North/South Dividers in Privately Educated Speakers

North/South Dividers in privately educated speakers: a sociolinguistic study of the foot∼strut and trap∼bath distinctions in the North-East and the South-East Supervisors: Dr Danielle Turton (SELLL) & Dr Ghada Khattab (ECLS)

Student Number: 140102208

September 2018

Dissertation submitted in partial fulﬁlment of the MA in Applied Linguistic Re- search at Newcastle University. I declare that this work is entirely my own and that in all cases where I have drawn on the work of any other author, either directly or in- directly, this is fully and speciﬁcally acknowledged in the text of my dissertation and the work cited in the bibliographical references listed at the end of the Dissertation.

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Abstract: This project takes 10 speakers (4 educated in the North-East and 6 in the South-East) compares and contrasts the state of the trap∼bath and foot∼strut distinctions in privately educated speakers in order to answer questions surrounding the interactions between social class, education, region and accent. Sociolinguistic interviews, forced alignment techniques and statistical methods are used to analyse both social and linguistic factors that may affect speaker vowel pronunciations. It is found that both sets of speakers have the foot∼strut distinction with no discernible difference in linguistic or social effects. The trap∼bath distinction is found to be less prevalent in the speakers educated in the North-East. However, social factors were not found to be significant predictors of the bath vowel in these speakers, instead there are effects of linguistic structure, with a possibility of a rule simplification process occurring that is bringing them towards the system used by the speakers educated in the South-East.

2 Contents

1. Introduction5 1.1. Introduction ...... 5 1.2. Research Questions ...... 5

2. Literature Review7 2.1. Introduction ...... 7 2.2. Social Class ...... 7 2.3. Social Class and Language ...... 8 2.4. Private Education in England ...... 9 2.5. Received Pronunciation (and education) ...... 9 2.6. The Foot∼Strut Distinction ...... 12 2.7. Trap∼Bath Distinction ...... 16

3. Methodology & Method 21 3.1. Introduction ...... 21 3.2. Methodological Background ...... 21 3.3. Data Collection ...... 22 3.4. Demographical Information ...... 25 3.5. Data Processing ...... 28

4. Data Analysis & Discussion 31 4.1. Introduction ...... 31 4.2. Speakers ...... 31 4.3. Foot∼Strut ...... 40 4.4. Trap∼Bath ...... 50 4.5. Region, Social Class and the foot∼strut and trap∼bath splits . . . . . 63

5. Conclusion 65

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6. Evaluation & Further Research 67 6.1. Evaluation of current study ...... 67 6.2. Further Research ...... 67

Bibliography 69

A. Acknowledgements 75

B. Interview Schedules 76

C. Word List & Minimal Pairs list 94

F. Data 99

4 1. Introduction

1.1. Introduction

This paper is an investigative project, looking into the current state of modern Re- ceived Pronunciation (henceforth RP) and how regional and class-based variation interact. RP suffers from being both under and over studied, Macaulay states that ”it has been more carefully described than any other British accent” (1988, p. 115), and yet it has been sorely neglected in the field of quantitative Variationist Sociolinguis- tics (Fabricius 2002b, Wells 1982b). This project will contribute to current literature by furthering our understanding of the present state of RP. However, it will take a different approach to many, and rather than pre-defining who RP speakers are likely to be, it will take speakers who can, by other social factors be defined to be in the middle-upper range of the socio-economic spectrum (explained further in chapter 3). The aim is to investigate the claims of a non-regional accent by taking speakers from two different areas, the North-East (Corrigan et al. 2012) and the South-East/Home Counties and comparing and contrasting the relationships between social class and regional features, asking the broad question, at what level of social stratification do regional-specific features disappear?

1.2. Research Questions

As a preliminary study, which will be further developed in PhD study, this project will focus on two features that deﬁne the north/south divide of English speakers in England, the foot∼strut and trap∼bath distinctions.

1. What social and linguistic factors aﬀect the foot∼strut and trap∼bath distinctions in speakers privately educated in the North-East and South-East?

2. At what socio-economic stage do the foot∼strut and trap∼bath distinctions disappear in speakers privately educated in the North-East?

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The two variables that will be under consideration in this study are the strut vowel and the bath vowel. The history and details of these are discussed more fully in chapter 2. The bath vowel is subject to regional variation in England, with two variants existing. Broadly, this lexical set is produced as a palm (/A/) vowel by speakers from the south, but as a trap (/a/ or /ae/) vowel by speakers from the north. The strut vowel is also regionally variable with northern speakers producing the variant that is identical to the foot vowel (/U/) and southern speakers producing a diﬀerent variant (/2/) that is not found in any part of the phonology of northern speakers. The foot and trap realisations of strut and bath, respectively, are generally northern features, and hence would be expected to persevere further up the socio-economic spectrum in north-eastern speech than traditional north-eastern features.

6 2. Literature Review

2.1. Introduction

Literature supports social stratiﬁcation of some form being present in almost every human society. This chapter will review this literature, giving a brief overview of social class and how it interacts with language study; it will also give some background on the private school system in British education and summarise the current state of study of the two variables of interest.

2.2. Social Class

Social stratification exists in almost every society in the world, however, there is much variation as to how it is defined and described. Socio-economic class (or social class) is not the only form of social stratification, which is just an arrangement of society into layers, but can be one of the most complex to describe and elusive to define (Reid 1981). According to Meyerhoff (2006), Weber’s work provides a conceptualisa- tion of class that is most appropriate to linguistics (for example Weber 1978, 2012). Weber theorises class based on an individuals social actions; amongst the factors included are economic situation, lifestyle, and life chances. This explains the discon- nect that can occur between an individual’s current situation and how they identify in terms of socio-economic class. Macy (2001) explains, using the example of blue- collar workers in the United States, that variation within an occupational group can often be explained by their background. College educated people in a blue collar job are more likely to identify as middle or upper class than others in the same or similar jobs. This type of variation, including current situation, past experiences and expectations are particularly important to linguists because using these factors provides the capacity to include an individual’s participation in various social be- haviours, their aspirations and their attitudes, all of which affect their language use (Meyerhoff 2006). This tradition of sociology, including both similarities and differ-

7 SEL8510 2. Literature Review 140102208 ences between groups along with individual attitudes, perceptions and aspirations also allows for mobility in a class system, which aﬀects both language and attitudes towards language (Mugglestone 2003).

2.3. Social Class and Language

The interactions between social class and language are well studied but social class is it is rarely as simple as the classifications used in many linguistic studies, particularly when the middle and upper classes, or ‘elites’ (Britain 2017) are under study. Despite comments from authors such as Meyerhoff (2006), discussed in section 2.2 above, the way linguists categorise social class is often as summarised by Macy “the job makes the man” (2001, p. 364). The majority of studies that use socio-economic class as an independent variable determine it either predominantly or completely by occupation (for example Labov 1990 and Baranowski 2017). The existence of a relationship between social class and language have long been accepted, including by the layperson. In 1972, National Opinion Polls carried out a survey of a random sample of the British Public asking what factor was the most important in being able to tell what class someone was; the highest scored answer was ‘the way they speak’ (Wells 1982a, Reid 1981). This is also reflected in other similar studies and surveys (Reid 1981). While Wells takes this to mean “above all, ‘accent’” (1982a, p. 15), whereas Reid takes it to include content and complexity of conversation, it is clear that awareness of accent must make up at least some part of this judge- ment and that class stratified language variation of any form is well observed by the lay person. Similar points arise in language research, Wells claims that “proba- bly all English-speaking countries” (1982a, p. 13) have stratified language variation that corresponds with social stratification, and Foulkes & Docherty describe class as having a “particularly strong influence on linguistic behaviour” (2007, p. 53). As an independent variable, social class is unusual in that speakers can be mobile. In Western countries, and particularly in the UK, a person’s socio-economic class is not necessarily determined from birth. One of the consequences of social mobility is that mobile speakers can show different variation to non-mobile speakers of the same socio-economic class. Dickson & Hall-Lew (2017) show that speakers who have transitioned from working class to middle class (as defined by education and occupation) over their life time show higher levels of rhoticity, which shows an increase up the socio-economic spectrum, than those who have been middle class for their

8 SEL8510 2. Literature Review 140102208 entire lives. This implies that upwardly mobile speakers show higher levels of prestigious variants than their non-mobile social peers. Similar evidence is shown by Labov (1966a, 1966b).

2.4. Private Education in England

Private Education in the United Kingdom is subject to strong opinions and con- tentious debate. This section will not endeavour to answer questions surrounding the politics and ‘correctness’ of private education systems, but will lay out some of the history and facts of British private education. Prior to the late nineteenth century, The Public Schools Act 1868, set out laws surrounding seven specific schools; it gave them independence from the jurisdiction of the Crown, the established church or the government. These schools were Eton Col- lege, Winchester College, Westminster School, Charterhouse, Harrow School, Rugby School, and Shrewsbury School. At the time these schools were all only boys and boarding, and all were are in the South-East except Shrewsbury. The term ‘public’ was used because these schools were officially open to any citizen, if they could pay the fees. Other private schools also existed at this time. The term ‘public school’ is now used for any school whose headteacher is in the Headmasters’ and Head- mistresses’ Conference (henceforth HMC), though there is still a cultural divide between the older, more traditional, and often partly residential schools, and the newer, often inner-city, day schools. While the public schools were officially open to all, and many had scholarship systems for academically gifted pupils who could not afford the fees, in practice these schools became associated with the upper-middle and rul- ing classes. Section 2.5 below discusses the development of the accent known as Received Pronunciation through the environment of these residential schools.

2.5. Received Pronunciation (and education)

Received Pronunciation (henceforth RP), is the reference variety of English, used to deﬁne English phonology and as a point of comparison for regional accents by many researchers (examples include Wells 1982a, 1982b, and Davenport & Hannahs 2010). Historically, it is tied to schooling and social class, having developed out of the British public school system. Fabricius (2000) explains that the origins of RP lie in a particular set of sociological and ideological circumstances in the nineteenth century,

9 SEL8510 2. Literature Review 140102208 where accent ideology was growing and the ideas of ‘correct’ and ‘proper’ speech were on the rise. In response to this, the public schools began to explicitly teach a ‘correct’ style of pronunciation. Fabricius traces the first use of the term to Ellis (1889), describing a particular speech model that was socially acceptable at court and in London professional circles. Hannisdal (2006) confirms this, explaining that the use of the word ’received’ was in the now obsolete sense of ‘socially accepted’. Slightly later, Jones designated as the source of his pronunciation model: the speech of families from the south of England ”whose men-folk have been educated at the great public boarding schools” (1917, p. viii). Despite the current impressions of the non-regionality of RP, these early authors based their descriptions on London and the South-East. Trudgill (2002) further considers RP as typologically originating in the south-east of England, but also supports the long-held assumption by linguists that RP has no regional features, due to the schools being residential, and explains that a speaker of RP cannot be located to a particular region of England, even by a trained linguist. This model is visualised using the diagram in figure 2.1.

