee. So, it was something that just, once we started doing it we had loads of people suggesting things. All the customers and people sold T-shirts started taking part and joining in and suggesting things and then…then we got some publicity around it and then it really took off and so, here we are today. Interviewer: Ok, I see.

100 Lucy Wheeler: And that’s how it came about. Yes, it was something that evolved, it sort of happens and aaahh…yea, it was basically to celebrate the Bristolian dialect, celebrate being from Bristol, celebrate our accent and the things that we say. Interviewer: So, you are saying the reactions of people were really positive and everybody was suggesting even more? Lucy Wheeler: Yes, so it was a really positive reaction. People were laughing…ahm…I think, identifying with what was on there and, as far as I can tell, we were the first people to sort of, you know, so’of really come out and celebrate the accent in bright colours. It’s not….some people have said that we’re taking them micky ( icky ?), you know, having a laugh at people, which is not the case. Cause, I grew up, ye know, just up the way from here and I went to a very sort of Bristolian Junior School and you know, this is how I spoke when I was at school, you know and yea, so, I think people just really liked the fact that something they maybe were slightly ashamed of was now coming out and being celebrated. Interviewer: So, you think people are rather ashamed of their dialect or..? Lucy Wheeler: I think some people are. I think, yea, I’ve had some people buying, said: ‘Uh, that’s exactly how I speak, isn’t that terrible, you know, sort of thinking that ahm, I think, a lot of people think the accent is something to be slightly, yes, slightly ashamed of and I think we’re sort of saying, don’t be ashamed of it, celebrate it, and, you know, I think this is our…where we are from and there’s nothing wrong with it, having a local accent. Inteviewer: So, you…. Lucy Wheeler: I think everyone has got an accent, unless they changed their accent, most people got an accent, I think most people got an accent which reflects the area they are from, and I don’t see what’s wrong with that. Interviewer: Okay, but do you think people from other areas are ashamed of their accent as well or is this a typically Bristolian phenomenon? Lucy Wheeler: Ahm, I think, I think, some people are. Interviewer: Mhm Lucy Wheeler: I know some people who come from certain places are a little bit ashamed of their accent, but I don’t see why. Ahm, you know, I don’t see why. I think, I think as long as you’re understood by other people, as long as people know, can understand what you’re saying, then it’s back communication, so as long as you can, you know, other people can understand what you’re saying I don’t see a problem with it.

101 Interviewer: Yea. Lucy Wheeler: You know, people might not understand every single phrase, like Gurt Lush, and say, ‘What does Gurt Lush mean?’ I think, you know lots of people say that, visitors to Bristol say ‘What does Gurt Lush mean?’. So we tell them then and then it’s a talking point. And lots of people who wear our T-shirts, abroad or to different parts of the country, always say, you know, it’s an icebreaker, it’s an opener for a conversation, so people use it like that quite often. Interviewer: So, you’ve got customers from all, all around England or all around the world really? Lucy Wheeler: Since we’ve started the website we’ve had a lot of people ordering from different parts of the world, cause they get a little bit homesick? Interviewer: Yes, I see. Lucy Wheeler: And so, they get back in touch with Bristol, the mother city, if you like Interviewer: Oh, ok, I see. Lucy Wheeler: And then order T-shirts to wear, you know, to various places round the world and I think it’s, it’s sort of, I think it helps people to so’of meet other people from this part of the world when they are travelling, that’s, you know, I’ve heard stories of that happening or just to sort of say this is where I’m from and it’s something to talk about, you know. Interviewer: Ok. So, there must be some people being proud of their heritage and from….of Bristol or? Lucy Wheeler: I think we might have helped some people ..ahm..in Bristol to instead of being…I’d like to think that we’ve helped some people who might have used to ‘ve been slightly ashamed of it now to feel so’of that it’s good to be Bristolian and…and feel happy about it Interviewer: yea. Lucy Wheeler: and are proud of their, you know, where they’re from. Interviewer: Yea, I see. I’ve seen your web page. It’s…It also includes a translation page, Lucy Wheeler: yea. Interviewer: where you can listen to words which are Bristolian, so ahm, I think, ähhm, this might help people..ahäm, to identify with it really, doesn’t it, I mean, Lucy Wheeler: Yea, to explain it. Interviewer: you can access it from all over the world and… Lucy Wheeler: Yea, I mean, we like to, you know, include people

102 Interviewer: mhm Lucy Wheeler: and, you know, I don’t think, you know, you definitely, you necessarily have to be born here to be Bristolian. Interviwer: Mhm Lucy Wheeler: I think it’s just somebody who stayed there, likes it and joins in. Interviewer: Okay. Lucy Wheeler: Somebody, who wants to join in with, you know, how we are back there. Interviewer: Okay, and are you costumers from a specific age group or not? Is it…. Lucy Wheeler: No, it’s all ages. It’s…it’s….it’s all ages. We sell loads of children’s ones. I think it’s a sort of family think really. Interviewer: Yea? Lucy Wheeler: I sort of think of our customers, you know, we get so’of family groups. Interviewer: Ok. Lucy Wheeler: So, we get, you know, a lot of, a lot of men, older men like them and they think they’re really funny. Interviewer: Yea, really? Lucy Wheeler: And they laugh a lot at them: Haaa. I think, you know, they just like laughing at them. And then kids like wearing them and mums and dads and yea, I so’of see it as a family thing. Interviewer: Ok, and would you generally say that the Bristolian dialect is rather increasing in its use or is there a decrease? Lucy Wheeler: I think language evolves anyway. Intervierwer: Mhm. Lucy Wheeler: I think, maybe some of the phrases that I said when I was a kid have been replaced with new ones. I’ve heard new sort of Bristolian phrases being said that, you know, weren’t ..didn’t seem to be around when I was a kid. I also think different areas of Bristol say different things. There are some of our phrases that some people of the North of Bristol will kind of say: ‘Well, I’ve been a Bristolian all my life, I don’t know this.’ And I sort of explain, well, that’s a South-Bristol-phrase. Interviewer: Mhm. Lucy Wheeler: Ahm, and, you know, there are some phrases only older people recognise, some only younger people recognise. So, we’ve tried to sort of, you know, bring in the more interesting ones, interesting ones from… Interviewer: Ok

103 Lucy Wheeler: the whole spectrum of the Bristolian dialect. Interviewer: Ok, so Bristolian is not only a phenomenon which is only located in only a..a.. small part of Bristol, it’s all around the city, is that what you suggested? Lucy Wheeler: I think mainly it’s the suburbs. Interviewer: Aha, ok. Lucy Wheeler: Yea, I think the city centre ‘s got ahm a lot of people, a lot of students, mainly that live in the centre, you know. When you got the rent and accommodation say this area for example, I think it’s mainly say students and people that have moved from other parts of the countries here. And I think, actually when you go out to the suburbs, that’s where you find the real Bristolian. Interviewer: Aha, I see. And do you often get questions on what the meaning of the T-shirts is? Lucy Wheeler: All the time. Interviewer: Yea? Lucy Wheeler: Yea. All the time, we get tourists, who want to know and all sorts of people, people from other parts of the country. I mean most people from Bristol understands, you know, what what they are saying. But, yea, I mean, all visitors, you know. And we’ve had loads of tourists this year. Interviewer: Ok. Lucy Wheeler: Iit’s been really good. So, we’ve had loads of Europeans coming over: French, Spanish and Italians. So they, you know, it’s really good fun to sort of explain to people what it all means and yea. Interviewer: Ok, I see. And, you already mentioned in the beginning that you get new ideas from, like, suggestions of people or whatever. Do you also talk to people, or where do you get all the new ideas from for your T-shirts and things? Lucy Wheeler: Ahm, well, we’ve, I suppose, you know, we’ve always lived in Bristol. So, we always hear stuff going on or do a bit of research, or… Interviewer: Ok. Lucy Wheeler: ah, I think it’s just listening Interviewer: Ok Lucy Wheeler: to what people are saying. Yea. Interviewer: And what about your own experiences. You are a speaker of Bristolian, aren’t you? Lucy Wheeler: Yea.

104 Interviewer: Yes. And what are your own experiences with this accent? Have you ever been discriminated against or was it rather positive? Lucy Wheeler: Well, I think Tim might have told you, if you read the bit about my story from Tim’s article Interviewer: Mhm. Lucy Wheeler: but, yea, I, I grew up in the North of Bristol, ahm sort of the Horfield Filton sort of boarder and I went to school there. My mum grew up in Wiltshire during the war, so she’s got quite a strong, I wouldn’t say it was so much Bristolian her accent, but West Country, sort of Wiltshire accent. And ahm, we went to a local school where, yea, the accent was quite, it was a strong North Bristol accent. Interviewer: Mhm. Lucy Wheeler: And, so I had this accent and I wasn’t really aware that I had quite a strong Bristolian accent. To me it was just normal, how people spoke. And we mixed within, you know, people from North Bristol and that’s how everyone spoke. Interviewer: Mhm. Lucy Wheeler: And then, ahm, for the next school that I went to, it was a private school, Colston Girl’s School on Cheltenham road. And I went there and I did find some prejudice when I first went there because my accent sort of stood out against I think, you know, with a lot of middle class girls who were at that school, who had a more sort of neutral Bristolian accent. I think if a lot of people from that school ‘d gone to London, people would probably be able to say ‘Hm, I think you come from the West of England somewhere.’ But it wasn’t a strong accent they had but still a so’of , a so’of Bristol PR, if you like. Interviewer: Ok. Lucy Wheeler: And so I went to this school and my accent really stood out. And if there was a school play, I’d always have the part of the gardener or things like that Interviewer: Oh, really? Lucy Wheeler: Yea, cause of my accent. So, I kind of didn’t want to be remarked, didn’t want to have people remarking on my accent all the time. So I decided to so’of, you know, I became more aware of it as well. Before that I wasn’t aware of it. It was just normal. So, I became aware of my accent being a bit different and decided to so’of I s’ppose turning it down. Interviewer: Ok. Lucy Wheeler: Yea. So, I tried to sort of neutralise it.

105 Interviewer: Mhm. Lucy Wheeler: And picked up. And also, I think, from being around people with a more turned down accent, I picked up the new accent from the school. Interviewer: Ok. Lucy Wheeler: And, yea, I think I was a bit ashamed of it. Interviewer: Ok. Lucy Wheeler: I think if I’d been a little bit older an’ a bit more confident I would have said: Yea, what’s wrong with it. This is…we live in Bristol and this is the accent from this part of Bristol and this is how people speak, what’s wrong with that. But, I not…, you know, I s’ppose being young and not having this sort of confidence, I…I just decided to sort of blend in. Interviewer: Mhm. Lucy Wheeler: And then, when we sort of started putting the Bristolian words on T-shirts, I was thinking: yea, why…why be ashamed of an accent. It’s not, you know, there’s nothing to be ashamed of. I think people should just celebrate your accent. As long as you’re understood and people can understand you, then, why try to get rid of an accent. It’s part of your heritage, where you’re from and… Interviewer: Yea. Lucy Wheeler: You know. Interviewer: All right. And do you have any “best-selling” T-shirts. I mean, are there a few expressions that are especially liked by people? Lucy Wheeler: Ahm, well, what we’re trying to do is to put positive expressions on. We don’t put negative stuff on there. Cause you know, it’s got to represent Bristol as well and be friendly and ahm, you know, we want Bristol to so’of be reflected as a positive place, so, all, all the expressions we use are positive ones. Ahm, I think, Gurt Lush ‘s always been a very good seller. I think it’s funny, it makes people laugh. Interviewer: Yea. Lucy Wheeler: cheers drive, ark at ee, alright my luvver?, .. Interviewer: Yea. Lucy Wheeler: Ahm, we bought in…At Christmas we bought in muuh!! i wants a go on the slider! Interviewer: Ah, ok. Lucy Wheeler: And that was and that’s gone really well. Interviewer: I see.