Figure 2.1.: Relation between social and regional accents in England (adapted from Wells 1982a), also reported by Ward (1929) from Daniel Jones.

An unusual phenomenon has occurred in the ongoing study of British accents, which is possibly a symptom of RP being used as a standard and reference accent, that

10 SEL8510 2. Literature Review 140102208 if variation or change within the accent is uncovered, different varieties are defined rather than allowing that the accent itself has changed. The most commonly used of these are Wells’s (1982b) mainstream RP, U-RP (upper-crust RP), adoptive RP and Near-RP. Mainstream RP is only descried as a central tendency, which can be isolated nega- tively by defining U-RP and adoptive RP. U-RP is described as the RP, not of the middle and upper-middle classes, but of the dowager duchess and ”jolly-hockey-sticks schoolmistress at an expensive private girls school” (1982b, p. 280). Typical features of this variety’s vowels include an opening diphthongal realisation of the trap /æ/ vowel, as [Eæ] or [eæ], relatively front starting points of the mouth and price diph- thongs, relatively back and bath-palm-start vowels and /O:/ in cloth words. Typical consonantal features include no glottaling of plosives and a tapped /r/,[R]. Adoptive RP is the RP spoken by adults who did not have an RP accent as children, but have acquired it later in life, usually due to social circumstances. If acquired successfully, this variety merges with mainstream RP but is often characterised by underuse of informal characteristics of RP such as /r/ sandhi (linking or intrusive /r/), due to these being perceived as sloppy or incorrect. Fabricius (2000) draws the lines slightly differently, with c-RP (constructed RP) being the norm described in pronunciation dictionaries and n-RP (native RP) as the accent of people who have acquired it as native speakers; in contrast to Wells (1982b), Fabricius does not distinguish a form of adoptive-RP but discusses an unnamed variety equivalent to Wells’ U-RP and a set of accents that are in-between RP and non-RP accents in Britain, equivalent to Wells’ near-RP and adoptive-RP. As mentioned in chapter 1, quantitative variationist study of RP is sparse, with the majority of work having been done by Fabricius (2002a, 2002c, 2006, 2007a, 2007b), however, these are based on recordings made before 2000, almost twenty years ago. Some studies have been done on newsreader speech (Hannisdal 2006, Hinton 2015, Bjelakovic´ 2016), based on the past tendencies of the BBC to require RP from their newsreaders, but while these are independently of value, they cannot be considered variationist sociolinguistics due to the formal nature of the speech and the lack of analysis of social variables. In summary, in the literature there is an accent of English, known as Received Pro- nunciation, that is considered the ‘standard’ and often used as a reference variety. It is accepted as non-regional (Przedlacka & Baghai-Ravary 2015, Wolfram & Schillings- Estes 1998, Trudgill 2002) but this assumption is rarely defended. Both Fabricius

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(2002b) and Britain (2017) have called for further study on this, with Britain in particular questioning whether the deﬁnition of RP has lead to biased study of the speech of the elites. This leaves us with the questions: does RP still exist and if yes, where are the speakers found and how does this accent function, change and propagate?

2.6. The Foot∼Strut Distinction

2.6.1. The foot Vowel

The foot lexical set is deﬁned by Wells (1982a) as the words with the stressed vowel /U/. The phonetic realisation of the vowel is short, lax, back and usually weakly rounded; it is only found in closed syllables. In other UK accents, including Scot- tish and Ulster accents, the /U/ phoneme does not exist and the foot words are pronounced the same as goose words. As one of the outcomes from the foot -strut split, the foot words have come from the same Middle English sources as the strut words (see below, section 2.6.2).

2.6.2. The strut Vowel

The strut words are deﬁned by Wells (1982a) as those words which have in RP and GenAm the stressed vowel /2/; it is, like foot , only found in closed syllables and is the other outcome of the foot -strut split mentioned in section 2.6.1 and further discussed in section 2.6.3 below. Accents vary in the exact realisation of this vowel, but whenever it is in contrast to the foot vowel, it is more mid or open. According to Wells (1982a) accents in Wales and some higher prestige accents from the Midlands and the North of England have a stressed schwa /@/ due to the strut -schwa merger. According to Fabricius (2007a), the strut vowel has changed in speakers born between 1945 and the late 1970s. Originally, it was the lowest open vowel in the system and then moved up the back of the vowel space and ended in the youngest speakers in the study mid, non-peripheral position in the short vowel space. This change is associated with a downward shift in the trap vowel at the front of the vowel space, which will be discussed more fully in section 2.7.1.

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2.6.3. Foot∼Strut Split

The foot∼strut split is the phonemic distinction between the short vowels found in GenAm, RP and southern English accents in England that distinguishes pairs such as put∼putt and look∼luck. This distinction did not exist in Middle English (Wells 1982a). The short vowel /u/ found in Middle English split into two separate phonemes /U/ and /2/, except in northern English accents where they remain one phoneme, /U/. The process was that some words unrounded and became more open, creating the [2], whereas others kept a short vowel which centralised creating the modern day [U]. Wells (1982a) times the split as being established by the middle of the seventeenth century, whereas Beal (2012) places it later, in the eighteenth century. Figure 2.6.3 presents the development of the split in RP and GenAm, as proposed by Wells, who suggests that it could have begun as an allophonic split with [È] (forerunner to [2])in the majority of environments but a rounded quality (modern [U]) after labials. However, there are multiple exceptions to this rule, vulture and fun both have /2/ despite beginning with labials and sugar has /U/, despite no preceding labial. Baranowski & Turton (2017) suggest a split due to more complex phonetic factors, which is discussed further below.

2.6.4. Present day situation of the Foot∼Strut Distinction

In present day England, the foot∼strut distinction is one of two markers popularly used to split the country into the (linguistic) North and South, (Wells 1982b), dividing the population approximately in two (the other being the trap∼bath distinction discussed in section 2.7 below). Therefore, aside from RP speakers, or in line with the definitions of this project, aside from speakers without regional features, approximately half the population of England do not have foot∼strut distinction, and hence only have a five short vowels in their system (Wells 1982b) rather than six. However, Britain et al. (2016) provide possible evidence for the split spreading, though this could be due to social class-based variation that was not accounted for in their data collection method. Wells (1982b) proposes that the further north one goes the higher up the social spectrum one has to go to find the distinction. Speakers without the distinction have one fewer vowels in their phonology, which can make it very diffi- cult to acquire the strut vowel later in the life. Also, due to the particular difficulties of predicting where the split occurs, speakers who try to acquire the vowel when at- tempting to shift their accent towards the standard, or what they perceive as more

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strut foot Broad [U] [U] One phoneme, /U/ One phoneme; realisa- [@∼2] [@∼2] Intermediate tion modiﬁed Two phonemes; inci- [@∼2] [U] dence may be erratic Two phonemes; /2/ and RP [2] [U] /U/

Table 2.1.: Possibilities for foot and strut in the North of England, adapted from Wells (1982b, p. 353). prestigious can end up hyper-correcting and putting strut vowels in foot words. This is shown by Evans & Iverson (2007), who found that speakers with northern accents living in London for university not only changed their vowel in the words bud and cud, centralising it from a [U] towards a [2], but also did the same with the word could, which would have a /U/ vowel in both northern and southern accents. A possible explanation that is given for this eﬀect is that the subjects were unable to gain the foot∼strut distinction because it is a phonological split that they do not natively have. Baranowski & Turton (2017) found that speakers from Manchester who would identify a split in a minimal pair (even if it was not audibly perceptable) were majority lower middle class (the highest class of their 5 point occupation based scale), meaning that, based on Wells’ theory that the further north speakers are from the higher up the socio-economic scale one has to go in order to ﬁnd the distinction. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that in the North East the split would only be found in speakers of an even higher socio-economic class. Even in speakers without a phonemic distinction, strut words were found to have statistically higher F1 values. They suggest that this is due to a combination of phonetic conditioning and articulatory factors and could be an indication of the diachronic precursor to the original split. When a distinction is present it may be smaller in younger speakers due to the change in height of the strut vowel as described by Fabricius (2007a) and discussed in section 2.6.2 above.

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Figure 2.2.: foot ∼strut split development (Baranowski & Turton n.d., p. 2) adapted from Wells (1982a, p. 198)

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2.7. Trap∼Bath Distinction

The trap∼bath distinction can be generalised as the lengthening of the vowel in pre- fricative and pre-nasal context. Due to the particular context in which this occurs, minimal pairs are rare, though can occur in pre-nasal context, for example ant ∼ aunt. As will be discussed below, this distinction is very socially salient and has become a shibboleth dividing the north and south of the country (Beal 2004).

2.7.1. Trap

Wells (1982a) defines the trap lexical set as the words whose citation form in RP and GenAm has the stressed vowel /æ/. The phonetic realisation of this vowel is a front unrounded vowel, approximately between cardinals 3 and 4. In both RP and GenAm there are changes occurring, though in different directions, with GenAm tending towards a ”closer, longer, perhaps tenser or diphthongal quality” (Wells 1982a, p. 129) whereas RP is tending towards an [a]-like quality (Wells 1982a). Fabricius (2007a) also gives evidence for the lowering of the trap vowel; in speakers born between 1945 and the late 1970s the relationship between the trap and strut vowels rotated (the change in position of the strut vowel is discussed in section 2.6.2 above) with the trap vowel moving down from the most [æ]-like position in the oldest speakers to a more [a]-like realisation in the youngest speakers, for whom the trap vowel is the lowest open vowel in their system. This change in the height of the trap vowel should not affect the analysis in this paper because the trap∼bath disctinction is characterised by an F2 difference not F1. Another factor that affects the trap vowel is an effect known as the bad∼lad split, which is a perceived duration difference between lad, pad and the longer mad, bad. This split is known to be specific to certain words and not a general allophonic split, though the pre-/d/ environment is accepted as a strong predictor of a lengthened /ae/ vowel (Wells 1982b). However, Kettig (2016) finds that there is not conclusive evidence for a lexically specified script, with different speakers of Standard Southern British English (henceforth SSBE) vary- ing in which words they lengthen, but there is a general effect of voicing following segment, with voiced segments causing lengthening. The manner of articulation of the following segment being a fricative rather than any other is also a predictor of trap lengthening.