106 Lucy Wheeler: zider eye up. Ahm, yea. They’ve all,...they’ve all gone well, actually. Interviewer: Ok, so do you think there are also negative expression, as you would put it, or is the dialect rather seen as very friendly, positive by outsiders? Lucy Wheeler: I think most of the well-known phrases are positive ones. There’s probably a few negative ones, but, we so’of don’t tune into them. Interviewer: Mmm. Lucy Wheeler: Ahm, we sort of concentrate on the positive ones and…and then go with those really. Interviewer: Yea. Ahm, is there anything you would personally like to add about Bristolian accent or dialect? Lucy Wheeler: Ahm, I think…Aaahm. Oh, let’s have a think. I’d like just to so’of go back to the thing about people being ashamed of it really. Interviewer: Mhm. Lucy Wheeler: I think, … I think people should, whatever accent people have, I think they should go, you know, I so’of think you have to be understood, you know that..that other people can understand you, you have to be able to communicate effectively to people, you know, that aren’t from that accent. But I think, I don’t think people should have it turned down. I really like Justin Lee Collins, because he’s gone and made a success of his accent and.. Interviewer: Mhm. Lucy Wheeler:…and gone out and not apologise for it, not try to turn it down. Interviewer: He’s a comedian, isn’t he? Lucy Wheeler: Comedian/presenter, yea. Interviewer: Mhm, mhm. Lucy Wheeler: And, yea, he’s gone out and celebrated his accent. Interviewer: Ok. Lucy Wheeler: And, and, you know, it’s easy to understand him. He comes across as warm and friendly. His accent sounds warm and friendly, as does, you know, I think the Bristolian accent and well, the whole of the West Country. South-West has a…a very warm, friendly accent. I also like Somerset accents and Devon accents. Interviewer: Ok. Lucy Wheeler: They’re also interesting, slightly different, but yea, I love the whole West Country accent. I think it sounds friendly, relaxed and quite good fun, you know. Interviewer: Mhm, so that’s…do you think that’s what people from outside think as well?

107 Lucy Wheeler: Ahm, I think it comes across as friendly. Interviewer: Mhm. Lucy Wheeler: And, I think, yea, I think it’s a nice rounded accent. Yea, nice rounded, friendly accent. Like, I, that’s how I see it, I don’t know, it difficult to so’of see it more objectively. But that’s how I sort of think of it. Interviewer: Ok. Lucy Wheeler: Ahm, I think, I think it’s worth celebrating. I think, you know, if you meet a French person or Spanish person, you know, they can speak English with an accent, why…what’s wrong with that. I don’t… I find it interesting. I think it’d be really boring if everyone turns their accents down and everyone went neutral. Interviewer: Ok. Lucy Wheeler: I think it’s nice, you know, it’s nice when you have students coming to Bristol with all different sorts of accents. Interviewer: Mhm. Lucy Wheeler: I like it. You know, I think it’s good to have an accent. Interviewer: Ok, so thank you very much!

108 Interview with Esther de Leeuw Esther de Leeuw having done her Ph.D. in speech and hearing sciences in 2009, is a visiting lecturer in linguistics at the University of the West of England. During one of her courses she, in cooperation with her students examined Bristolian /r/ in relation to Labov's study of /r/ in New York city.

The interview was recorded in London, Trafalgar Square, on Thursday, 20/05/10 from 4-4:40 p.m.

Interviewer: Ahm, so you did an experiment with your students from the University of the West of England, modelled on Labov’s original study in New York regarding the postvocalic ‘r’, right? Esther de Leeuw: Yea, that’s true. Yea. Interviewer: And how did you come up with the idea of doing it? Esther de Leeuw: Ah, how did I come up? Well, I was preparing a lecture on Labov and on his study and at that time, I can’t remember exactly… Is the recording ok? Interviewer: Yes. Esther de Leeuw: Let’s see, I think I was just preparing the lecture and then, I mean, the interesting thing with Labov is that postvocalic ‘r’ in his study is a symbol of prestige in New York English, whereas in Bristol it’s really the exact opposite, the postvocalic ‘r’ or just rhotic pronunciation is not a symbol of prestige. So I thought it would be a relatively kind of easy experiment for students to do because you’d just really repeat the same experiment but the results that you would get would probably be the other way round. So, really the idea on my part was, kind of to facilitate relatively, you know, easily designed study. There were a few things changed. So, in the Labovian study there was just the answers yes or no. I heard, yes, I heard a postvocalic ‘r’ or no, I didn’t hear a postvocalic ‘r’. That was one thing that we changed, so the students,

there was a scale: that I heard a clear ‘r’ or I definitely did not hear an ‘r’, but there were options between that, which, when you’re doing statistics makes it easier than to get results because its not either yes and no answer with just two tokens. And we also had gathered the data in groups together, so that was a bit of a complicated design, so that each person in the little group would ask but they would all rate what they heard and then, after each person had asked a few times, they would average their results together from the group. I think, yea that was it. So there was an average with more

109 than one person rating, which…That’s not necessarily a criticism of the Labovian study because, I think it’s, you know, it has its advantages as well, just going around on your own doing it because people really don’t suspect what you’re doing, you don’t look like, you know, a fool with a big group of five student tracing around. The other thing which was different was, we actually had to ask a bit of a different question, so I think we used the ‘third floor’ rather than the ‘fourth floor’ because there simply aren’t enough department stores in Bristol with four floors. And also, like, in the States it’s very clear, I think, when you walk in you’re on the first floor, which is the ground floor here, and then second floor in the States is first floor here. So it’s a different system, so it’s more difficult to get somebody to say ‘fourth floor’. And also in one department store in Bristol they had like basement, ground floor, first floor and second floor, you know, so you actually can’t elicit the result as clearly as you could in New York. Sorry, I’m going on. Do you wanna ask me something? Interviewer: Well no, you already described your method, so you collected the data and you sent the students to different stores in Bristol, which were connoted with different prestige, is that right? Esther de Leeuw: Ya, that’s right. Ya, exactly. Yea, so we had three department stores, let’s hope I remember all of them. I think that one was, uf what was it…it was in the new shopping centre…Harrods or..no House of Fraser. House of Fraser was the high prestige, Debenhams, I think, was the mid-prestige and …eehm, I think Primark was the low, low prestige store. But, we…well the students have handed in their, their summaries for it, but the marking was not done by me, it was done by Jannine and I haven’t look at exactly what kind of results they have. So, I’m …I believe that you saw differences in the stores, I don’t think that the differences were as nuanced as they were in the Labovian study. In the Labovian study he found for example that there were differences in floor, like the closer you got to the top floor, the more prestige accents you heard. But I think that’s something that, well, traditionally would be viewed as having complicated the study was the amount of immigrant...immigrant speech in the data. Now, I actually don’t think this complicates things at all. I think it’s very interesting to look at what immigrant populations are doing with dialect and I think it’s something that could actually be focused on more so rather than just focusing kind of traditional dialect features, what’s happening with these traditional dialect features in really…ah… multilingual society, so that’s something I would like to look at a bit more.

110 Interviewer: That’s because you think Bristol has a huge multi-cultural society? Esther de Leeuw: Ya, ya, exactly. You just don’t see things as clearly as you used to and I think what a lot of researchers then would tend to react would be to say: ‘Well, let’s try to find the ideal store, where we only have Bristolian speakers.’ But it actually does not exist anymore. Interviewer: Mhm, I see. So, did you, did you or your students have any expectations regarding the results? You already mentioned that it’s the opposite as it was in New York with the prestige factor, but… Esther de Leeuw: Any expectations? Yea, I think the students were…I mean for me it was more the easily designed experiment to do with students. That’s how I would tell it at the time. Ahm, yea I think the students were really, really excited to collect data and it was their first kind of experience in doing,…you know, trying to deal with all the difficulties that you have, like even really an experiment that’s already been designed for you. Interviewer: Mhm, mhm. Esther de Leeuw: Deal with all the difficulties that you encounter when you’re collecting data, but ya, the expectation was, the expectations was definitely that you’ll see the same, the same results that Labov had, just the other way round. Interviewer: Just the other way round… Esther de Leeuw: Yea, but I think then it was, yea it was quite surprising the level of migrants and the issue is just much more complicated than it was at the time of the Labovian study in, well back in the 1970s, when you know, the immigrant population was still high in the States, but just not as high as it is now. Well, of course it was always high in the States, it’s an immigrant population in itself, but not as colourfully as it is now. Interviewer: Ok. Esther de Leeuw: That’s the wrong word I think. I just mean, not as…, well in the stores that he chose to do his study, immigrant populations weren’t there. Interviewer: Ok. And did you look at other features of Bristolian accent as well or did you only focus on the postvocalic ‘r’? Esther de Leeuw: No, we only focused on the postvocalic ‘r’. Interviewer: Okay, mhm. And did your students have any attitudes on Bristolian… Esther de Leeuw: mhhhmm… Interviwer: ...beforehand or did this change?

111 Esther de Leeuw: That’s a really interesting question. Mhm. Interviewer: Were your students actually from Bristol? Esther de Leeuw: Some, some not. Yea. Interviewer: Ok. Esther de Leeuw: That, that is a really interesting question, whether or not their perception of Bristolian are changed afterwards. That’s a very interesting question and I can’t answer it. I don’t know. I hope that it did change. My feeling from them at the beginning….is that …dialect features are cute but actually they are not right, they shouldn’t be there. That’s MY feeling. I never had a student tell that to me but there were some comments we had in class. That would be my opinion of how they think about …yea… Bristolian ‘r’ kind of dialect features. Interviewer: Mhm. Esther de Leeuw: Ahm, and I hope that they changed and that they have a more, you know, after collecting data and just looking at regionally accented speech more neutrally, as kind of a researcher then I hope that they will have less, less...ahm…preconceptions about all of the stigma that’s attached having an accent. Interviewer: Ok, so you think there actually is a stigma regarding the accent or dialect of Bristol? Esther de Leeuw: Mhm, I think there is, ya, I think there is definitely. I think that people, when you hear the West-Country “r”, I think people think it’s kind of cute. Interviewer: Ok. Esther de Leeuw: Like farmer – farmer talk a little bit and …ahm...but it’s not that well- educated than…that would be my…yea…kind of way of thinking how people feel about it. Interviewer: Mhm. Esther de Leeuw: Yea. Interviewer: Ok, and do you think there are more younger speakers of Bristolian or is it rather a phenomen…phenomenon that is usual among older inhabitants of the city? Esther de Leeuw: Mhm, I don’t know. Yea, that’s a good question as well. Ahm,… I actually think depending on the area in Bristol you’ll get younger people speaking that way as well. Yea, but it’s, I mean, regionally accented speech in the UK is also associated with class, right. Interviewer: Ok.

112 Esther de Leeuw: If you have regionally accented speech then, like if you’re in London you speak Cockney, then that also has to do with class. So you know where the person is from vaguely, but you also know that they didn’t go to a public school, right, where they learn how to speak proper Received Pronunciation. So, … did I answer your question, I forgot what it was. Interviewer: Yea, about the age of speakers. Esther de Leeuw: Ya, so I think you’ll have some younger people speaking as well in areas like, well like Horfield, St. Pauls. You will have that, but you know, I think that the likelihood of a young person speaking living in Bristol, having rhotic pronunciation depends, first of all, on class, and then on immigrant background or not, so if the person has a lot of people who are from different countries around, or depending on the school, that Bristolian “r” won’t come out as much either. Interviewer: But is this a phenomenon that is restricted to Bristol? Esther de Leeuw: No, no it’s not, it’s wider than Bristol. I don’t know what the exact branches are. Interviewer: Ok, you mentioned the areas of people living in. So, you did your study in the city centre, didn’t you? Esther de Leeuw: Yea, yea exactly. Interviewer: But you would find speakers of Bristolian there as well, or..? Esther de Leeuw: Yea, you would, yea, the students did yea. So, in their Primark data collection, apparently, yea, they found more people speaking with Bristolian “R”, so that it is essentially more closely associated with social class. Interviewer: Ok, so, they didn’t only ask the shop assistants, they also asked, like, people buying things in the shop? Esther de Leeuw: No, they asked shopkeepers, like Labov. Interviewer: Ok, ok, this was the same. Ahm, and do you think… Esther de Leeuw: And I think..ah, sorry… Interviewer: Okay, of course…And do you think people in Bristol are generally proud or rather embarrassed about their own accent or dialect? Esther de Leeuw: Hm, that’s such a nice question, I don’t ….hm…well, I like the Bristolian “R” and whenever I go back to Bristol now, when I lived here, I like hearing it. And I think in a way that they are proud of it, like I said it’s cute and it’s, you know, Bristol has this kind of a different status than a lot of other non-London cities in the UK because it’s South.

113 Interviewer: Ok. Esther de Leeuw: So that, if you go to Birmingham, you know this is north, so…but Bristol is a little different because you don’t actually go in the North of London, to Bristol you just go West, so anything that’s kind of on the same level as London is to most Londoners kind of ok, like Brighton. But, when you go North, that’s when this is really much more associated with working class in the UK. Interviewer: So, Bristol wouldn’t be necessarily associated with working class background? Esther de Leeuw: Less so, less so. Yea, like you get that in Birmingham, Manchester, Newcastle, Sheffield, those kind of cities, that’s when…with those accents and people start thinking, like, it’s working class. I think that Bristol has a bit of a…people don’t really know what to do with it, like,…. It’s not in that sense, like, you associate with working class, like, those towns in the North, but it’s not Standard English, like Received Pronunciation either. I think it’s a bit of an oddball. Interviewer: Mhm. Esther de Leeuw: Yea. Ahm, and whether or not…and in that respect people from Bristol, I think, are a little bit proud of it, yea, if they are aware of it. Like, some people would not even be aware of it, that they have it. But, yea I think, some people are proud of it, definitely. I think it also kind of depends on the degree. Like if it’s really, really strong, like, you know, in Bristolian accent, then other people would maybe think of it a little bit much, but if it’s a little tinge of the Bristolian “R”, and people add words now too, you know, like ‘Alright, Me Luvver’. People would say that when they’re talking and even if you’re not from Bristol, people would say it, like ‘Choote?? Me’. Interviewer: Really? Esther de Leeuw: Yea. Or they say like ‘Brizzle’ and went to ‘Brizzle’. Interviewer: Ah, ok. Esther de Leeuw: You, know they add that into their speech. Interviewer: Mhm. Esther de Leeuw: Which I think is a sign for it, you know, it’s not that stigmatised. Interviewer: Ok. Esther de Leeuw: If people who aren’t from Bristol…I’m not saying people who aren’t from Bristol in London do that. But people who aren’t from Bristol who live in Bristol will add that in a bit. Interviewer: Mhm, mhm. Esther de Leeuw: So, then it can’t be that stigmatised, you know what I mean.

114 Interviewer: I see, mhm. Esther de Leeuw: Like, if you are really ashamed of this, you wouldn’t do that. Interviewer: Mhm, mhm. Esther de Leeuw: And there is a store in Bristol now, I don’t know if you’ve seen it, but, they sell all these shops…ah, all these T-shirts and stuff like that, you know, and that’s quite successful in Bristol that store. And to me that’s also a sign that, you know, it’s not that stigmatised then. Interviewer: Ok, I see. Interesting. The interview goes on about her work at BBC London, which is not relevant for the purpose of this thesis and therefore this part, in discussion with Esther de Leeuw, has been cut out. Interviewer: Is there anything you could personally add concerning the Bristolian dialect? Is there anything? Esther de Leeuw: I don’t know, I don’t know. Like, I think you’re interested in how people feel about their Bristolian dialect. Interviewer: Mhm. Esther de Leeuw: Ahm, yea it’s really hard to get at that. Hm. Yea, it’s really hard to get at that how people feel about a dialect. And sometimes people have different understandings about what a dialect is. So, they might be talking about ‘Oh, I love the dialect’ but actually they like a very watered-down form of the dialect. Yea, it’s difficult. I mean, I think that a really interesting avenue to pursue is to look at how migrant languages and dialect combine. Like, there is a really large population of Somali speakers in Bristol. Interviewer: Mhm. Esther de Leeuw: Like, what’s happening there. Like, is there any communication at all. You know, is there, like, a wall between those dialects or these different ways of speaking or just, how do they interact, I think that’s an interesting question. And...is there anything else?…No, no, I think that’s all. Interviewer: Alright, so thanks a lot. Esther de Leeuw: Yea, no problem.

115 Interview with Jonathan Robinson Jonathan Robinson is the leading expert on English accents and dialects in the Bristish Library in London and is also one initiator of the Sounds Familiar Website (http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/sounds/index.html).

The interview was recorded in the British Library in London, on Thursday, 20/05/10 from 2- 2:30 p.m.

Interviewer: Ahm, so you are working for the British Library on dialect research. Can you explain your work a little bit to me? Jonathan Robinson: Yea, at the British Library we have a department called the sound archive, that has both, history and contemporary recordings deposited by a variety of people, lots of BBC recordings, lots of linguistic recordings, so for instance, something called the Survey of English Dialects, which you may be familiar with, these sound recordings are deposited here. So, in recent years, although we’d have this material for some time, we’ve been working on a number of projects and making it more widely available. So, we’ve developed a couple of websites that give access to extracts from our sound archives. I am also working on a project called ‘Voices of the UK’. Hopefully in two years time we’ll launch a sort of searchable database of British dialects whereby users, generally academics, will be able to come to a search the interbase like a catalogue and say, ok, have you got any recordings where speakers say “you was” not “you were”, enter “you was” and then you’ll be told: yes, there are 640 recordings in this collecting and they are in Bristol, Manchester, Birmingham and therefore you’d be able to search the recordings by linguistic feature according to geography, social class, speaker etc. etc. So, we are working I s’posse on a number of ways of making sound recordings that we already have available for different researchers, so a couple of the websites that already exist: soundsfamilar and Archive of sound recordings and more public sites, so for general public users, maybe younger students. This resource we are developing is very much the for the more, the more academic communities. So, there’s a variety of projects. We’ve also got an exhibition forthcoming in the autumn, which will explore the English language in all its diversity because the British Library collections in print form, manuscript form, sound form kind of capture all types of English from Beowulf right through to text messaging, so. Interviewer: So, would you say this discussion about dialect is a very important one in the UK or in England, ahm, because people identify with their dialects, or...?

116 Jonathan Robinson: I think so. I think the 20th century arguably ‘s been an incredibly interesting process in terms of our relationship with regional speech in the UK, if you like. Certainly the advent of the BBC, the rise of certain types of independent or public school education ..ehm...at the start and the middle of the 20th century, I think, had a legacy whereby for many, many people there was a perceived right and wrong way of speaking. Interviewer: Mhm. Jonathan Robinson: and prestigious forms such as Received Pronunciation, I think were quite aspirational for many many would-be-middle class people. So for instance, my parents’ generation, both of my parents are from working class backgrounds, but they were “successful” in inverted commas and definitely felt the need as young people to change the way they spoke, they had regional accents but that’s softened over time as they progressed through their work. I think interestingly towards the end of the 20th century, and that that’s true in a number of ways, I think younger speakers feel under less pressure to do that and, quite rightly I think, are returning to a sense of pride in their local spoken identity, for instance, as manifests through the fact that the BBC now has broadcasters and presenters with a wide range of accents, whereas 30 years ago, unless it was comedy or sports, there was Received Pronunciation only on the BBC and or drama, something like that. Nowadays you’ll get serious discussion programmes with people of all sorts of speech – not broad dialect – but representatively regional accents. Likewise in educational circles, there’s been a move among teachers to: yes, teach Standard English and certain formal styles of speaking in certain situations such as presentations, interviews etc., but to encourage students, and this is both, at GCSE and at A-level embedded in the syllabus now, to recognise that there are different ways of speaking and different ways of using language, they are appropriate for different purposes. And I think that’s a huge change in, you know, even in the last 20 years. And so therefore, I think, it’s not ideal, of course, people still have ehm negative attitudes towards certain things, but I think there’s a definite change in attitudes towards openness, towards this and celebrating this diversity rather than wanting to channel everybody towards a single way of using language. Interviewer: Okay, and you have put up all those websites with the sound recordings, as you mentioned before. Was there any reaction from the public towards this? Jonathan Robinson: Massive public interest. I mean, one of the reasons I’m fortunate to be doing what I am doing. But the first job I did when I came here was an externally

117 founded grant post to produce an online dialect archive, which was for two years eeeh. When that launched there was massive public interest, it was in all the broadsheets, there was features on BBC, on local radio which enabled us to apply for an extra funding. We got this extra funding through the department for education to produce a website that was more targeted at schools. That was, again, wonderfully received, promoted through all sorts of teachers’ channels, it was entered for an educational award and enabled us basically to continue to seek funding, up to the point where my job became permanent. I now have a team of three people working in this area. So, five or six years ago, there was nobody at the British Library doing this work, although we had the collections. There was researchers coming in, using the material, but nobody responsible for it. So, I’m thinking, you know in five years, the reason I’m able to do what I’m doing is a result of that demonstrable massive public interest, and particularly media interest. It’s…every time there is a feature is about this, the BBC particularly are very keen to involve us and use our archives and we’re about to, as I mentioned earlier, have an exhibition this autumn, which again is kind of in the results of lots of people realising how interesting this material is to people. Interviewer: Yea. I’ve also seen that there is a speaker of Bristolian dialect online. Jonathan Robinson: Yes. Interviewer: Or more maybe even than one Jonathan Robinson: Yea. Interviewer: So, would you actually say that Bristolian is a dialect or is it rather an accent? What would you say? Jonathan Robinson: Ehm. Very, very difficult to define. I mean, it is certainly instantly recognisable as a regional variety. There are, at the very broad end of Bristol speech, there are some features that I would argue I would identify speakers as dialect speakers. So, certain grammatical features, certain archaic (?) historic forms that only exist in Bristol. So, for instance, the very famous ‘Bristol L’ is peculiar to the city itself. There are older speakers who retain the Old English ‘hin’ or ‘un’ (??) form of ‘him’ etc. etc. So they are, I would argue, at the dialect end of speech. But there are probably few and far between. But certainly in terms of accents, it is instantly recognisable. There is a very famous, I say very famous, quite a popular famous stand-up comedian in the UK at the moment called Justin Lee Collins. I don’t know whether you’re familiar with him. Interviewer: Mhm.

118 Jonathan Robinson: And he is very clearly from Bristol and known to be so and arguably plays on that. Ehm. But in terms of history it is, I would say, purely an accent. There is nothing about its vocabulary and his grammar that is necessarily different from many, many forms of nonstandard English, if you like. So, it’s difficult to say. Unlike maybe, something like Geordie, so the speech of Newcastle upon Tyne, where there are large numbers of speakers who you could identify as using dialect features, I would say that Bristol has a small numbers of speakers who are dialect speakers but large numbers of speakers who have a recognisable Bristol accent. Interviewer: Alright. And a lot of people tend to associate Bristolian with the West Country in general. Jonathan Robinson: Yea. Interviewer: So, with other West Country dialects. Is it very are similar to those or are there differences as well? Jonathan Robinson: Again, as I’m sure you know from your research, dialects and accents work on a continuum, so it’s very difficult to draw boundaries. But certainly, eeh, Bristol itself seems to have retained very recognisable features among younger speakers, where in other parts of the West Country, where yes, there is a clear relationship between speech in Bristol and the surrounding West Country areas: Somerset, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, but in those rural areas arguable the younger speakers are less recognisably western, if you like. Whereas in Bristol it would appear that speakers of all ages do have features that are clearly Bristolian. So, I suspect over time Bristol itself will have an extremely recognisable accent or dialect among all ages of its community, where in the West Country at large, arguably that will be less recognised. When in the same sense that’s up in, say in the North of England, there is a very clear Manchester dialect, but it’s different from the surrounding areas. And because of the huge numbers of speakers and the attraction that metropolitan urban life has to younger speakers that will be maintained, I suspect. So, I think at the moment you could argue that there are many shared features across the whole of the West Country but perhaps Bristol will emerge as, as kind of like the beacon of that dialect in the next 50 years or so. Interviewer: Alright, so you mention a lot of young people also speaking this accent or dialect. Jonathan Robinson: Yea. Interviewer: So, do you think the Bristolian accent is likely to increase or..?