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2.7.2. Bath

The bath vowel has been qualitatively described at length both historically and cur- rently, including by authors such as Lass (1976) and Beal (1999). Wells (1982a) de- ﬁnes the bath lexical set as the words which are pronounced as /æ/ in GenAm (the same as the trap vowel), but /A:/ in RP, that is, phonetically the same vowel as in palm and start (Kettig 2016). The palm vowel is fully open and unrounded, and between back and central. This realisation appeared from the trap∼bath split, a phonemic split in the eighteenth century which is discussed in section 2.7.3 below.

2.7.3. The Trap∼Bath Split

Wells (1982a) describes the trap∼bath split as a half completed sound change. In the mid-eighteenth century, the precursor to RP had [a:] in palm, [a:r] in start, and [æ:] (an allophone of /æ/; Barber et al. 2010) in bath words. Therefore, to create the modern day situation, two changes occurred, the phonemic split of trap and bath and the backing of the palm/start/bath vowel. The phonemic split was established via lexical diﬀusion when some lexical items lengthened to [æ:] (which later became [A:]). While Wells discusses this as an eighteenth century split, Lass (1999) places the early stages in the late seventeenth century and Macmahon (1998) describes one eighteenth century writer as unusual in not making the distinction. The lengthening occurred in the position before a voiceless fricative, in a rule that is approximately:

2.7.1. [Open V] → [long V] / Voiceless Fricative (adapted from Wells 1982a, p. 204)

Or more formally:        + cons   - high   - high         -syll         + low   + low         +obs  2.7.2.   →   /    + front   - front         + cont   - back   + back               - del rel  - long + long    - voice  This lengthening applied to both /æ/ and /6/, but only phonologised in the for- mer in RP and in the latter in GenAm. Hence the lexical sets lot and cloth are realised diﬀerently in GenAm but not in RP, whereas the lexical sets trap and bath are realised diﬀerently in RP but not in GenAm. For some time there was distinction

17 SEL8510 2. Literature Review 140102208 between lot and cloth in RP, with the presence of [O:] in Wells’ upper-crust RP (now considered old-fashioned or upper class; Barber et al. 2010), which must be recognised but no longer exists in the majority of speakers. This is an interesting reversal of a split but will not be discussed further here. Historically the most favourable environment for trap-lengthening is the pre-fricative environment (Fudge 1976, Harris 1989) but it has not previously been described as an environment that allows for secondary /ae/-lengthening), the more modern trap-lengthening described as the bad∼lad split above. However, Kettig’s (2016) data shows the fricative environment as a strong predictor of lengthening in the trap vowel of SSBE speakers and suggests that these results could point to an explanation of the historical causes of the trap∼bath split.

2.7.4. Present day situation of the Trap∼Bath Distinction

The pre-fricative lengthening in bath vowels phonologised in RP but it seems that the lexical diffusion did not complete, hence words such as grass, glass, staff, and plant having lengthened vowels but words such as gas, asp, and rant still having short vowels (Wells 1982a, Beal 1999). Therefore, modern RP now has two possible vowels in the pre-/s/ at the end of a word environment ( s#). The pre-fricative lengthening also occurred in many southern and Midlands accents but not north of the Wash (Barber et al. 2010). The isogloss for this split coincides at the eastern edge with the foot∼strut isogloss (discussed above in section 2.6) but for much of its path is further north. It is also used to divide the linguistic North and South. Cases of allophonic lengthening exist, for example in Gloucestershire, where both trap and bath words are lengthened; grass and gas are both realised with [a:]. But if only phonemic lengthening is included, the isogloss passes horizontally east to west, north of Northampton and south of Birmingham and Leicester (Wells 1982b). Figure 2.3 shows the isoglosses for aunt, last and half. The isogloss is variable for different words, and if Wells’ theory of partial lexical diffusion of the change is correct, the gloss position for each word is dependent on the degree of lexical diffusion that has occurred in that area. There are also words which now fit in the bath category but have a different history to those discussed above, particularly those with an /n/ following this vowel, such as aunt, chance, dance. These were borrowed into Middle English from French and spelt with au (Fraser Gupta 2005, Dobson 1968); they would have originally been pronounced with a diphthong which then monophthongised into either a short or long /a/. The isogloss for

18 SEL8510 2. Literature Review 140102208 these words is older and often further north than the other bath words. Importantly for this study, Newcastle and Tyneside are above the line for all words that have a bath vowel in southern accents. The trap∼bath distinction has an interesting inter- action with social factors, the /A:/ sound is present in other words for all English speakers, therefore, phonologically, aside from the slightly unpredictable nature of the lexical diﬀusion, the phonological aspect of acquiring the split should not be dif- ﬁcult. However, the short versus long vowel in bath is very socially salient, unlike the lowered strut vowel. Fraser Gupta (2005) describes it as a shibboleth that distinguishes northern accents from southern ones. Wells elaborates on this by saying:

”There are many educated northerners who would not be caught dead doing something so vulgar as to pronounce strut words with [U], but who would feel it to be a denial of their identity as northerners to say bath words with anything other than short [a].”

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Figure 2.3.: Isoglosses for some bath words (Wells 1982a, p. 355)

20 3. Methodology & Method

3.1. Introduction

This chapter will consider both the wider methodological background in which this research is situated, providing a brief history of variationist sociolinguistics, and also explain how this background was applied to conducting this research and what methods were used in particular.

3.2. Methodological Background

3.2.1. Sociolinguistics

The tradition of modern variationist sociolinguistics is generally considered to have started with Weinrech et al. (1968) and continued through many publications by Labov (to the point where it is sometimes known as Labovian sociolinguistics). How- ever, many of the practices and methods used, particularly surrounding data collection, were passed on by word of mouth between researchers and via PhD supervision (Tagliamonte & Mesthrie 2006). Tagliamonte & Mesthrie have recorded this tradition and, in doing so, set the stage for following generations of variationist researchers. According to their text, variationist analysis combines techniques from a variety of disciplines including linguistics, anthropology and statistics, aiming to investigate the use and structure of language. This tradition aimed to contribute to the wider ﬁeld of linguistic study by formulating a model of language that both allows for, and actively includes, language variation and change.

3.2.2. Sociophonetics

A sub-section of this field is that of sociophonetics, a term first used in this way by Deshaies-Lafontaine (1974) in a PhD thesis that is described by Foulkes et al. as ”squarely within the emergent field of Labovian or variationist sociolinguistics”

21 SEL8510 3. Methodology & Method 140102208

(2010, p. 703) and captures emphasis on phonetic rather than syntactic, lexical or other linguistic variation. ’Sociophonological’ has also been used to describe work with the same intent. Foulkes et al.’s (2010) view is that the aim of sociophonetics is to identify and explain where and how socially structured variation in speech occurs, including how it is learnt, cognitively stored, evaluated, and processed in both speaking and listening. Di Paolo & Yaeger-Dror (2011) clarify the phonetics/phonology distinction by describing the main aim of sociophonetic research as considering phonological variation in order to understand how it relates to sound change and understanding its interactions with salient social categories within a particular speech community. This project is placed within the methodology described above; it uses structured pools of subjects to understand phonological variation in ﬁne phonetic detail, including how these diﬀerences function socially.

3.3. Data Collection

3.3.1. Subject Recruitment

In general, social science research aims to take truly random samples in collecting data, where every unit of the population under study has an equal chance of being chosen. However, in linguistics, this can be diﬃcult and occasionally even impossible. Delineating the boundaries of the population under study (Tagliamonte & Mesthrie 2006) is theoretically ideal but often practically impossible, a situation which is true of this study. While the study has clear eligibility criteria (i.e. native speakers of English who have been educated in the North-East or the South-East, including London and the Home Counties), it is impossible to create a list of every person who is eligible and hence sample them randomly. This study is also a part of wider work that is endeavouring to understand where the speech community of Received Pronunciation (RP) speakers is and who it is comprised of. According to (Tagliamonte & Mesthrie 2006), samples used in linguistic studies that were techni- cally too small to be representative have been shown to account for language variation, meaning that random sampling is not strictly necessary for studies of linguistic variation. Tagliamonte & Mesthrie suggest using stratiﬁed random sampling, which is the same idea as Foulkes et al.’s (2010) structured pools, to make inferences about a population. In this research the aim was to collect a sample as in table 3.1.

22 SEL8510 3. Methodology & Method 140102208

Young Old Male Female Male Female

North East 2 2 2 South East and 2 2 2 2 Home Counties

Table 3.1.: Template for sample design in the style of Tagliamonte & Mesthrie (2006, p. 30)

In response to the generally accepted opinion in the literature (see chapter 2) that the RP accent developed in the private education system (particularly the residential public schools in the South-East), the criteria defined for subject recruitment in this study were adults who had been privately educated in either the North-East dialect area (as defined by Corrigan et al. (2012)) or the South-East (including London and the home counties). Due to time and travel constraints, it was only possible to record ten subjects, which were in the configuration seen in table 3.2. These subjects were recruited using personal contacts, friends of friends and a snowball sampling method, that is, asking participants to recommend people they know who would be willing to take part.

Young (18-39 years) Old (40+ years) Male Female Male Female

North East 1 1 0 2 South East and 1 2 2 1 Home Counties

Table 3.2.: Actual sample distribution for this study, in the style of Tagliamonte & Mesthrie (2006, p. 30)

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3.3.2. Sociolinguistic Interviews

The standard method of collecting data for variationist sociolinguistic studies is a process known as the sociolinguistic interview (Tagliamonte & Mesthrie 2006). This aims to be casual conversation between the researcher and the participant that records speech as close as possible to the vernacular (Krug & Sell 2013). Speakers tend to adjust their speech when being listened to, particularly if they know that their language is being observed. Therefore, an important aspect of the interview methodology is asking questions that elicit narratives of personal experiences, putting the speaker into storytelling mode. Chapter 3 of Tagliamonte & Mesthrie (2006) provides an example of ’interview modules’, questions separated into sections based on topics, which move from least to most personal and are designed to put the participant at ease and encourage them to talk. These questions put the participant in the position of providing information to the interviewer so that they are comfortable and do not feel in a lower position of power. For this project, these modules were re-written to suit the author’s style of speech and to make the questions appropriate for the demographic of the participants (see Appendix B). The participants were told that the research was related to the interactions between language, social class, and education; the information letter (see Appendix D) was clear and correct but did not overtly highlight the linguistic and phonetic nature of the project so as to prevent the participants becoming hyper-aware of their speech. Since the initial recruitment criteria required that the participant had been privately educated, it was found that this was a natural place to start the conversation and in practice the majority of the interviews did not require more than the ﬁrst few pages of the interview schedule. The original interview modules have a lot of questions relating to area and neighbourhood but many people who have been privately educated have been to school outside of their immediate neighbourhood, or have boarded further away. This means that they can be emotionally tied to their school more than their neighbourhood. Through the process of interviewing it was found that, particularly with participants who had boarded, asking about school life, and for stories and experiences related to that often yielded more natural conversation. All of the interviews were recorded with a Zoom H4n Pro Handy Recorder.

24 SEL8510 3. Methodology & Method 140102208

3.4. Demographical Information

After the interview, participants were asked to ﬁll in a further form with demographic information (appendix E), which was then input and added to the full data set.

Speakers:

This section will provide an overview of the speakers upbringing background and occupational history to contextualise the analysis. As discussed in section 2.2, this study is based on a framework of social class that cannot be deﬁned by one factor alone. While many social factors are coded for and considered in analysis, in a small data set it is also important to take into account individual variation.

Speaker 001 is male, was born in 1945 in London, and was raised in the London suburbs of Dulwich and Bromley (which, at the time, was more Kent than London). He was 73 years old at the time of recording. At junior level, he attended a prep school in Dulwich, as a day pupil until the age of eleven and then boarding for the last two years. He then moved to boarding at Bedford School for the rest of his school career. Bedford school is a boys only HMC independent school, also known as a public school, with both boarding and day pupils, in the town of Bedford, Bedfordshire. He then studied at the University of Cambridge and worked in Kent for a small number of years. He then trained and worked as a linguist and translator predominantly in Ghana and for some years in the High Wycombe area in England. Within the last ﬁve years he has retired and moved to the North East.

Speaker 002 is female, born in 1958 in Ponteland, Northumberland, and moved into Gosforth, a borough of Newcastle at the age of seven. She was 60 years old at the time of recording. She was privately educated in Newcastle for her whole school career. Starting at Westﬁeld School in Gosforth and then moving to Church High School (now merged with Central Newcastle High School to form Newcastle School for Girls), a private independent school in the borough of Jesmond at age seven. She ﬁnished school at 18 and did not attend university, but has done other adult educational diplomas since. She has only lived outside of Newcastle for two years of her adult life (one year in London, and a second in Scotland); she works as a legal secretary in Gosforth and also lives in that area.

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Speaker 003 is female, born in 1988, in Nottingham and moved to Gosforth in Newcastle at age seven. She was 29 years old at the time of recording. She attended a private primary school in Nottingham for one year and then in Newcastle at Central Newcastle High School (now merged with Church High to form Newcastle School for Girls), a private independent school in Sandyford (junior) and Jesmond (senior), and then transferred to Royal Grammar School, a Headmaster’s Conference school, for sixth form. She studied at St. Andrews University in Scotland, and trained as a teacher in Newcastle. She has worked as a teacher in Gateshead and Blyth and now works at a state school in Fenham, Newcastle.

Speaker 004 is female, and was born in Newcastle in 1991 but moved to Canter- bury at a very young age. She was 26 at the time of recording. She brieﬂy attended a state primary school in Canterbury but then moved to Junior King’s Canterbury, a feeder school for King’s Canterbury, an HMC school, which she then attended as a day pupil for the rest of her school career. She lived near Cambridge for one year after school and then moved to Bristol to train as a vet. For the last three years she has worked in Darlington as a vet and lived in a village nearby.

Speaker 005 is male and was born in 1995 in Reading. He was 23 at the time of interviewing. He grew up on the border of Surrey and Berkshire at a prep school where his father was headmaster. He attended this school as a day pupil. At thirteen he moved to boarding at Bryanston, an HMC school in Dorset. He studied at Newcas- tle University and has lived in Newcastle for a year since then, working as a church apprentice.

Speaker 006 is female and was born in 1958 in Edinburgh. She was 60 years old at the time of recording. She moved to Newcastle at an early age and was educated as a day pupil at a variety of independent schools in Newcastle. She studied at the University of Sheﬃeld and has lived in London, Norwich, and Hull before returning to Newcastle. She now works as a lawyer in Newcastle.

Speaker 007 is male; he was born in Newcastle in 1992 and grew up in Blyth. He was 25 at the time of recording. Apart from 6 months in Switzerland, he has lived all his life in Northumberland and Newcastle. He attended a state school in Blyth until age seven and then moved to The King’s School Tynemouth, an independent private

26 SEL8510 3. Methodology & Method 140102208 school, (now a state-funded academy), where he completed his education as a day boy. He studied at Newcastle University and is now a PhD student there.

Speaker 008 is male and was born in 1977 in Hexham. He was 40 years old at the time of recording. His family were based in Cumbria for the majority of his life but he boarded from age seven, ﬁrst in North Yorkshire at Aysgarth school, then at Eton College from age thirteen. He studied medicine at Newcastle University and has worked as a GP and lived in Newcastle since then. An extra note to be considered in relation to the historical class system in Britain; speaker 008’s father is a Baron in the Peerage of the United Kingdom, of a parish in Kent, though the family seat is in Cumbria. He has worked as a civil engineer and is now retired. This speaker is the heir apparent to this seat but in order to preserve speaker anonymity further information cannot be provided.

Speaker 009 is female; she was born in 1953 in Hong Kong and was 65 at the time of recording. During her childhood her family were highly mobile, working in many ex-British colonies. She was educated at multiple private international schools then at age ten took one year at a private prep-school in Sussex before moving to board at a private secondary school, also in Sussex. She studied at the University of Kent in Canterbury and has worked there for most of her adult life (apart from one year in Australia). She is now retired.

Speaker 010 is female, and was born in 1991 in Canterbury. She was 23 years old at the time of recording. She attended school in Canterbury for her entire childhood education, Junior King’s Canterbury until age 13 and the King’s School Canterbury, an HMC school, from age 13 to 19. In her later childhood her family were based overseas in various countries and she boarded age 14 to 18. At the time of recording she had just ﬁnished studying at Sussex University in Brighton.

3.4.1. Data extraction

The interviews were transcribed using ELAN (2006) (outsourced, see appendix A), which produces time-aligned text in breath groups. These were exported to .txt for- mat and FAVE-extract (Rosenfelder et al. 2014) was used to align the transcription and sound ﬁle to produce a Praat (Boersma & Weenink 2017) TextGrid. The vowel measurements were then extracted using FAVE-extract (Boersma & Weenink 2017).

27 SEL8510 3. Methodology & Method 140102208

FAVE creates phonemic transcription using the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (Weide 2008) and asks for manual input for words that are not recognised. It then uses a pro- grammed acoustic model to match these to the sound ﬁle and output the TextGrid. The measurements are normalised using the Lobanov method and the output gives normalised values and measurements at ten percent intervals through the vowel from twenty to eighty percent of the duration. The vowels are also coded for their phonological environment using the Plotnik (Plotnik n.d.) method.

3.5. Data Processing

The extracted vowels produced by FAVE were recoded by to lexical set, according to Wells (1982a) and Wells (1982b). This was required because FAVE codes vowels according to the American vowel system; the differences are summarised in table 3.3. The palm and start words were both coded as palm since there is no difference in realisation in non-rhotic English accents (Wells 1982a). The majority of the recoding required for ’AA’ due to the difference in realisation of the lot vowel between American and English spoken in England. In American English this is realised the same as palm whereas in Englishes spoken in England it is a separate vowel (Wells 1982a, Macmahon 1998). This process was also able to be used as a method of filtering out erroneously identified vowels, which can occur with the use of a forced aligner. (MacKenzie & Turton n.d.). The schooling information collected from the participants was re-categorised to ’original public’ - one of the original seven public schools (see section 2.4), HMC - headmasters conferences schools according to Head- masters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference (2018), independent - private schools that are not part of the Headmasters’ and Headmistress’ conference, and state. Parents’ education was recoded to public, private and state (it was not possible to get HMC information far enough back to use that criteria).

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FAVE vowel Lexical Sets assigned AA lot palm thought bath (rare, mainly place names) trap (rare, mainly names) AE trap bath dress AH1 schwa (function words) strut bath (only one example, rather) lot (predominantly was) UH foot cure north goose

Table 3.3.

All data was imported into Rstudio and the FAVE output and social data were combined. The measurements used were the normalised midpoint F1 and F2 from the output. Due to the tendency in casual speech to reduce function words, these were removed from the data set. The words filtered out of the foot∼strut data set were: but, just, other, put, um, us, umm, ugh, huh; and the words filtered out of the trap∼bath data set were: am, an, and, as, at, can, had, have, haven’t, hadn’t, has, hasn’t, that, that’s, that’d, nah. Unless otherwise specified, models are linear mixed effects models using the lme4 package in R (Bates et al. 2014), all the models include speaker and word as random effects. The graphs were made using ggplot2 (Wickham, Chang, Henry, Lin Pederson, Takahashi, Wilke, Woo & RStudio 2018) and vowel plots with phonR (McCloy 2016). dplyr (Wickham, François, Henry, Kirill & RStudio 2018) is also used throughout. In building the linear models, the correlation effects were examined, and in general if a correlation effect was greater than 0.7 the two factors were considered and one removed. This is commented on in more detail within the analysis in chapter 4. Early in the process of building the statistical models (see chapter 4), it was

29 SEL8510 3. Methodology & Method 140102208 found that number of moves and age group have a correlation eﬀect that means that the two cannot be used in the same model. This correlation likely occurs because an older person has had more years in which they have the opportunity to move, and this eﬀect is particularly present in this projects data because middle class speakers are in general more mobile (Milroy & Milroy 1985). Therefore, number of moves was not used as a variable in the analysis.

30 4. Data Analysis & Discussion

4.1. Introduction

This chapter takes the data extracted as in chapter 3 and considers the variation relevant to the trap∼bath and foot∼strut splits. The foot∼strut split will be studied based on the F1 (height of the vowel) and F2 (frontness of the vowel) and the trap∼bath split will be studied based on the F2 and duration of the vowel.

4.2. Speakers

An overview of the upbringing and background of the speakers was given in chapter 3. This section will provide vowel plots for each speaker, plotting the space used for each of their foot , strut , trap , bath , and palm vowels as an introduction to the variation that will be studied more closely in sections 4.3 and 4.4. These will be plotted using the phonR package and discussed qualitatively. The phonR package plots all occurrences of the vowel and draws an ellipse to show the mean of the vowel measurements based on a 68% conﬁdence interval, corresponding to ±1 standard deviation of the normal density contour (McCloy 2016). Due to the high level of variation innate to any vowel the majority of the discussion in this section will be based on the means, as shown by the ellipses in the plots. This section will also provide the responses the speakers gave to the minimal pairs relevant to the analysis (see appendix C for full list), which were for the foot∼strut distinction, book∼buck and stood∼stud, and for the trap∼bath distinction, anti∼auntie (there are no exact minimal pairs for the bath vowel in pre-fricative environment, further research could use near minimal pairs such as gas∼glass).