119 Jonathan Robinson: Well, I think it’s interesting, because I wanna mention Manchester. It’s arguably the issue, I suspect, for all the future of the Bristol accent or dialect is that for some young speakers it might have negative perceptions. I’m sure you’ve come across this yourself. Within the UK at large, the West Country dialect or West Country accent and the Bristol accent and dialect possibly has negative connotations of rural, sort of not urban, fast, peaky, cool, cutting edge, modern, contemporary, multi-cultural British life, where, say, a Manchester accent is associated with cool Manchester bands, football, a way of life that young speakers might well aspire to. Bristol doesn’t necessarily have that. Nationwide not immediately quite obviously Bristol has got its very interesting cultural musical scene and it has, for instance, as you’re probably aware, the West Country is very much the heart land of English rugby as opposed to football. So, there is definitely a local identity that Bristolians could tap into. But, perhaps, for some speakers within Bristol, young speakers, this national negative perceived identity of it, might have an impact on their desire to retain Bristolian features. But nonetheless, I think, there is a clearly local identity. There are sufficient numbers of speakers for about to be maintained and sufficient stability of population, I suspect, which will be maintained. But it is probably, it could be argued, that it’s more under threat than say, a Liverpool accent, a Birmingham accent, a Manchester accent because it’s not, at the moment, got a sort of badge coolness attached to it. But these things change. I mean, to go back to the 60s, obviously because of the Beatles, the coolest accent on the world, on the planet, was a Liverpool accent. But, in the 80s the Liverpool accent was definitely, had very many negative connotation nationwide because of its associations with unemployment and political unrest etc. So, things change, but I think, it’d be interesting to know, what you think. I mean, what have your research suggested in terms of perceptions of young people towards Bristolian. Interviewer: Well, my pilot run showed that it’s very diverse among people, that some people really do identify with it, but a lot of people, especially those, who came to Bristol to live there from somewhere else, Jonathan Robinson: right, Interviewer: they feel rather, I don’t know, they don’t like the dialect that much. Jonathan Robinson: Ya. Interviewer: That’s the first impression from my pilot run.

120 Jonathan Robinson: And that’s possibly based on their previous perceptions of it, which was the nationwide UK perception. Whereas, I suspect, if you, it’s defile to know, but if you went, let’s say, to Manchester and interviewed young people coming to Manchester, they, I imaging, might feel that they want to fit in with Mancunians, cause it’s cool, both inside Manchester and outside Manchester, to be from Manchester, but…so, yes it’s interesting Interviewer: Yea. So you would say the prestige of Bristolian dialect in general around the UK is rather low? Jonathan Robinson: I think so. I mean, lots of surveys of this kind of thing have been done. The BBC voices survey in 2005 tapped into this idea. And there are some accents that were often mentioned in negative contexts and others that were mentioned in positive contexts. Lots of surveys seemed to suggest that a soft Welsh, Scottish, Irish, aja Celtic accent is lovely. Obviously that’s, as we know, linguistically not based on any factual evidence, but that would appear to be the perception. Certain urban UK accents are less well perceived. So, Liverpool, Birmingham, Bristol often come out quite low. Other English urban areas, Newcastle for instance, comes out quite highly on those kind of scores. So, and that’s possible the results of in the last 20 years Newcastle has had a number of cultural icons, that went …world, the football a gazer and Cheryl Cole from…, there are a couple of people called Anton Deck, who are TV presenters. So, Newcastle has had a number of quite cool, young people identified with that accent in the same way as the Beatles did in the 60s with Liverpool. Bristol hasn’t yet, other than Justin Lee Collins, got that kind of iconic figure for the cool, I don’t think. Interviewer: Ok, so thanks a lot. Do you think there’s anything to add about Bristolian or dialect perception in general. Jonathan Robinson: No, I think. Well, interestingly it is, I think it is, an area that has, should have had more and ought to have more researched and interviewed because it’s interesting in a number of ways: one, because of what we just talked about, because of its perception outside the city, but also because of its geographic position. It is arguably a bastion against what’s perceived to be the spreading of London features outside of London. So, lots of migration of people from London down the M4 corridor to places like Reading and, more recently, to places like Swindon has had a huge impact on speech in Reading, which is a big city to the West of London and Swindon, which is between Reading and Bristol. But Bristol does remain more

121 distinctive than Swindon and Reading, so it’s resisted, it would appear, that kind of change. It’s also interesting because it’s actually quite close to the border to Wales, of course. So it’s.. it clearly will want to remain distinctive from Welsh accents cause it’s important if you are from Bristol that you’re English and it’s important if you’re a few miles further away you’re Welsh. So, I think it’s a very interesting area for a number of reasons. And quite surprising that there hasn’t been as much research on it as perhaps other cities. So, I think, we perhaps do not know enough about Bristol as it should be. Interviewer: But why do you think this is the case? Why hasn’t there been a lot of research on it? Jonathan Robinson: I think because British dialectology at the start of the 20th century was very much focused on rural speech – for obvious reasons – because it was perceived the be the type of speech that was most likely to change dramatically. So, the Survey of English Dialects, for instance, were much focused on rural speech, although they did intent to survey urban areas later, they didn’t get funding. And then, after that, there hasn’t, until BBC voices in 2005, there was never another nationwide survey but lots of universities did surveys in particular areas of the country. And generally speaking, those universities focused very much on their local areas. The University of Leeds has a big centre for dialect research and has done a lot in the North, University of Newcastle has a big centre, University of Lancester has a big centre, a couple of places in London are. So, they’ve tended to sort of research their hinterland as it were and Bristol, the University of Bristol itself and the University of the West of England, the University of the West of England has actually, I believe, recently started a lot of work in this area. But, historically those two universities haven’t necessarily had that kind of linguistic research interest. And the surveys that I’ve been aware of, that have looked at for the sake of either the West of England have tended to go into Devon and Cornwall because it’s further west and therefore potentially more interesting, because its more remote, if you’re with me, so yea, I think, what you’re doing in Bristol, you know it’s about time someone has been doing something on Bristol. Interviewer: Alright, thank you very much. Jonathan Robinson: Ok.

122 Interview with Phil Gibbons Phil Gibbons is the station manager of BCFM, Bristol’s first community radio, a radio station with presenters from the city of Bristol, broadcasting since May 2007 with and for people of Bristol.

The interview was recorded in Bristol, Russell Town Avenue on Tuesday, 25/05/10 from 10- 11 a.m.

Interviewer: So, you are the station manager of BCFM, which is the first community radio station in Bristol. Phil Gibbons: Yes. Interviewer: So, could you tell me a little bit how this whole radio station established? Phil Gibbons: It ahm, it didn’t just pop up over night. (Laughs) We have a nice squeak in the back. (Laughs). It was many years of development and working with lots of community groups in Bristol and with myself and my colleague Joanne Schofield. We combined Radio and community outreach work because Radio is fun,.. Interviewer: Mhm. Phil Gibbons: …Radio teaches people lots of new skills, it helps people with their confidence, it helps people with learning basic IT-skills, interview skills – transferable skills we call them – so that they can take the new skills they have learned and use them elsewhere in life. And we were doing this and people were having fun along the way as well. And for years and years and years in England you couldn’t just set up a radio station. You could what’s called an RSL – a restricted service licence, which allowed us to broadcast up to 28 days in any 6 months. And we did this for many years on different projects in Bristol with different types of people. That’s all we were allowed to do legally. And then, about five years ago, Offcom, who are the regulators of radio in this country, allowed groups like us to apply for community radio licences, which are different to any other type of licence: we have the BBC, obviously, who do very good work; we have commercial radio, which you may have heard of: Heart, Kiss, Star, Capital Radio. There the sheer name commercial means that it’s selling commercials, it’s there to make money and doesn’t really have a local identity, a local focus, they’re owned by big companies, you know, around and pay their presenters to all sound the same, basically. Interviewer: Yes. Phil Gibbons: So, we…or the country was opened up to this new, the third tear it’s called, the third tear of radio, which is community radio. And we were lucky, we were there right

123 at the beginning and we applied, we got a group of people together, that we knew would work well in Bristol, so there were radio professionals, there were people in education, people in community work, people in social…social fundraising and business and we put in an application to Offcom along with six other groups in Bristol and we were lucky enough to win the licence. Interviewer: Alright, ok. Phil Gibbons: So it was lots of hard work, but the reason we got the licence and nobody else is because we’ve been doing the work previously and we had hundreds, probably thousands of people that had worked with us and that had learned things with us and had engaged with us on different levels in the form of making radio and audio. Interviewer: Ok. Phil Gibbons: So, that’s how we came about. Interviewer: Mhm. Phil Gibbons: Up until, say, five years ago it couldn’t have happened, but then Offcom said this can happen with the backing of the government and we were lucky enough to win the licence and it took us about two years to get everything together and then start broadcasting and we’ve been on air for just over three years now. Interviewer: Ok. Great. So, on your homepage, I read that ‘BCFM gives the city of Bristol the choice and the voice to get involved and make a difference’ Phil Gibbons: (laughs) Interviewer: So, does this mean you basically have a lot of local people on air? Phil Gibbons: Yea. We are Bristol-based and Bristol-focused. Everything we do is to do with Bristol. We do national stories, but how they impact locally. Interviewer: Ok, Mhm. Phil Gibbons: So, obviously we’ve just been through a major election, but we focused on the local policies and how that’s gonna impact on people here. Yes, music, theatre, but also Bristol is a great city for you to study, because it’s so diverse. Interviewer: Mhm, ok. Phil Gibbons: It’s not like Graz. (Laughs) Interviewer: Yea, ok (laughs). Phil Gibbons: And so, even within Bristol, as you know, you spent a year here, it’s made up of loads of different types of people. And I’m not just talking, you know, Black, White, Chinese, Asian, there is different ages, there is people with different abilities. Some people, we have two universities, for instance, so lots of students, but we also

124 have lots of people who’ve had drugs problems or teenage mothers or people who live in areas of what they call social deprivation, so poverty basically as I would class it. So, we as the radio station, we don’t have one or two presenters that talk down to Bristol. We have on average about 50 different shows a week, 50 different presenters, 50 different producers, researchers, so hundreds of people in a week, coming into the radio station… Interviewer: Mhm. Phil Gibbons:…and making their own radio shows, about themselves, about things that interest them. So, the best person to talk about what it’s like being a Somali person in Bristol is a Somali person, the best person to talk about what it’s like being…, now have a look on the wall, see, the seven-year-old Asian presenter.. Interviewer: mhm. Phil Gibbons: …is a seven-year-old Asian presenter. Interviewer: Ok. Phil Gibbons: He does a fantastic music show. He’s interested in Bollywood music. Interviewer: Ok. Phil Gibbons: So, he researches, spends days researching. He does a one-hour show on Saturday night and that’s his hobby, that’s his live, you know, he loves it and he’s learning lots of things and people love his show. We also speak in different languages. Interviewer: Mhm. Phil Gibbons: So, our presenters, because they’re there to represent a culture or a way of life, so Somali, Arabic, Spanish, Chinese, Polish, Hindu – so Indian languages as well – so about eight to nine different languages a week, that we speak. No German unfortunately at the moment. Interviewer: Ok. (laughs) Phil Gibbons: (laughs). So, basically the…the ethos of thinking of the station is that it represents the city of Bristol. Interviewer: Ok. Phil Gibbons: So, if it happens in Bristol there is a chance that you hear it on BCFM, so we know it’s not necessarily for us, it’s a different way of thinking about radio. We’re not commercial radio, we’re not BBC, in everything that comes out of the speakers is that’s what you’re focused on, it has to sound good, the listener has to listen as long as possible and engage with it and you know, love it. For us, we have this balance: yes,