31 SEL8510 4. Data Analysis & Discussion 140102208

4.2.1. Speaker 001

73 year old male educated in the South-East: ﬁgure 4.1 shows the realisations of foot , strut , trap , bath , and palm vowels produced by Speaker 001. Based on the means, foot and strut have no overlap, with foot placed higher and slightly further back than strut, implying a foot∼strut split. However, of interest in this plot is that the trap and palm vowels overlap, with the range of the bath vowels being wider than both combined implying that the bath vowel can be realised in either position. Speaker 001 identiﬁed a distinction in all of the relevant minimal pairs.

Figure 4.1.

4.2.2. Speaker 002

60 year old female educated in the North-East: Figure 4.2 shows the realisation of the foot , strut , trap , bath , and palm vowels for speaker 002. This speaker’s foot and strut vowels have some overlap, though the mean strut realisation is lower, implying the possibility of a foot∼strut split. The trap and palm vowels also have some overlap, with the bath vowels showing a wider F2 range than the two combined, though less variation in F1, again implying that the bath vowel can be realised in either position. Speaker 002 identiﬁed a diﬀerence in the foot∼strut minimal pairs but not in the trap∼bath pair, though she was aware that others would distingiuish between anti and auntie.

32 SEL8510 4. Data Analysis & Discussion 140102208

Figure 4.2.

4.2.3. Speaker 003

29 year old female educated in the North-East: Figure 4.3 shows that the speaker 003’s foot and strut vowels have some overlap, though the majority of the foot vowels are realised higher than the majority of the strut vowels, implying at least some level of foot∼strut distinction. The trap and palm vowels have some overlap but the bath vowel realisations are within the variation of the trap vowel implying no trap∼bath split. Speaker 003 identified a difference in the foot∼strut minimal pairs and said that she varied in her realisation of the anti∼auntie pair, knowing that her family (from further south) would distinguish between the words (which particularly affects the word auntie) but those around her locally would not and she wouldn’t usually distinguish between foot and strut words in other contexts.

4.2.4. Speaker 004

26 year old female educated in the South-East: Figure 4.4 shows that speaker 004’s foot and strut vowels have a high level of overlap, though are not completely superimposed, possibly implying a foot∼strut split but with some raising of the strut vowel. The trap and palm vowels have some overlap, with the bath vowels overlapping both possible realisations. Speaker 004 identiﬁed a distinction in all of the relevant minimal pairs.

33 SEL8510 4. Data Analysis & Discussion 140102208

Figure 4.3.

N.B Speaker 004 answered that she has actively adjusted her accent since moving to work in the North East, this was clearly audible to the interviewer in the bath and strut vowels. Therefore, due to the complexities of speech patterns changed in adult- hood, care had to be taken when including this speaker in statistical models.

Figure 4.4.

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4.2.5. Speaker 005

23 year old male educated in the South-East: Figure 4.5 shows that speaker 005’s foot and strut vowels have little to no overlap. The trap vowels have a wide realisation with a slight overlap with the palm vowels. The bath vowels also have a wide realisation, which overlaps completely with the palm vowels and partially with the trap vowels. Speaker 005 identiﬁed a distinction in all of the relevant minimal pairs.

Figure 4.5.

4.2.6. Speaker 006

60 year old female educated in the North-East: Figure 4.6 shows that speaker 006’s foot and strut vowels have very little overlap. Her trap vowel has a wide realisation with some overlap with the palm vowels, which vary less. The bath vowels have a large amount of variation in F2, overlapping with both the trap and palm vowels, but the F1 shows less variation than either of these. Speaker 006 identiﬁed a distinction in all of the relevant minimal pairs.

4.2.7. Speaker 007

25 year old male educated in the North-East: Figure 4.7 shows speaker 007 has a relatively large overlap between the foot and strut vowels implying he may not have a foot∼strut split. The trap and palm vowels show some overlap and the bath vowel

35 SEL8510 4. Data Analysis & Discussion 140102208

Figure 4.6. overlaps with all of the trap vowel and some of the palm vowel in the F2 direction. Speaker 007 did not identify a distinction in any of the relevant minimal pairs.

Figure 4.7.

4.2.8. Speaker 008

40 year old male educated in the South-East: In ﬁgure 4.8 it can be seen that speaker 008’s foot and strut vowels have very little overlap, implying presence of a

36 SEL8510 4. Data Analysis & Discussion 140102208 foot∼strut split. His trap and palm vowels have some overlap but the bath vowel overlaps completely with the palm vowel and a only little with the trap vowel, implying presence of a trap∼bath split. Speaker 008 identiﬁed a distinction in all of the relevant minimal pairs.

Figure 4.8.

4.2.9. Speaker 009

65 year old female educated in the South-East: As can be seen in ﬁgure 4.9, speaker 009’s foot and strut vowels have little to no overlap, clearly implying a foot∼strut split. Her trap and palm vowels have no overlap but her bath vowel has a large amount of variation, having a wider F2 range than the trap and palm vowels combined. Speaker 009 identiﬁed a distinction in all of the relevant minimal pairs.

4.2.10. Speaker 010

23 year old female educated in the South-East: Figure 4.10 shows that speaker 010’s foot and strut vowels have some overlap but strut is still lower, implying a foot∼strut split is likely. Her trap vowel has a far larger range of realisation than her palm vowel though there is overlap. Her bath vowel is within the range of the palm vowel, though with some overlap with the trap vowel. Speaker 010 identiﬁed a distinction in all of the relevant minimal pairs.

37 SEL8510 4. Data Analysis & Discussion 140102208

Figure 4.9.

Figure 4.10.

4.2.11. Summary of the Speakers

Only one of the speakers, speaker 007 (25 year old male, educated in the North-East), did not identify a foot∼strut split. This is supported by what was seen in the vowel plots for each speaker. Figures 4.11 and 4.12 show the F1 and F2 measurements for all the speakers. From ﬁgure 4.11 it seems that all the speakers have at least some diﬀerence in F1 between the foot and strut lexical sets, though for speaker 007 this

38 SEL8510 4. Data Analysis & Discussion 140102208 does not appear as large as for some of the other speakers. The diﬀerences in F2 (ﬁgure 4.12) are not as clear, with some speakers having very similar F2 in both the foot and strut lexical sets and others having lower F2 in the strut lexical set. Both the F1 and F2 are discussed in section 4.3.

Figure 4.11.

Figure 4.12.

In many of the speakers the ellipses showed a wider area of realisation that would

39 SEL8510 4. Data Analysis & Discussion 140102208 be expected for the bath vowel, this is possibly due to the method of drawing the standard deviation in a small lexical set. Conclusions will be drawn based on the models and other analyses Speakers 002, 003, and 007 (all educated in the North- East) did not identify a trap∼bath distinction in the minimal pairs. This can be seen in ﬁgure 4.13 where for these three speakers the bath lexical set appears to have a similar F2 to the trap words rather than the palm words. Speaker 006 (60 year old female educated in the North-East) has a large amount of variation in the F2 of the bath lexical set, with the range being closer to the trap words than the bath words. These initial results imply the presence of an eﬀect of school region on the trap∼bath distinction. This will be analysed and discussed further in section 4.4.

Figure 4.13.

4.3. Foot∼Strut

The foot∼strut distinction is primarily characterised by a diﬀerence in height of the vowel, seen in the ﬁrst formant measurement (F1), a /U/ vowel as found in foot will have a lower F1 than the /2/ found in strut . However, there may also be be some F2 variation which is discussed in section 4.3.2, this would involve the strut vowel having a lower F2 than a foot vowel.

40 SEL8510 4. Data Analysis & Discussion 140102208

4.3.1. Foot∼Strut F1

The overall variation of the foot and strut words can be seen in figure 4.14 and di- vided by school region in figure 4.15. From these graphs there seems to be a clear difference in F1 between the two lexical sets, but there does not seem to be a strong effect of school region. A linear mixed effects model was run to confirm the difference between the lexical sets and to begin to explore other possible predictors. The model (see table 4.1) shows a large effect of lexical set, with a t-value of 28.334 and a standard error of 5.851; the strut lexical set on average has an F1 165.788Hz higher than the foot lexical set. The model also shows effects of sex and school region, and various linguistic effects, which are are likely masked by the large effect of lexical set. Therefore, since the difference between the lexical sets is supported by this model, the strut words, which would be expected to vary regionally, were analysed separately (see table 4.2).

Figure 4.14.

The model in table 4.2 shows that the F1 of the strut words has some regional effect and a combination of linguistic effects, including effects from the voicing of the following segment, the place and manner of the preceding segment, and what the following sequence is. While many of these had a t-value outside of -2 and +2, none of the estimates were larger than 44.405Hz (school region) showing that there is not a large amount of variation overall. However, the random effects of this model showed that the effect of individuals also caused up to 46Hz in each direction, a

41 SEL8510 4. Data Analysis & Discussion 140102208

Figure 4.15.

larger difference than any of the other predictors. This implies that there are social or individual factors affecting the F1 of the strut vowels that cannot be accounted for by the data available. This large individual effect also means that the regional effect seen cannot be relied upon because in a data set of only 10 speakers with large individual effects it may be caused by individual variation. Based on the change in position of the strut vowel found by Fabricius (2007a), some effect of age on the F1 of the strut vowel could be expected. However, the speakers in that data set were on average older than these speakers, with the youngest speakers being in their early 20s in the late 1990s, over 15 years older than the youngest speakers in this data set. Therefore, the lack of age effect likely means that this change was further ahead in the speakers in this project and hence was not significant.