125 what comes out of the speakers has to be good but also it’s the people we work with because we, this is going to sound really self-centred a little bit, but we do change peoples’ lives. Interviewer: Mhm. Phil Gibbons: What other radio station has that capacity, you know – Antenne Steiermark – no, you know. Interviewer: Ok, ok, aha. Phil Gibbons: That’s commercial radio, that’s music, music, music, generic presenter, weather, news, advert, music, music, music. With us, people, as I said, are learning new things, taking ownership with something, are feeling proud, (laughs). Somebody’s birthday I think (referring to background noises). And so, we have this thing, it’s not about the output, output is what comes out of the speakers. For us it’s about the outcomes. So, working with people, and changing their lives. Yea, obviously we don’t change everybody’s life. But, if somebody comes to us and even two months, six months, a year later is a different person, has learned something. But has also learned about somebody else. We try, as a station, to get people to working together. So, we don’t just have children’s programmes, old-people’s programmes, Indian programmes, Chinese programmes. We try and mix people up. Because the best way to make people happier is to know their neighbours. Interviewer: Ok. Phil Gibbons: And to know a little bit more about who they live with next door. Why am I scared of a sixteen-year-old black boy? Why? Because society tells me that I should be. Interviewer: Mhm. Phil Gibbons: But, if I actually know him and he knows me and we don’t cross the road ‘cause he’s probably just as scared of me as I am, you know, as society says I should be of him. But, if we both have our shows, or if we are both engaged with BCFM, then we will mix together, we will have a common goal as such and, you know, changes are we’ll say hello to each other and know each other. So,…and Bristol’s a perfect place for that because there’s lots of different areas, that have different types of people that don’t traditionally mix. Interviewer: Ok. Phil Gibbons: Lot’s of racial tension Interviewer: Ok.

126 Phil Gibbons: Different types of people. And if we can just a little bit help people know their neighbour and know Bristol a bit better and feel happy with that then, you know, that’s a really powerful radio station. Interviewer: Ok, mhm. Phil Gibbons: So, it’s…I know I keep saying this: It’s not commercial radio, it’s not BBC and we don’t get paid to make radio. We get paid to work with people from disadvantaged areas, people who’ve had trouble in their lives, so ex-drug users, ex- alcoholics, current alcoholics as well, possibly current drug users, but people living in those areas of social deprivation. Interviewer: But, you’ve referred to a lot of international communities as well, or, yea, not only being from England or Britain, but is there a community of Bristolian local people you are also focusing on… Phil Gibbons: Very much, yes. Interviewer: …or is this excluded? Phil Gibbons: No, no, no, no, absolutely not. No. Nobody is excluded. Interviewer: Ok, sorry. Phil Gibbons: No, no, it’s an obvious question, cause there are some radio stations that will focus just on one particular community. Interviewer: Yea, mhm, ok. Phil Gibbons: There is another one in Bristol that is purely for black, you know, people. And that’s fine. What they do is great, and they know their market and they broadcast, they, they concentrate more on what comes out of speakers, they have to sound good. So, their engagement and their social cohesiveness is not as great as ours. Yes, Bristol people. We don’t let anybody into the radio station who doesn’t live or work in Bristol. So, if you live in Bath or Weston Super Mare or Gloucester, sorry, find another radio station. We have to be quite brutal ‘cause we have hundreds of people who want to join us. So, that’s the first thing: sorry, you’re not in our area. The subjects we cover, as I mentioned, are all Bristol-focused. So, Bristol, the identity of Bristol people is made up of lots of different people. And obviously there is the old Bristolian people, the working-class people, whose parents were probably Dockers or worked in the Tobacco Factory or in the mines. That’s great. We have lots of people like that as well. And people love researching their history. So, we’ve lots of history programmes, done by history groups or individuals talking about that. And it’s fascinating for me, I wasn’t born in Bristol, but I’ve been here twenty years, but just

127 by listening to the radio station I learned so much about it and about the people and how it’s grown over many, many years. So, yes, we don’t actively look for Bristolians, but the idea is that people have something to do with Bristol, so live here basically. Interviewer: Ok, I see. Ahm, and what are the reactions from the public, from the listeners you have? I guess there are reactions to the programmes? Phil Gibbons: Lots of reactions, lots of reactions. Interviewer: Yea. Phil Gibbons: Ahm, it depends on the programme. Sometimes people turn off. That’s fine. We don’t mind that. Because you don’t speak the language or you don’t like the music. Interviewer: Mhm, mhm. Phil Gibbons: That’s ok, there’s other radio stations, you know, you like, hopefully they’ll turn back on. The comments we get are mainly really, really good comments. It’s…people love identifying with things, people love it, when they hear about something that: ‘Actually, yea, that’s true, I had that happen to me’, or ‘I was walking down that road yesterday’, or ‘Oh, that’s my local politician’, or ‘That’s the boy from school, I know his mum’ or ‘Don’t you go to school…’, you know. People know the presenters… with hundreds of people involved, chances are people know people who are broadcasting, you know. We don’t claim to make people famous, but, if you know somebody who’s broadcasting or they talk about something that you can relate to, then that’s great. So, in that respect, we get very good comments, in the way that we are the only locally focused radio station. We might tell you about something that’s happening in a theatre, or in a music venue or on the docks or in your school or down your road that you might not know about. So, we are the local newspaper, the local TV-channel, we are ultimately Bristol-based and Bristol-focused because it’s Bristol people. It’s not an outsider coming in and not knowing the city. You know, I couldn’t go to Birmingham and work on community radio because I don’t know the community in Birmingham. I know Bristol and we just make it happen. So, people come in and…I think this people learn so much about their city and about peoples’ lives in that city that it’s engaging. It’s not always the most professional radio, that’s fine. We don’t pretend, we don’t need that, we don’t want that. Because I would much rather listen to somebody who’s talking about something I know in a way that I will understand it than somebody who sounds fantastic and has nothing to do with me.

128 Yes, so, that’s the comments we get: ‘It was great to hear so-and-so.’, or ‘I didn’t realise you did that.’, or ‘Heard something about that and I went along.’. We do get quite often thank you emails and phone calls and people who say, because we promote a lot of things on air as well, people come in and advertise things that are happening. And, quite often they come back and say: ‘People were there because they’ve heard it on BCFM. Interviewer: Okay. Phil Gibbons: Which is really nice. Interviewer: Mhm. Phil Gibbons: You know, commercial radio wouldn’t advertise, I don’t know, a local meeting, for instance, I’m trying to think of a subject, but, you know, there’s a campaign against something in your road, in your area, commercial radio aren’t going to touch that, BBC aren’t going to touch that, why should they, but because we do, nothing’s too small for us and in so we quite often get people saying: ‘Yes, lots of people came because they heard it on BCFM.’ And that’s really good. So, it’s… in the main it’s really good comments about what we do and people just love real people, I think, that’s real radio. Interviewer: Yea, sure. Do you also get feedback of people of outside of Bristol? Phil Gibbons: It amazes me, we get thousands of people listening on the internet. Interviewer: Mhm. Phil Gibbons: I mean thousands, every month about 30.000 people listen on the internet and quite a lot of those, at different times listen outside of Bristol. (coughs). Excuse me. People listen during the Chinese show, during the Polish show, during the Somali show, from those countries, from the Sudan during the Sudanese show, because it’s a link back to Bristol. So, it’s joining two communities, it’s joining the community of Bristol, people who’ve maybe moved from those areas back to their family. And they can interact, send emails, they can skype, they can phone and they can have an input into the show and use it as a communication tool. So, during some shows, yes, we get a lot of people from abroad listening. But, on our FM signal, obviously, that’s only Bristol, but we’re doing ok on that, we get a lot of listeners on FM, we know, but yes, on the internet and we also potcast all our programmes as well, which we get thousands of people downloading the shows afterwards. Some of the main ones are things like the local music shows, people love those. Interviewer: Mhm.

129 Phil Gibbons: There’s nobody else in the city doing local music as much as we do. Interviewer: Mhm. Phil Gibbons: They may play the odd tune, but Bristol is fantastic for music. Interviewer: Okay. Phil Gibbons: You know, in the past Massive Attack, and people, that was 20 years ago, you know. Now there’s so much good music. Interviewer: Okay. Phil Gibbons: People know, that we are the station, if they want to promote themselves. And that’s not just famous bands, that’s anybody, you know, a young DJ making music in his bedroom to a girl with a guitar or a full-on band. So, people listen to us for the music as well. Yea, the good thing about us is that we, as the managers, we don’t tell the presenters what music to play,… Interviewer: Mhm. Phil Gibbons: …unlike commercial radio. You play that, that and that in that order and you don’t deviate, same on the BBC. Which is fine, because they know their market likes that type of music. With us, you never know what you gonna get. Interviewer: Okay. Phil Gibbons: So, it’s always…we get lots of good comments about ‘Wow, it’s fantastic, the music you play. It opened my eyes, it wasn’t just, you know, Lady Gaga all day long or whatever the same music over and over. And our presenters pride themselves on choosing good music that they like. And if they like the music, hopefully, somebody listening will like the music as well. But, a lot of them play local music and have local bands in. We have probably 20, 30 live performances a week in the studio here, which is amazing. Say, that could be anything from just a young girl with a guitar through to a full-on rock band, which’ve been not allowed to, but (laughs)… Interviewer: Ok. Phil Gibbons: So, yes, I’ve forgotten the question now but hopefully that’s answered it. Interviewer: Yea, I think so (laughs). Phil Gibbons: (laughs). Interviewer: So, ahm..you talked a little bit about all those communities, but do you think that maybe a radio station as yours would also somehow bring up a common identity within the city of Bristol or is it still hard to define one?

130 Phil Gibbons: That’s a really interesting question, that I’ve never thought about. I think Bristol, yes, definitely does have it’s own identity but that identity is made up of lots of different identities. We are one big community. Interviewer: Mhm. Phil Gibbons: But we are made up of lots of different communities, and that’s fantastic. There is not one stereotypical Bristol person now. How can there be. Maybe thirty years ago, yes. Interviewer: Yes. Phil Gibbons: Certainly, fifty, a hundred years ago, absolutely. But today and it’s changing all the time. Y’know, ten years ago or twenty years ago it was Asian people coming over, then it was the Somalis and now it’s the Eastern Europeans. But they all integrate and Bristol welcomes lots of new people. And it’s very good at that and it makes it very easy for people to integrate and be part of society and we reflect that as a radio station. So, as a community, I think, it’s an impossible question to answer. Interviewer: Ok, yea. Phil Gibbons: Because there isn’t…because it is lots of different communities, lots of different, what’s the word you used? Interviewer: Did I use identity? I can’t remember. Phil Gibbons: Identity, yea. Because it’s lots of different identities, I think that makes one big identity. Yea, I can’t really answer it to be honest, it’s interesting. Interviewer: And concerning the language, this is obviously important for radio. I mean, there is this typically Bristolian language or accent or dialect, however you wanna call it. Phil Gibbons: Yea. Interviewer: But, is this in a way dying out and being replaced by another, I don’t now… Phil Gibbons: I hope not. Interviewer: …language? Phil Gibbons: I hope not. But an interesting comment we get is: ‘Oh, I can’t go on radio, I sound too Bristolian’. Interviewer: Mhm. Phil Gibbons: People say that. Interviewer: Ok. Phil Gibbons: Real Bristolians don’t like the way they sound, which is weird, yea. I’m not Bristolian, so I can’t say. But yes, I’ve heard that so many times: ‘Oh no, I can’t speak on the radio because I sound too Bristolian’.

131 Interviewer: But did people also comment on presenters being from Bristol… Phil Gibbons: Mhm. Interviewer: ...like, for example, in a negative way? Phil Gibbons: No, absolutely not. Interviewer: No, ok. Phil Gibbons: I think it’s endearing, I think it’s great. Who better to represent Bristol than a Bristol person. We tend to find it more now with the older people who’ve ever lived here and were born here. They have a strong local accent. Interviewer: Mhm. Phil Gibbons: And that’s great. That really is. And hopefully the new people are learning from them. Ahm. I think the accent might be dying out a little bit in Bristol, because a lot of people moved to Bristol, with two universities, students come in here and are staying. You know, I did. So. And, I think, probably on the station, maybe 20 or 30 percent are bred and born Bristolians, the rest are being new people to Bristol, you know, incomers. Which is great, because that’s Bristol. Bristol has a large population of people, you know, who weren’t obviously born here. We don’t actively seek Bristol people but I think it’s great if they are here, yea, absolutely. So, probably not the answer you were looking for, but…(laughs) Interviewer: No, no. Phil Gibbons: it’s an honest one. Interviewer: That’s good. So, is there anything you’d personally like to add about the radio station or Bristolian? Phil Gibbons: Golley, ahm….you’ve covered quite a lot, which is good. Ahm, no, I think as far as the radio station is concerned, we…as I’ve mentioned, we represent Bristol as it is today and we look to the future and we look at the past. We learn from the past, which hopefully shapes the future and we do that with lots of different voices, but all those voices represent Bristol. So, an Asian voice, an Polish voice, an African voice is as welcome as a Bristolian voice, a Scottish voice or a Welsh voice or even a German accent, you know. So, yea. I don’t think we are here to just represent the Bristol dialect or the Bristol language, which it is, but it’s as welcome and embraced, shall we say, on the station. So, no, I’ve nothing else to add. Interviewer: Thank you very much.

132 Interview with Tim Shortis Tim Shortis is a lecturer at the King’s College in London, member of various linguistic committees, the author of various articles in newspapers and magazines about Bristolian speech, who has, among other research efforts on Bristol dialect, done a huge linguistic and attitude survey together with his students at St Brendan's Sixth Form College in the late 1990s.

The interview was recorded in Bristol, Alma Vale Road on Tuesday, 25/05/10 from 19-20 p.m.

Interviewer: So, when you were a teacher you did a lot of data collection and linguistic analysis of Bristolian English with your students, could you shortly explain what you did with them? Tim Shortis: I will, but before that I’ll do something completely different, I’ll tell you the first thing remember with a Bristolian. Let me just turn this off [refers to his mobile phone]. Bristolian accent. I was remembering it yesterday and I was buying some cigarettes from a tobacconist in Alfred Place, in Kingsdown. And Alfred Place is like a quite middle class area but it was becoming more middle class, it was becoming gentrified. But there were still pockets of old Bristol living in that part of town, which is near here. And I went into the tobacconist and I think he must have been a man and he says: “Alight, my luvver” as he got the…as he passed me the Golden Virgina over the counter. And I got this like flush of embarrassment about it because this folk’s called me his lover and I really liked the dialectal language but this was coming on too much, you know. I was really shocked at this curiosity that I just heard. At that time I was working, I had done university at Oxford and I left it, I had a kind of sort of naïve social mission that I would earn my living with my hands and I worked as a carpenter. So at that time I was working as a carpenter and I loved the people on the building sides I worked with, particularly the, they were working class, these pirates I used to work with from, sometimes, often they were working for me, actually. They were from Hartcliff. And I think one of the things that I got from that, which I think effects my emotional orientation to this is I realised as someone who’s been through a really privileged education: boarding school, Oxford, blabla. I realised in a deep way that these Bristol people were very, very clever and funny and vibrant and full of life and looked down upon, particularly by those sort of middle class professionals in

133 parts of Bristol. So, it’s a kind of loyalty thing with kind of a level of emotional disposition. And what happened when I began teaching in my degrees in English language and literature there’s mainly the language’s historical history, the so called history of English and a bit of contemporary language change. But when I began, when I moved to teaching 16 to 19, I was basically given the post in the 16 to 19 college because they had nourished a course in English language study and they had no teachers to teach it, they had no textbooks, they had nothing. So, they gave it to the new boy, so they didn’t wanna do it themselves. So, this was a specialist college of sixteen to nineteen students and I knew nothing about applied linguistics or sociolinguistics at that time. So, I was a teacher having to learn and I began reading Trudgill and Crystal, David Cameron and I just read voraciously to equip myself to teach these students. But I also noticed that my biggest friend in the situation were the students themselves and many of them, particularly students from less prosperous parts of Bristol really liked studying talk and they really liked and identified with the study of accents, which we used to do in the first term. Interviewer: Mhm. Tim Shortis: And its, its probably too simple, I’m probably speaking in a slightly sentimental way about it but it was true that I had this sense, at least, I remember one student in particular, called Sarah, who did this, who was the one who did the Derek Robinson and vernacular Bristol comparison. She showed that Derek Robinson’s caricature of Bristolian wasn’t like how her family spoke. And she was the kind of person who’d left school with Ds so not enough to progress. She’d come this college I worked at, St. Brandan’s, she got her GCSEs and than she was doing English language A-level and I could see the work that we were doing on English language A-levels connecting with her day to day life, a thing that most things she had done in school have not. So, I learned a lot from those students cause they …, the students who’ve been sort of looked down upon for being dialect speakers and also maybe looked down upon for being very chatty in class, for talking too much. And suddenly they were learning about sarcasm and euphemism and dysphemism and conversational terms and power and classroom relationships and also the social judgements around accent and dialect. And they were the ones who had the cultural capital that counted when usually the capital that counted in the classroom was whether you come from a house of books. For just little moments and I mustn’t ..ähm…sentimentalise it too much but for little moments the cultural capital in the class wasn’t whether you came from a house of

134 books it’s whether you talked about the ‘slider’ in the park. It was a really…for me it was very interesting because it…ahm…I suppose as a teacher I was obviously interested in situations where the expertise norms of a classroom are subverted. I mean, like a lot of my works in language and computers and ICT and so on, often there the students come in with vernacular practices around ICT that make them the experts in the room. It was the same with dialects. And then I, …a couple of things happened, when I began reading these books around Trudgill and Labov and other linguists and I began looking at their sample numbers, I began to realise that if I could orchest… that I was working with a significantly large number of students. Cause basically this course in English language that I began teaching grew from twenty students in the first year to about ninety, sometimes a hundred, I think, but eighty to ninety, around there. And eighty to ninety students each year and, you know well, sixteen to seventeen and seventeen to eighteen and then eighty or ninety students the next year and each student doing a small number of surveys. That’s a critical…I began to realise that this was the sort of critical number, you know, relative to those academic surveys and yes, I wasn’t a linguist and I often felt very embarrassed about my lack of grammatical training and training in phonology and so on and I was doing this advanced level course and doing it by reading books. But I began to realise that also I spoke with these students every day and because it was a Catholic college and they were recruited from many different districts around Bristol, I was getting a snapshot of how Bristol was experienced in localised ways. And I began also to realise that the work that was done on Bristol by people like Trudgill and John Wells and other people, it was out of date in many cases, it didn’t really get the nuances of what was going on, it didn’t get the difference between as South Bristol and a Kingswood accent and it didn’t get the emotional baggage. It didn’t get the social identity baggage that went with these things. Interviewer: Mhm. Tim Shortis: So, what happened was we began doing a survey that combined, well it used to begin as they did a language autobiography, they did a study of their ideolects and they had to interview each other and they had to write about their family tree and all these activities about their language repertoire and where it might have come from and there were some activities in this textbook they used to have these years called Starting English Language A-Level that had the usual Survey of English Dialects questions about “word the bread role” and in Bristol, Bristol often features these old-

135 fashioned tennis shoe type,…called taps, they were called taps ‘round here. So, I began to use these surveys of Bristol words from there. And then we thought, well, why are we using those words, there are many more words. I can remember slider, keener, as a teacher, all these things. So, we did this survey and it combined the words they, ah, they used, and the students supplied the word list. And then, in fact, I think, to begin with, it was actually even cruder than that because one of the problems when you were teaching in formal spoken language to students was that they would mix up conceptual categories that were valued in academic studies, so slang and dialect and youth sociolect and accent, you know, all these things became a kind of mash. So, the survey started off with ideolectal features and dialect features and then we organised it with the ideolectal features and the sociolectal features that weren’t dialect at the back, like the youth dialect. And then we began noticing really other bizarre little localisations like, you know, little words, we’ve all realised that there was a little word that went around there local school playground for the lighter of a cigarette, it was a clipper, I would say I think, or somehow like that. And, anyway, so this survey just grew and then later I realised there was a fantastic theory in it which, I think, is now sort of recognised in versions of the same approach in Joan Beal and so on, which is…ahm…high recognition and high use, it’s intact, high recognition – no, low recognition, low use it’s not there, it’s either dying out or it’s marginal… Interviewer: Mhm. Tim Shortis: But then the question was, because these students were coming from particular localities, it was who was using it. So, like, I can still remember, this Bedminster boy saying to me, or Bedminster young man saying to me who described my lover, the thing I first noticed, he said it was like an unwanted kiss from an old auntie. Interviewer: (laughs) Tim Shortis: And it’s just, he just kind of really got that thing, that he’d also heard it and then I realised it was in Barton Hill, were was a strong resettlement in the 1930s, with basically Barton Hill settlement or whatever and the dings and the chattels and certain real heartlands parts of Bristol, so that’s were you got … How bist, or sometimes you got it outside the town. So, I realised there was a kind of…there were patterns of localisation and generation that just were not there in Trudgill or Wells or any of these things. So, low heard and low use – dying out probably, but who’s using it, and then also high heard, low use, possible stigmatisation and that was very current around the Bristol area. All the books on Bristol accent…make a big song and dance about the

136 Bristol l and it’s obviously there in the name and blabla, you know that. But, the students knew that Bristol l was a problem and the two things I remember about that, one I remember from the building sites, from working on building sites, cause I worked on building sites in Bristol or…out of Bristol…for probably three or four years before I was a teacher and I’ve noticed that ideal the homophone and the near synonym of ideal and idea was really around, so ideal would go under the radar, areal a little bit, but it’s not a synonym, that’s just a…that’s a kind of homophone thing. So, areal. And I also noticed, we noticed, with the students we noticed humoural. Which I found, was in the PhD study the hypercorrect. Interviewer: Mhm. Tim Shortis: So, we just worked this thing and it was much better to …vowels than consonants, much better to refer to consonants than vowels because of the nature how you react on the dialect and the students would bring in four surveys a time and then we’d built the survey results in the class and I would be teaching four classes, so at our very best we would compare the survey results from the four classes. Often it was the middle-class students who had least to say because they came from round here [Anm. Clifton] or Cotham or Redland, it was more difficult for them. But then sometimes they sometimes they’d moved around the country, so they come to Bristol with a Nottingham accent and then had that kind of problem. And then I persuaded one of our students, again, very Bristolian student to write a computer programme that would analyse the survey. And what I wanted, because what I began to realise, what we’ve began to notice was that things whether the postcode mattered and whether someone had been into a private school mattered, particularly in Bristol. So, he designed, I still got these things on three and a half floppy disks. So, he designed a computer programme that, basically, gathered the data base of the answers against the biographical profiles of the students. So, you could look it up by gender, you could look it up by age, you could look it up by private school and then see the results. And that was really exciting because it was a way of formalising patterns we were starting to notice. But, where about how these things were much to cruelly described as a Bristol accent, it was much more localised than that, related to role, probably I’d now call it identity, I didn’t know about identity then, role, type of education, …gender a bit and these kind of things. And then a couple of students did projects with that, one in particular which I’ve got somewhere: Alexandra, who did it with a survey of a hundred. And we never really processed the data, I never had time to process all this