42 SEL8510 4. Data Analysis & Discussion 140102208

Predictor Estimate Standard Error t-value (Intercept) 590.950 16.804 35.167 Lexical Set Foot (baseline) strut 165.788 5.851 28.334 Sex Female (baseline) Male -22.850 18.369 -1.244 School Region South-East (baseline) North-East -43.651 18.337 -2.381 Following segment Voicing Voiceless (baseline) Voiced -35.311 49.81 -7.088 Preceding Segment None (baseline) Oral Labial -3.759 9.150 -0.411 Nasal Labial -4.050 10.409 -0.389 Oral Apical -14.481 8.277 -1.750 Nasal Apical 32.414 13.630 2.378 Palatal -30.896 20.477 -1.509 Velar -4.944 10.341 -0.478 Liquid 1.956 9.386 0.208 Obstruent + Liquid -17.466 11.230 -1.555 Approximant -19.095 9.732 -1.962 Following Sequence None (baseline) One Syllable -13.642 5.878 -2.321 Two Syllables 39.943 17.171 2.326 Complex Coda -18.652 7.019 -2.657 Complex Coda + one or more syllables -7.011 7.018 -0.99

Table 4.1.: Model for F1 of the foot and strut lexical sets

43 SEL8510 4. Data Analysis & Discussion 140102208

Predictor Estimate Standard Error t-value (Intercept) 746.703 15.481 48.234 School Region South-East (baseline) North-East -44.405 21.740 -2.043 Following segment Voicing Voiceless (baseline) Voiced -34.828 5.835 -5.968 Preceding Segment None (baseline) Oral Labial -2.045 10.315 -0.198 Nasal Labial 32.926 14.124 2.331 Oral Apical -14.869 8.777 -1.694 Nasal Apical 32.926 14.124 2.331 Palatal -37.775 23.724 -1.592 Velar 8.354 12.019 0.695 Liquid 1.193 10.485 0.114 Obstruent + Liquid -20.696 11.987 -1.727 Approximant -18.609 10.748 -1.731 Following Sequence None (baseline) One Syllable -15.058 6.852 -2.198 Two Syllables 46.371 19.936 2.326 Complex Coda -15.95 8.074 -1.976 Complex Coda + one or more syllables -9.232 7.594 -1.216

Table 4.2.: Model of the F1 of the strut lexical set

44 SEL8510 4. Data Analysis & Discussion 140102208

4.3.2. Foot∼Strut F2

This difference in F2 between the foot and strut lexical sets can be seen in the graph in figure 4.16, visually it does not appear to be a large difference but its significance was confirmed with a linear model, shown in table 4.3. This model shows that despite many factors affecting the F2 of the foot and strut words, the lexical sets are significantly different by at least 88Hz.

Figure 4.16.

The strut lexical set, which would be expected to vary regionally (see chapter 2), was investigated separately. The model shown in table 4.4 shows that despite variation being present in the strut lexical set, it is not based on region but on a combination of co-articulatory effects, particularly the preceding segment and the manner of articulation of the following segment. In building this model it was found that age group and sex had no effect, nor did voicing of the following segment. Manner and place of articulation of the following segment had a strong correlation effect, therefore, place was removed from the model.

45 SEL8510 4. Data Analysis & Discussion 140102208

Predictor Estimate Standard Error t-value (Intercept) 1416.1726 113.6337 12.463 Lexical Set strut -88.3297 26.3739 -3.349 School Region South-East (baseline) North-East 39.3080 30.2693 1.299 Following Segment Manner Aﬀricate (baseline) Central 29.4065 171.7473 0.171 Fricative -6.7486 85.9394 -0.079 Lateral -205.1479 102.2884 -2.006 Nasal -68.5420 96.6403 -0.709 Stop -4.4805 97.9556 -0.046 Following Segment Place Labial (baseline) Labio-dental 42.6363 60.2166 0.708 Inter-dental -13.9064 63.8475 -0.218 Apical 49.7427 24.0543 2.068 Palatal 109.3025 82.7422 1.321 Velar 55.3214 30.6356 1.806 Following segment Voicing Voiceless (baseline) Voiced 56.0475 25.4594 2.201 Preceding Segment None (baseline) Oral Labial -104.7927 36.5840 -2.864 Nasal Labial -101.9622 45.1515 -2.258 Oral Apical 40.6309 34.2998 1.185 Nasal Apical 23.6178 55.4959 0.426 Palatal 185.9992 63.4680 2.931 Velar 46.0164 39.0551 1.178 Liquid -61.0052 39.7763 -1.534 Obstruent + Liquid -73.8605 41.6051 -1.775 Approximant -39.9982 40.6858 -0.983 Following Sequence None (baseline) One Syllable 17.0091 22.9418 0.741 Two Syllables 16.4486 47.9250 0.343 Complex Coda 0.3895 25.3527 0.015 Complex Coda + one or more syllables 52.1828 26.4742 1.971

Table 4.3.: Model of F2 for the foot and strut words

46 SEL8510 4. Data Analysis & Discussion 140102208

Predictor Estimate Standard Error t-value (Intercept) 1470.17773 62.77775 23.419 School Region South-East (baseline) North-East 36.84249 33.22189 1.109 Following Segment Manner Aﬀricate (baseline) Fricative -93.32804 55.75651 -1.674 Lateral -193.89867 65.61855 -2.955 Nasal -122.99903 53.53359 -2.298 Stop -104.22067 53.33413 -1.954 Preceding Segment None (baseline) Oral Labial -65.48320 38.94711 -1.681 Nasal Labial -106.67540 44.65454 -2.389 Oral Apical 34.28089 34.34642 0.998 Nasal Apical 0.02724 54.04203 0.001 Palatal 129.51679 67.23113 1.926 Velar 13.41384 40.74865 0.329 Liquid -57.71068 40.31259 -1.432 Obstruent + Liquid -53.84898 40.41223 -1.332 Approximant -2.57746 43.66307 -0.059 Following Sequence None (baseline) One Syllable 30.21543 23.39390 1.292 Two Syllables 21.14144 50.63021 0.418 Complex Coda 2.27458 27.44182 0.083 Complex Coda + one or more syllables 55.84039 27.20885 2.052

Table 4.4.: Model of F2 for the strut lexical set

47 SEL8510 4. Data Analysis & Discussion 140102208

4.3.3. Foot∼Strut Preliminary Conclusions

There are some preliminary conclusions that can be drawn from the analysis of the foot and strut sets. There is a clear difference in F1, correlating to height of the vowel, between the two lexical sets. There is also a significant difference in F2. The strut vowels are on average 165.788Hz higher and 88Hz further back, defending the presence of a lower vowel, /2/, as opposed to the /u/ in the foot words. In answering research question 1: What social and linguistic factors affect the foot∼strut and trap∼bath distinctions in speakers privately educated in the North-East and South-East? The variation in the F1 of the strut lexical set is caused by a mixture of linguistic and individual variables; none of these cause more than 46Hz of variation. The F2 is affected by a variety of linguistic factors including the preceding segment, the manner of articulation of the following segment and the following sequence. In answer to the research question 2: At what socio-economic stage do the foot∼strut and trap∼bath distinctions disappear in speakers privately educated in the North-East? There is no effect of school region on the strut vowels; in this data set, speakers privately educated in the North-East have no less of a distinction than those educated in the South-East. This can be seen in figures 4.17 and 4.18. It is very unlikely that this is a case of the speakers educated in the North-East acquiring the strut vowel, as Wells (1982b) says is possible, because they not only have the strut vowel but have the same distinction as the speakers educated in the South-East, whereas pre- vious evidence (Evans & Iverson 2007) shows that even if speakers are able to shift from a [U] towards a [2], the over-generalise because they are unable to acquire a new phonological category and place the new vowel sound in foot words also.

48 SEL8510 4. Data Analysis & Discussion 140102208

Figure 4.17.

Figure 4.18.

49 SEL8510 4. Data Analysis & Discussion 140102208

4.4. Trap∼Bath

The trap∼bath distinction is predominantly characterised by a diﬀerences in frontness of the vowel, which can be seen in the magnitude of the second formant (F2). Therefore, the analysis will focus on this but will also include analysis of duration.

4.4.1. Trap∼Bath F2

The overall variation in the F2 of the trap, palm and bath lexical sets is shown in figure 4.19. This shows a difference between the trap and palm words, and also shows that the bath words are the most variable. Figure 4.20 shows that for the speakers educated in the South-East the bath lexical set has a similar range of F2 to the palm lexical set, as would be expected from the literature discussed in chapter 2. However, for the speakers educated in the North-East, the bath lexical set has more variation and seems to pattern more like the trap words. The model shown in table 4.5 confirms the difference between the trap and bath lexical sets; age group, voicing of the following segment and the following sequence had no significant effect. Other variation is shown, but in order to answer the research questions (chapter 1) the analyses focus on the the realisation of bath words by all speakers, and the difference between the trap and bath words in the speakers educated in the North-East.

Figure 4.19.

50 SEL8510 4. Data Analysis & Discussion 140102208

Figure 4.20.

51 SEL8510 4. Data Analysis & Discussion 140102208

Predictor Estimate Standard Error t-value (Intercept) 1167.751 113.247 10.312 Lexical Set bath (baseline) trap 146.315 30.550 4.789 Sex Female (baseline) Male 93.331 33.600 2.778 Following Segment Manner Aﬀricate (baseline) Central 297.603 154.146 1.931 Fricative 188.746 103.697 1.820 Lateral 297.228 119.797 2.481 Nasal 186.537 110.580 1.687 Stop 195.787 111.968 1.749 Following Segment Place Labial (baseline) Labio-dental 26.508 52.608 0.504 Inter-dental -24.309 60.271 -0.403 Apical 41.859 25.766 1.625 Palatal 257.707 84.410 3.053 Velar 78.053 29.547 2.642 Preceding Segment none (baseline) Oral Labial -126.896 28.150 -4.508 Nasal Labial -74.866 37.003 -2.023 Oral Apical 11.537 26.455 0.436 Nasal Apical -5.535 62.222 -0.089 Palatal 28.023 53.688 0.522 Velar 119.990 37.557 3.195 Liquid -25.665 38.173 -0.672 Obstruent + Liquid -24.856 31.249 -0.795 Approximant 348.597 130.069 2.680

Table 4.5.: Model of F2 of the trap and bath lexical sets

52 SEL8510 4. Data Analysis & Discussion 140102208

The best model for the bath words, including all speakers, is shown in table 4.6; none of the phonological environment variables had a significant effect (removing them from the models was tested via ANOVAs). The model shows that that the school region has a significant effect, with a t-value of 3.564. The speakers educated in the North-East produce the vowel on average +224Hz higher than speakers educated in the South-East, as would be expected from a fronter /a/ or /ae/ rather than an /A:/ vowel. This variation of the bath vowel by school region can be seen in figure 4.21. With one effect being so large compared to all the others, and likely masking other effects, it was decided that splitting the speakers by school region would be the most helpful approach to investigate other effects, both social and linguistic.

Predictor Estimate Standard Error t-value (Intercept) 1365. 49.24 27.727 School Region South-East (baseline) North-East 224.35 62.95 3.546 Age Group Young (baseline) Old -65.79 59.98 -1.097

Table 4.6.: Model of F2 of the bath lexical set, with all speakers

Figure 4.21.