137 data. I’ve always boxes of data coming in and I never really….I processed it for the class over a year but I never really spent they time to put it in. But we still know what the patterns were really. So, round from back 1995 to 1999 when I got another job in the college. And…I had a,…I was gonna do a chapter for Urban Voices but there were a whole lot of things why I didn’t feel confident when they, some academics invited me to do a chapter but I never did it. And that’s been the bit of the story of my work with Bristol dialect. So, that was more student’s work…you are more organised than I was, yea I was but I never realised how precious that data was really and I did deserve to write about that. But it was still really good for the students and I think it was one of these points were you realise that a group of students could be a knowledge building, you know, could be knowledge building. Because of the particular interaction, you know, I was orchestrating their knowledge into building a bigger data base. Yea. Interviewer: So, you mentioned that there was a certain gap between students who had a Bristolian background and students who might not have… Tim Shortis: Yea. Interviewer:…and that this project might have also changed attitudes within the students regarding their accent or dialect identity? Tim Shortis: I think, there is no doubt whether it changed. I remember for many years, I mean it’s not happening now, but for many years, when I used to walk through Bristol I had students coming up to me and checking me out and I think one thing they were affectionate about was the work on Bristolian. Interviewer: Mhm. Tim Shortis: Yea, and I think. Yea. That was the difference. I remember very good students coming back from doing field work and having a real problem with getting anything good. Students who’d usually be other the way would do well. Certainly they weren’t doing so well and it was only a small part of the course anyway. And I think, also now, when I look back on it I also realise the attentions in what I was surveying which actually may be there in the work you’re doing. When we started this it mixed Bristolian dialect with youth sociolect or ideolects and I think that was right because at the same time I had students, this was very early 1990s or 1994, round there, mid 1990s, and I can remember one of my students did a project then called “The language of rave culture”. And it was to try and identify the lexical sets of house and rave and it was the time when all the illegal rave parties were going on. And I can also

138 remember another student did a project “Phil and Ted’s excellent adventure” and how that language and specifically use or not seemed to be coming in a vogue way. So, when I look back on it now and I think kind of suppressed that and not be interested in it because it wasn’t Bristolian and I think people also sometimes would present me as a little dialect nerd cause I was interested in Bristolian within the institution, you know, these other teachers. But actually, when I think and look back on it I would realise that it’s just been around and say things about the other, but the Bristolian was bubbling along but there were a whole lot of other things bubbling along too around African-Caribbean influences, influences from rave music, from music generally, I can remember the influence of friends on a group of young women, whom I was teaching. And I look back on it as a bizarre thing because I just taught this very specialised curriculum for about ten years to the same aged students in large number and it’s become a kind of bedrock for my understanding cause I can remember when Friends came on TV and students began, I can’t remember the words, they began using them. They would start to use words that they picked up from that. So, there was Bristolian but also there were other things going on. And actually, what we did was, we wrote those out of the survey, the later versions of the survey don’t have those other words. Interviewer: And, this…you mentioned shortly that people would, people who probably moved here later in their lives would probably look down on people who had a Bristolian background or who had a Bristolian accent or dialect. Is this a specific phenomenon that can be seen in Bristol or is this a general phenomenon when it comes to dialect language? Tim Shortis: I think it’s probably just general. But I think what happens with Bristol;….. I think it was the nature of the series. It probably happens everywhere. I think one way of answering would be that I was asked to do a radio programme and talk about the Bristol accent and there was another person…it was just one of those things where you are kind of filling the airwaves, but there was another person from a kind of famous British – semi-famous Bristol pop group there and he said why was I on. And I said, well I’m just doing something on Bristolian dialect and he said, oh that stuff. And he was being really dismissive about it. And I kind of, I sort of, I wasn’t interested in an urban local pop hero, so I wasn’t going through the usual deference thing with him. But anyway, he kind of got the point, he kind of got the point that actually being cool and like looking down, you know, as at Bristol wasn’t such a cool

139 thing really. And I remember on that radio programme I talked about how parts of Bristol university, BBC and so on were like colonised by this highly mobile, highly, well privileged often middle-class group who were then very dismissive of the Bristol people. And I think that point has been made by the people. I know Eric Thomas went to go to university as vice chancellor saying you know, what Bristol university will actually do for the people of Bristol. Ahm. And I think also, but it is more complicated than that, I think, there are plenty of Bristolian people and you will notice from talking to Lucy and others, who really had the problem of the Bristol accent in their own childhood and the kind of discrimination they’d experienced, you know, people, I can remember good friends who were being sent to private school primarily to get rid of their accent or to…And I think it’s probably…, well the way I understand it is that it may be around particularly the rhotic “r” and the connotations of rural stupidity. Interviewer: Mhm. Tim Shortis: And I remember the students, when, again I was teaching large numbers of students, I remember they would often talk about how they’d realised that they have a Bristol accent when they were on holiday in Spain or whatever and they were often asked where their tractors were or The Wurzels or whatever and they were really shocked as city kids being called rural, so I think it’s the city…I think what might be unusual …yes, this is an old story in some ways, or it’s a familiar story, accent…ahm…prejudice around a dialect. I think what’s…I think the particular issue in Bristol is that the dialect features, some of the dialect features get stigmatised as rural features and stupid features. As that happens…now that happens in Norwich as well, I know Trudgill did it in Norwich, so what’s the difference between Norwich in Bristol? Well, I think Bristol probably is more ackland, it’s larger, it’s more kind of metropolitan, it’s got more...it’s got a famous theatre school, it’s kind of semi…it’s quite a culturally significant place in England but they have this rural accent, so maybe it’s not…just about, I think it is about the insider and not solemnly noticed within the questionnaire. And also round the time of when I was teaching in 1990s, 1980s and 1990 middle class people who moved to Bristol who went to university were buying up parts of Bristol that had been lived in by Bristol people. It was called gentrification; it was the job and so on. So, Bishopston, St. Andrews, they were.., Henley, they were bits of Bristol which had been more about for Bristol people and they became places where people who had jobs with national companies settled.

140 Ahm. That happened in other places too, they had it in Bournemouth, for example, they got the same kind of economic shift, but I don’t think, but in Bristol the accent carried on quite resiliently whereas around Bournemouth you won’t really hear it after all this. So, yea. Interviewer: But do you think those attitudes towards Bristolian dialect or accent have changed or are likely to change? Tim Shortis: Well, I think I changed them on the people I taught. I do think, because they were taught it explicitly and whether…within a kind of academic discourse, I think that really generally speaking had some influence on them. Do I think it will change more broadly? Well, I don’t know, I think I’ve shown you that article I wrote for the Bristol… Interviewer: Mhm. Tim Shortis: Yea. I mean I think that fact with those T-shirts, that wouldn’t have gotten…I think there is a difference between Derek Robinson’s book about Bristol accent and the Bristol dialect dictionary, but I think its probably a quite marginal change, there are also some other pressures going on: inclusion, people developing kinds of identities because out of new socialised variations that make it possible for them. Interviewer: Mhm. Tim Shortis: I think, what I do notice…I mean one reality check around this would be the character Vicky Pollard in Little Britain. Have you talked to other people about this? Interviewer: No. Tim Shortis: Well, you’ve seen Liittle Britain? Interviewer: Yes. Tim Shortis: Yea. You know the character Vicky Pollard? Interviewer: Mhm. Tim Shortis: Well, the two main writers and the main characters in Little Britain as I understand it were both at the university of Bristol. So, Vicky Pollard is sort of Bristolian working class chav. It’s a kind of…there is this kind of…I find it is a pernicious stereotype but there is a stereotype of what might be Bristol accent and so on. Interviewer: So, that’s the of stereotype people from outside of Bristol… Tim Shortis: Yea, very kind of metropolitan. The kind of middle-class sea-gull thing, yea looking down their noses, I think it’s pretty quite typical of the Bristol…of the alliance in Bristol students and sometimes when I’m in the library I read the Bristol

141 student newspaper and I’m often shocked as well as affronted by the routine of accent and social class stereotyping of that student magazine. I tend to think a student magazine would be more progressive, would be more inclusive and it’s just not. And obviously Bristol university in particular has one of the highest proportions of privately educated young people. I think it’s…I think more educated people now know that accent prejudice and dialect prejudice is just that and I think the implications of the expansion universities in this country means there are more educated people around, more people have made this progress through this route. So, in some ways there is greater toleration of difference than there might have been. Interviewer: Mhm. Tim Shotis: But I think that it’s probably true nonetheless that Bristol accent and dialect features are levelling – dying out in some ways – some things are dying out. And that must be part…and its likely to being part because it’s perceived as a social handicap, so it’s not changing that much. Interviewer: Also by people who speak the dialect or accent themselves? Tim Shortis: Yea, oh yea, definitely. Yea. And that’s, I mean…Well, I had a conversation with you about the secretaries that I used to meet in school and that’s what is very different for me that these people, these builders I knew from Hartcliff who were just absolutely revelled in their localised difference, if you like. Yea. Even then, when I worked as a builder and a carpenter you would get…, I remember my work building sheds and there was a kind of…, haven’t been carpenter I just worked at a shed factory for a couple of months. And I can remember there was one character who was more…was from parts of Bristol where people were rural and then the city came to them or they moved in a few miles, places like Hanhem, Kingswood and so on. And this was a factory in Hanhem and I can remember there was this, basically it was all working class, but some of the kids I was working with were from Liverpool or whatever. And there was this character there and he had as a personnel he had a more marked Bristol accent. And I can remember whenever he used to say “Ark at ee” when he came down into the factory, a very nice guy. He was well alight, you know, he was using that sort o’ iconic old Bristol “Ark at ee”, cynically, because he did it to other people, so, yea it’s going on within these people, it’s not just other people looking down their noses and that’s it. Interviewer: Ok, and did the outcomes of your survey also reflect this attitudes and…?

142 Tim Shortis: The outcome of the survey, the general pattern was bizarre, I found a text survey would have done this but, you know, it’s a part surprising when you run big surveys and more or less the same thing crops up year after year. And it was a kind of case…, it was pretty much what you’d expect in terms of levelling with hypercorrect was often recognised, which is quite an odd thing to identify but that’s often recognised. The Bristol /l/ apart from ideal was recognised…came up clearly consisting a stigmatise and rhotic r, postvocalic r, whatever you call it, and that was just relatively unstigmatised, it was stigmatised but relatively unstigmatised. Then, you would also get some really lovely things like the liaison in drawring – like drawing – d.r.a.w.i.n.g and typically what you’d get is, you would get people would say, this would be in interviews as well, drawring becomes in Bristolian drawling and they would say drawling and they’d learn that wasn’t what you did and they kind of, sort of accommodate. So, the pattern, yea, it was the same thing as “casn’t” or“how bist” came up in particular postcodes, particular generations, there were things that…I think one of the things that the traditional sociolinguistics work doesn’t not get at, well not in my.., apart from Jean Beal, is that the sense of certain things is being iconic and recognised and quite heart-felt and enjoyed, even when they are not…even when now you can’t do them with a straight face and without inverted commas. So, “Ark at ee” about that guy in the shed or “coopey down”, there are some words that ‘ve got added by older people in Bristolian which apparently means crouch down or squad down and “babby” or “babsy”…you know, older Bristolians and sometimes people who’ve grown up in Somerset or whatever really insist on them and then they were actually things that have died or things that have become sort of examples we used but actually people don’t do it. And there were also words like “keener”, I’m not sure how old “keener” is. It seems to me to come to be part of kind of organised schooling. I don’t know how old it is. “Slider”. Yea. “Kiddy” in Hartcliff, certainly in Hartcliff, like when I was working on the work of the builders ”kiddy” was something very specific, a kid is a child, a “kiddy” is the diminutive of child but basically “kiddy” among the people I was working with was a kind of adolescent, often a hoodlum, and as I said “kiddy” I would say it’s not all just dying out. There are kind of words being generated by and some bits localised and chattered, I told you about “scrage”, for example, so a South-Bristol thing, yea. Interviewer: Ok, is there anything else you can think of on Bristolian or you own experiences?