53 SEL8510 4. Data Analysis & Discussion 140102208

Bath F2 - North-East

The diﬀerence between the trap and bath lexical sets for speakers educated in the North-East can be seen in ﬁgure 4.22, which clearly shows that there is more variation in the bath words than the trap words. It also seems that the F2 of the bath words is lower than in the trap words, implying there could be an overall further back (more palm-like rather than trap-like) vowel realisation present.

Figure 4.22.

In considering the variation in the bath vowel in the North-East speakers, it would be expected that based on the model of social variation discussed in section 2.5, where accent variation decreases up the socio-economic spectrum, factors determining social class would be the strongest predictor of how north-eastern speakers pronounce the bath vowels. The model for the bath vowel in North-East speakers is shown in table 4.7; it was built including as many of the social factors as possible from the number of speakers (some social categories only existed in one speaker hence could not be included), and it was found via ANOVA testing that neither the preceding segment nor the place of articulation of the following segment had any impact on the model. It was also observed that there were high effects from the following sequence that looked close to significant. Since bath is not a large lexical set, the fine-grained coding given to this predictor (by FAVE via Plotnik) could mask an effect. Therefore, the following sequence was recoded to three categories: none, one or more syllables (whether the coda to the syllable with the bath vowel is complex or not), and

54 SEL8510 4. Data Analysis & Discussion 140102208 complex coda with no following syllables. The model (table 4.7), shows a significant effect of the following sequence on the realisation of the bath vowel in these speakers. A word with one or more syllables after the bath vowel will have a vowel on average over 340Hz further forwards than with no following syllable (with or without a complex coda). The difference between these categories can be seen in figure 4.23. The other significant effect observed is the following segment being Inter-dental. On closer inspection of the data, the only words in this category were father and rather. It is debated as to whether these words are in the bath lexical set or if they almost always have a palm vowel, therefore, this effect was not investigated further.

Predictor Estimate Standard Error t-value (Intercept) 1309.65 203.21 6.445 Following Segment Place Labial (baseline) Labio-dental 25.49 206.32 0.124 Inter-dental -494.58 242.50 -2.040 Apical 114.66 168.80 0.679 Following Sequence None (baseline) One or more syllables 341.88 123.56 2.767 Complex Coda 71.01 146.31 0.485

Table 4.7.: bath lexical set for speakers educated in the North-East

Examples of words in the category showing an effect (words with one or more syllable after the bath vowel) include: after, auntie, asking, castle, laughing, examples. Historically the trap∼bath split, as described in chapter 2, is defined as lengthening and then backing in a pre-fricative environment, however the process did not complete lexical diffusion. Therefore, it is likely that the rule system that controls the trap∼bath distinction is complex. Even a speaker with a complete trap∼bath split would still have a trap vowel in words such as gas. It also does not apply in every phonological environment, for example, a speaker with the split would have a trap vowel in classic. The effect of following sequence seen in the bath vowels of the speakers educated in the North-East could be a case of rule simplification, this will be discussed further in section 4.4.1.

55 SEL8510 4. Data Analysis & Discussion 140102208

Figure 4.23.

Bath F2 - South-East

Since the significant factors in variation of the bath vowel in the speakers educated in the North-East were found to be linguistic rather than social, similar analysis was performed on the speakers educated in the South-East. Figure 4.24 shows the distribution of the trap, bath, and palm lexical sets for these speakers. It can be seen that the bath words seem to have a similar vowel quality as the palm words and not the trap words, and don’t show a high level of variation. On building the model for the south-eastern speakers, it was observed that there was a large positive random effect for speaker 004. In context of the discussion in section 4.2, this is likely due to her active effort to change her bath vowel since moving to work in the North-East. The positive random effect shows that the F2 measurements in this speaker were consistently higher than could be predicted by any other factors, this would indicate a fronter, more trap-like vowel than typical for southern speakers. Therefore, in order to get a more accurate indication of the pronunciation of the bath vowel, speaker 004 was left out of this model. The model in table 4.8 shows the model for the bath lexical set as spoken by the speakers educated in the South-East. In order to be able to compare this model with that for the speakers educated in the South-East the following sequence predictor was recoded in the same way. The model did not converge easily and despite trying many combinations of factors, clear significant predictors of variation could not be

56 SEL8510 4. Data Analysis & Discussion 140102208

Figure 4.24.

found, implying that the pronunciation of the bath vowel by these speakers is affected by a complex combination of eﬀects that are not fully covered here. Another reason this model needs to be interpreted cautiously is that the intercept varied a large amount depending on which variables were included, and often gave a value higher than the intercept for the North-East model in table 4.7, implying a more trap-like bath vowel. This result contradicts both the literature and the model run including both lexical sets (see table 4.5). Moore & Carter (2015) discuss the diﬃculty of using linear models on a small dataset of trap and bath vowels. Future investigation could use conditional-inference regression trees or random forests as suggested by Moore & Carter (2015) and Tagliamonte & Baayen (2012). Importantly for this discussion, the variation cannot be predicted based on the same linguistic factor as the speakers educated in the North-East.

57 SEL8510 4. Data Analysis & Discussion 140102208

Predictor Estimate Standard Error t-value (Intercept) 1525.03 411.56 3.705 Following Segment Manner Fricative (baseline) Nasal 68.95 208.31 0.331 Following Segment Place Labial (baseline) Labio-dental 126.19 344.55 0.366 Inter-dental -504.86 382.16 -1.321 Apical -100.04 196.13 -0.210 Preceding Segmnent None (baseline) Oral Labial 211.23 236.13 0.895 Nasal Labial -248.29 205.57 -1.208 Oral Apical -100.04 196.13 -0.510 Velar -75.96 295.29 -0.257 Liquid 574.72 312.04 1.842 Obstruent + Liquid -55.17 210.88 -0.262 Following Sequence None (baseline) One or more syllable -192.63 219.03 -0.879 Complex Coda -260.18 237.81 -1.094

Table 4.8.: F2 of the bath lexical set for speakers educated in the South-East

Bath F2 - Discussion

In the vowel plots in section 4.2 there is a lot of variation in the bath vowel in speakers educated in both the North-East and the South-East implying that the split could not be as simple as a difference in frontness of the vowel. However, a conclusion can be drawn that speakers educated in the North-East overall have a more trap- like realisation of the bath vowel, that is they are less likely to have the split than those educated in the South-East. There is a strong effect of following segment on the bath vowel in the North-East set of speakers, implying variation in their distinction. This could be a case of rule simplification. Another example of a lexically specific split is /ae/-tensing in Philadelphia (Labov 1994), for which there is a complex set of ordered rules including lexical diffusion, and rules based on phonological and morphological environment. Payne (1980) records children from out of state learn- ing the vowel system in Philadelphia and, in general, if the children do not show the correct system it is because they have acquired only some of the rules, or have simpli-

58 SEL8510 4. Data Analysis & Discussion 140102208

fied them. More recent work also shows that the Philadelphia system is simplifying (Labov et al. 2013). Older quantitative data on the southern bath vowel is not available but there is other evidence in the literature that it has changed. For example, Fudge (1976) states that in his own speech (describing himself as a middle class southern British speaker), the trap vowel never occurs before a voiceless fricative and Wells (1982b) states that older, often U-RP speakers, used to have a bath vowel in words such as plastic. None of the speakers educated in the South-East have the plastic feature that Wells describes and all of them have at least some words with a following voiceless fricative that are realised with a trap vowel (e.g. mass, lass). However, they would have a bath vowel in other words with a following segment, such as rather, auntie, and after hence there is no effect of following sequence on the South-East. A possible explanation for the difference in predictors for the North-East speaker set is that they are moving towards a system more like the South-East speakers, but either have not acquired all of the necessary rules, or have simplified the rules. A possible rule that the North-East speakers could be following is that the following fricative or nasal that causes the vowel change must be in the same syllable:      - high   - high       + low   + low          →    fricatives$ 4.4.1.  + front   - front  /      nasal$       - back   + back       - long   + long 

4.4.2. Duration

Based on the literature, as discussed in chapter 2, it would be expected that bath vowels, which have undergone pre-fricative lengthening, would have a longer duration, patterning with palm vowels rather than trap vowels. In order to allow for the existence of secondary /ae/ lengthening (or trap lengthening), the bath lexical set was compared with both the trap and palm sets. Therefore, even with trap lengthening, it should be possible to see the diﬀerence between the trap and palm lexical sets and discover which the vowel in the bath lexical set patterns with. The bath vowel in southern speakers has been described as having the same duration as the palm vowels (Kettig 2016, Moore & Carter 2015, Wells 1982a). However, evidence to the contrary was found. This data set implies that while bath vowels in southern speakers are perceived to have lengthened and changed in quality, the duration is in fact more similar

59 SEL8510 4. Data Analysis & Discussion 140102208 to trap vowels and only the F2 has changed. Very little quantitative data is available on the bath vowel but these results are different to what Moore & Carter (2015) find in their comparison of Scilly Isles, Cornish and Standard English speakers; their data set finds a difference in duration between the trap and bath lexical sets for all dialects. Further research on this is required, with more southern speakers who have a definite phonemic split and northern speakers who do not. The results found from this data set are outlined below. An initial graph of duration by lexical set, showing trap, bath, and palm words is shown in figure 4.25 (plotted using log(duration) for clarity). From this figure it seems that the bath words pattern with trap and not palm for duration. Due to the complexities of the data set further analysis was undertaken.

Figure 4.25.

Table 4.9 shows a linear mixed effects model of the duration (in milliseconds to 0 decimal places) of the trap, bath, and palm words. Social factors other than school region were found to have no effect, therefore, age group and sex were removed from the model. These results show that the duration of the bath vowels is significantly different to the palm vowels, 25msec shorter with a t-value of 2.390, but not to the trap vowels. This reinforces what was observed from figure 4.25. This result is contrary to what is described in the literature, although little to no quantitative analysis of the trap∼bath split exists in the literature. It is clear from the latter part of the model that duration is controlled by a complex combination of co-

60 SEL8510 4. Data Analysis & Discussion 140102208 articulatory effects based on the preceding and following segments, and the following sequence. A further model was run with the south-eastern speakers, all of whom have a trap∼bath split, confirming that while this effect is worthy of further research, duration cannot be used to study the trap∼bath split in this data set.