143 Tim Shortis: Well, I’ve obviously observed my four children grow up in Bristol. As ahm, non-Bristolian Bristolians and I do remember at primary school they…I remember my oldest did “moin” he did it as vowels changed when he went to playgroup but then he’s grown up to so many speaks so more or less RP. I just noticed my children have all – I mean their mother is marked RP speaker who grew up in South End so round born an Essex accent and then developed this very marked RP…and that’s probably reflected partly in the way my kids speak. Ahm. Ya, Patrick would be the one who speaks most, well Patrick and Michael got some Bristolian. And also people who don’t speak Bristolian at all would…sometimes you can hear they get…their vowels get commented on at university. And so the expressions such as “I was sat” for “I was sitting” you hear these even among people who are pretty standard English speakers there are a few things that seem to go invisible in there. I sometimes think that one of the things that’s going on with Bristol and most people – all of the Bristol people I know – will talk about it to we see it as something that has changed quite a lot over the 30 to 40 years when the obvious…a lot of investment money is coming to Bristol in the last 20 years but I think the M4 must be, the M4 and the expansion of the universities must be factors, really. Interviewer: Mhm. Tim Shortis: No, I’ve not got anything else to say really, if you haven’t got any further questions. Interviewer: Ok, thank you very much.

144 Interview with Chas Blacker Chas Blacker is a linguists and teacher of GCSE and A-level English at the city of Bristol college. During his work with his students he also focused on language variety research and on Bristol speech specifically.

The interview was recorded in Bristol, St George's Road on Thursday, 27/05/10 from 11-12 a.m.

Interviewer: So, I’ve heard you’re working in the field of further or higher education here in Bristol. Could you describe your work a little bit? Chas Blacker: Certainly. I mean, this college is a further education college and the part I work in is…is that recording ok? Interviewer: Yes, yes. Chas Blacker: The part that I work in basically focuses on GCSE A-levels, advanced levels, which is the school leaving exam before university. Interviewer: Mhm. Chas Blacker: So, in fact our students typically will have left school at 16 and then they’ve come on here to do a 2-year A-level course before going on the university or in some cases employment. Interviewer: Ok. Chas Blacker: So, my involvement with, with sort of studying Bristolian has been at that level, not at university level. Interviewer: Ok, but within your work you had to do something with Bristolian and you worked on it or was it rather more private interest in…? Chas Blacker: It was true work. Ahm. My subject is A-level English language. Up till about 1986 A-level English meant English literature and then about 20 years ago they introduced an A-level in language, which combines a certain amount of sort of writing skills with introductory linguistics really. So, students study things like language change, language acquisition. They also study language variation. So, depending on the syllabus that were are following at any given time, there has often been a topic of nonstandard variation. And so, for example the syllabus that came in just last year, the new syllabus that started last year, which…where we might look at regional dialect. But it’s not a major topic, but the syllabus which finished for the second year last year, it was quite a major topic.

145 Interviewer: Mhm. Chas Blacker: So, we would be expected to study nonstandard variations at one kind or another. And what I would do with the people would be to study one British regional variation, which was Bristolian, because it’s the local one. Interviewer: Ok. Chas Blacker: And then we’d also look at black British English and Estuary English. So the students have a range. So, that’s how we were doing it. It was to... We chose Bristolian to meet the requirements of a syllabus, which covered regional variations where students would be writing essays and give examples from a particular dialect. Interviewer: Ok, I see. And what have you revealed so far about Bristolian, I mean, are there any outcomes on this topic? Chas Blacker: I suppose the main one has been really that while it survives as part of a kind of local consciousness – people are still proud of it and enjoy it – the actual form that survive are fairly limited and it’s mainly a question of accent with perhaps a few grammatical features, ah…a certain amount of dialect lexis, but not a huge amount. And in fact, what I’ve discovered, cause I don’t come from this area at all, I come from London originally, but what I discovered when I started doing this and this has been continued to be confirmed over the years is that in fact a lot of the words that we think of as Bristolian words are completely unknown to a lot of Bristolians and that it’s a fairly small area of the city where they’re heard. And in fact, if I ask a typical A- level class here, where the students come from all over the city, if they’ve heard of a particular word, I’ll often find that many of them haven’t regardless of social class but perhaps based on where in the city they live. But one or two people from certain parts of the city will say: oh yes, my granddad says that. So it’s reached that kind of stage, I think, where a lot of the dialect lexis is dying out except where it’s being kept alive consciously in the Bristolian dictionary or the T-shirt people, that you’ve already spoken to. Interviewer: Mhm, so it’s a phenomenon that is dying out but some people are still holding on to it, is that what you’re saying? Chas Blacker: Yes. Yea. Interviewer: Because they are still proud of it. Chas Blacker: That’s right.

146 Interviewer: And is it also a major part of the identity, I mean, you have probably a lot of rather young students, or, I mean, I don’t know, is it part of their identity too or don’t they identify with it? Chas Blacker: Some do. Again, I think it depends on area. Some do. I think many of them now find or many of them claim to not like it, they say: well, I hate that accent, it’s horrible. So, ya I think fewer of them associate with it and although it’s not a huge number of students I do come across local white students whose speech contains elements of I suppose black English now, or what’s his name…Cursual calls ahm..no…multi-ethnic youth dialects, yea. Interviewer: Ok. Chas Blacker: Not very wide spread among the students here. But I think they compile their identity in terms of their age and shared culture now, rather than their geographical area. Interviewer: Ok, interesting. And what about people from outside of Bristol, what is their opinion on this dialect or this accent as you called it? Chas Blacker: Right, I think unless they have some knowledge of the city most people from outside the city wouldn’t readily distinguish Bristol accent or dialect from the West Country in general. Interviewer: Mhm. Ok. Chas Blacker: I mean, although I’ve lived here for 30 years I don’t always necessarily…someone’s got a slight Bristol accents, I wouldn’t necessarily identify them immediately as being from specifically Bristol as distinct from the West Country generally. And I think someone who does not come from this or doesn’t live in this area would just hear a West Country accent. And students report that if they are on holiday and they meet people from London, they are described by the Londoners as being Yokels, as being country people. Interviewer: Ok. Chas Blacker: Yea. Even though they live in a large city. Londoner will say: where have you parked your tractor? You know, that kind of thing. Interviewer: Alright. And I’ve heard quite many people having the opinion that dialect speakers are rather disadvantaged on the labour market because of their accent or dialect. Do you agree and do you also think this is true for speakers of Bristolian for example.

147 Chas Blacker: I think it probably is. I mean, I don’t have any hard evidence that I can think of now. But certainly the perception of West Country accents in general and Bristolians accents in particular, I think, is that they do portrait the wrong kind of image for a commercial organisation. So, I think, where a company is selecting a member of staff, let’s say to answer the telephone, they would rather have a different accent than Bristolian. Interviewer: So, would you suggest to your students or teachers in general to acquire a more standard pronunciation or accent? Chas Blacker: It’s very difficult for an English teacher because you feel very hypocritical. Cause on the one hand I’m saying you should be proud of it and you should use it but on the other hand they need to recognise that yea, in the labour market it may be a disadvantage. And I think most of them know that, most of them talk about modifying or accommodating in an interview situation for example. They say: the way I would talk when I go to an interview. And the implication is that they can convert upwards when they’re in an interview situation. Interviewer: Is this an easy task for people to just like acquire to the situation when it comes to speaking or is it hard for some? Chas Blacker: I’m sure its harder for some than others but I think a lot of young people do it fairly naturally, yea. Interviewer: Mhm. Ok. Interesting. Chas Blacker: But having said that, I do notice with a lot of, let’s say, my working class students that although they can to some extent modify their accent towards RP they will still come out with some nonstandard grammar. And I said earlier that the lexis is dying out very quickly, there are a few words which are still used but a lot are gone, but there are certain grammatical forms which do continue. Particularly for example the distinction between the past tense and the past participle. Students will say: this was wrote rather than this was written. Interviewer: Ah, ok. Chas Blacker: Yea. And I think often they will give themselves away by their nonstandard grammar. Interviewer: Aha. Mhm. I see, interesting. Chas Blacker: Ya. Interviewer: And you mentioned your work on the internet about Bristolian, is there anything you could say about what you did?

148 Chas Blacker: Briefly, although it’s actually more or less dead now because we are supposed to put all our resources on a college website, we did have in the A-level centre a kind of independent website with pages for each subject and I did some stuff about Bristolian which I put onto the website and it exists on the website but it also exists as a word document and it’s basically a handout, if you like. Interviewer: Ok. Chas Blacker: It’s a brief description of the phonology, the grammar and the lexis of Bristolian. Interviewer: Mhm, mhm. Chas Blacker: And that was there for students to use for revision purposes, so that in an exam if they were discussing nonstandard variation they could draw examples from a local accent. Cause one of the problems we chose, I chose, to use Bristolian because it’s the local speech form. Interviewer: Mhm. Chas Blacker: But at the same time it makes it a bit harder for students because if they are used to hearing that speech its harder for them to stand back and notice it. Interviewer: Mhm, ok. Chas Blacker: It’s harder for them to be objective or to realise that it’s there because they are just used to hearing it everyday, they don’t think about it. But yea, the stuff was there on the internet for all of them to revise for exams and so on. Interviewer: Ok, I see. So you did quite a bit of work on this topic really. Chas Blacker: A bit, well, a small amount over a very long period. I think the first work I did on it was not actually at A-level, it was the next level down GCSE, where students had to write about language and I found, I might gotta find for you, I found the correspondence in the local newspaper, the Bristol Evening Post, there was a correspondence about Bristolian. Interviewer: Ah, ok, I see. Chas Blacker: Which I copied and used as part of originally a GCSE unit of work. That was back in the 80s I think, about 20 years ago. So, I’ve done it over a long period, unlike Tim, I haven’t done that big systematic survey, I mean Tim did a huge amount of work I remember with surveys. I’ve never done that. I’ve just used it as part of my teaching over a period of time.

149 Interviewer: But, do you think this teaching students more about their own language variety or accent, or dialect, as you wanna call it, do you think this changes the opinions of your students towards this phenomenon? Chas Blacker: I hope so and this is one of the reasons why I do it. I mean, there is the built in almost paranoia about it. But if you draw attention, if there’s somebody in the class who does have, let’s say the accent, if you draw attention to it, they immediately feel they are being criticised, because it’s an English class, an English class is supposed to be about learning to speak “correctly”. Interviewer: Alright. Chas Blacker: So your recorder won’t pick up my inverted commas. Ahm, but, yes, students naturally feel that they are being criticised if you draw attention to the way they speak. But, yea, what I hope it is that they, part of what I’m teaching them is the recognition that Standard English is not better than other varieties, it’s just one variety among many. And any superiority it has is social, historical, political, economic, not linguistic. Interviewer: Mhm, ok. So, is there anything else you can think of regarding Bristolian that could be important? Chas Blacker: Ahm, it’s interesting to reflect on what’s gonna happen to it in the future and the impression I get is that it’s increasingly occupying the subtle niche where it is about identity. I can’t remember, well, you may know now but I don’t know, when those T-shirts first appeared, it’s only a few years ago, but they are very popular and it seems to me that people are going to continue hearing about the dialect, but fewer and fewer people are going to be using it. It becomes a badge of identity and not much else almost, you know. Interviewer: Ok, I see. Chas Blacker: That’s about it, I think. Interviewer: Ok. Thank you very much.

150