4.4.3. Trap∼Bath Preliminary Conclusions

The analyses above have shown that there is a difference in F2, correlating to frontness of the vowel, between the trap and bath lexical sets, however, it is not as clear as the literature suggests, with the quality of the bath vowel being far more variable than either patterning with the trap or palm vowels. The first research question is: What social and linguistic factors affect the foot∼strut and trap∼bath distinctions in speakers privately educated in the North-East and South- East? The data answers this question with different factors for the North-East and South-East speaker sets. The speakers educated in the North-East do not vary in their realisation of the bath lexical set based on any identifiable social factors but there is an effect of following sequence (syllable structure) on the vowel. It was not possible to identify any variables that reliably predict variation in the bath lexical set for the speakers educated in the South-East. The second research question is: At what socio-economic stage do the foot∼strut and trap∼bath distinctions disappear in speakers privately educated in the North-East? As has been stated, the speakers educated in the North-East do not vary in their realisation of the bath lexical set based on social factors, and the split does not disappear in these speakers. However, it is possible, as explained in section 4.4.1, that as a group, the speakers in this data set are moving towards a split like that found in the south but with a simplified set of rules.

61 SEL8510 4. Data Analysis & Discussion 140102208

Predictor Estimate Standard Error t-value (Intercept) 93.2462 74.0395 1.259 Lexical Set bath (baseline) palm 25 11 2.390 trap -5 8 -0.598 School Region South-East (baseline) North-East 14 8 1.826 Following Segment Manner Aﬀricate (baseline) Central -32 29 -1.071 Fricative -10 27 -0.35 Lateral -33 30 -1.099 Nasal -41 28 -1.445 None 129 75 1.724 Stop -16 29 -0.569 Following Segment Place None (baseline) Labial 94 69 1.362 Labio-dental 79 69 1.151 Inter-dental 93 70 1.340 Apical 92 69 1.334 Palatal 90 71 1.266 Velar 97 69 1.406 textitFollowing segment voicing Voiced (baseline) Voiceless -30 7 -3.984 Preceding Segment None (baseline) Oral Labial -3 7 -0.384 Nasal Labial -15 9 -1.760 Oral Apical -1 7 -0.169 Nasal Apical -4 15 -0.284 Palatal -1 12 -0.125 Velar 0 8 0.035 Liquid -22 9 -2.306 Obstruent + Liquid -33 8 -4.012 Approximant -5 20 -0.254 Following Sequence None (baseline) One syllable -46 7 -6.769 Two syllables -46 9 -5.309 Complex Coda -8 7 -1.122 Complex Coda + one or more syllables -42 7 -6.421

Table 4.9.: Model of the duration of the trap , palm , and bath vowels for all speakers 62 SEL8510 4. Data Analysis & Discussion 140102208

4.5. Region, Social Class and the foot∼strut and trap∼bath splits

The discussions in sections 4.3 and 4.4 show that in privately educated speakers there is more variation based on school region in the trap∼bath split than the foot∼strut split. Despite the phonological complexity of acquiring a strut vowel, due to it not being found elsewhere in a northern speakers phonology, this vowel is present to some extent in all of the speakers in this data set. However, the trap∼bath split is far more pervasive, likely due to the social saliency of the bath vowel. As quoted by Wells (1982b) in chapter 2, speakers are far more likely to retain a trap vowel in the bath lexical set due to its strength as a northern identity marker. As a summary, ﬁgure 4.26 shows that the area of realisation for the strut vowel is almost identical for speakers educated in the two regions. Whereas ﬁgure 4.27 shows that the area of realisation for the bath vowel is variable in speakers educated in the North-East, and the speakers educated in the South-East tend towards a less front vowel with a lower F2.

Figure 4.26.

63 SEL8510 4. Data Analysis & Discussion 140102208

Figure 4.27.

64 5. Conclusion

The research questions asked in chapter 1 were: 1. What social and linguistic factors affect the foot∼strut and trap∼bath distinctions in privately educated speakers from the North-East and South-East? 2. At what socio-economic stage do the foot∼strut and trap∼bath distinctions disappear in North-Eastern speakers? In answer to the first research question, it was found that with all the speakers included there is a statistically significant distinction between the foot and strut lexical sets, characterised by a difference in both F1 and F2. There is not a high level of variation within the strut vowel, which is the variable of interest; that which does occur can be partially predicted by a combination of linguistic variables, but there is also unaccounted for individual variation in the F1 of up to ±46Hz. The speakers educated in the North-East showed variation in their bath vowel, the second variable of interest, which could be predicted based on the sequence following the vowel. The speakers educated in the South-East showed less variation, which could not be reliably predicted by any linguistic or social factors available. The suggested explanation for the variation in the speakers educated in the North-East is a situation of rule simplification. This would be based on these speakers moving towards a system like the speakers educated in the South-East but with a simplified set of rules controlling the variation. Further explanation is given in section 4.4.1. In answer to the second research question, statistically there is no disappearance of the foot∼strut distinction in this set of speakers. However, speaker 007 individually did not identify a foot∼strut distinction and showed a larger overlap between the two vowels, but this could not be predicted by any one particular social factor. The trap∼bath distinction was less present in the speakers educated in the North- East but the variation could not be predicted based on social factors. In order to answer this question, more data, over a wider socio-economic spectrum is required. In particular, the lack of a foot∼strut distinction in working class northern speak-

65 SEL8510 5. Conclusion 140102208 ers is well documented, hence, the distinction must be lost further down the socio- economic spectrum than was represented by this data set.

66 6. Evaluation & Further Research

6.1. Evaluation of current study

In recruiting speakers for this study it was found that it is harder to recruit speakers educated at Headmaster’s and Headmistress’ Conference schools in the North-East than in the South-East. This is possibly due to there being fewer of these schools in the North-East region, or due to the snowball sampling method of sampling making these contacts less accessible than those in the South-East (the author was educated at an HMC school in the South-East). Overall a limitation of this study is the number of speakers, and while it was possible to extract a large number of tokens from each interview, investigation of the social factors was limited by this. As discussed in chapter 2, according to Weber’s theorisation of social class (Macy 2001), many factors contribute to a person’s social class and how they identify with it. When coding the data and building the social models, a problem was encountered because there weren’t enough speakers in the North-East category, but also overall, to code for the ﬁne-grain levels of stratiﬁcation that are found within the private schooling systems. This meant that not as much analysis could be done on these factors as would be ideal because there was not enough data to build meaningful statistical models dis- tinguishing between the social predictors.

6.2. Further Research

The two variables studied are variable up the socio-economic spectrum in the North of England but not in the South of England. In order to do a true comparison on the status of a non-regional accent in England and answer the question how far up the social spectrum does regional variation disappear, research would have to involve comparison with features particular to the South-East, such as /l/-vocalisation or diphthong variation. It was found in this work that the two variables of study chosen, the foot∼strut and trap∼bath distinctions, did not show social patterns of variation

67 SEL8510 6. Evaluation & Further Research 140102208 within the speakers educated in the North-East. Instead the foot∼strut distinction did not show any regional diﬀerence and the trap∼bath distinction showed variation but it was only predictable based on linguistic factors. In order to continue towards answering questions surrounding the non-regional nature of RP, more data over a wider social spectrum is required.

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74 Appendix A.

Acknowledgements

This research was undertaken while on an ESRC 1+3 studentship with the NINEDTP; I would like to thank them for their ﬁnancial and training support this year, and for funding my Disabled Student Allowance support which included paying for transcription. For transcribing the interviews I would like to thank Shannon Anderson-Scott, Connor Davis, Anna Graham, Fionnuala Halfacre, Lorcan Halfacre, Catherine Mor- rison and Hannah Lindsay. Without their hours of work I would have had no data to analyse. I would also like to thank Sam Graham, Lucyanna Harding, Timothy Harding, Robert McVey, Catherine Morrison, Rebecca Ness, and Timothy Norman for proofreading various drafts. I have been supervised by Drs Danielle Turton and Ghada Khattab and I would like to thank them and their colleagues in the Newcastle Schools of English Literature, Language & Linguistics and of Education, Communication & Language Sciences for their training, feedback, and support over the last 4 years.

∼ Soli Deo Gloria ∼

75 Appendix B.

1.Interview Demographics Schedules Your name is? And your address is? How long have you lived at that address? Where were you born? Where else have you lived? Where were your parents born and raised? Your grandparents? Your spouse? Are you working now? Where? What did/do your parents do? Your husband/wife? How many years of school did you have a chance to finish? What was the first job you had when you left school? If you are not at the informants home: Can you tell me about your home/apartment? What kind of place is it? How is it laid out? Do you speak any languages besides English?

76 2. School Days I’d love to hear some more about your school, how near home was it? …and were you a boarder or a day pupil? If boarder… Did you enjoy it? What was boarding like there? / what was your boarding house like? Did people ever sneak out, or break major rules? If day pupil… Did you hang out with the boarders much, or was it quite separated…? How far from school did you live? How did you get in each day? How long were your days? Did you do anything after school? Did you have a curfew? How did you feel about it? Have you ever broken curfew? Have you ever snuck in after curfew? Were you caught?

All Did you ever go on a school trip? Where did you go? Did anything interesting ever happen? Were they strict? Were there any weird school-specific rules? What sort of thing happened if you broke the rules? Did you ever pass notes in school? What kinds of things did you pass notes about? Did a teacher ever catch you passing notes? ...what happened? Did you or others play pranks on the teachers? Do you have any favourite stories of what you got up to? Were there any particular troublemakers? What happened if you got caught? Did you ever get blamed for anything you didn’t do? ...what happened? Were there cliques/groups at your school…what were they like? Did you do any hobbies or extra-curriculars in school? Do you go to dances at school? Do you take a date or do you go with friends as a group? How do you get to the dances? Does a parent drive you? Do friends sometimes get into arguments at the dances? Who asks who to dance? How is the music played? e.g. live band, DJ, Cds etc What was your favourite subject? Why? Did they set lots of homework? How much time would you spend doing homework? How did you choose your O levels/A levels? Are you glad you chose those or would you do something different now? Did you have a favourite teachers? Least favourite? Did you wear a uniform for school? If yes, what did it look like? What did the boys/girls wear? If no, what did you wear? How does that compare to how kids dress for school now? What kind of music did you like? What about now? Have you ever been to a concert to see one of your favourite groups? How was it? What’s the best concert you were ever at? Who’s your favorite artist? How come? What is your favourite movie? What was it about? 3. Camping/trips Do you have any other hobbies? What? How did you get into that? Did you ever go into competitions? Win a competition? …what happened? Were you ever in Scouts or Guides? Go to Scout/Guide camp? Have any adventures at camp? Did you ever go on a camping trip overnight? In the winter? …what happened?

What was the most fun you ever had at camp?

4. Games Going back to the time when you were at prep school/primary school, like ten, twelve years old, what were some of the games you used to play? What would you do after school to keep yourself occupied? Did you play sports? Were you on any sports teams? Did you play any games where everybody hides and you have to go out and find them? How do you play that here? What were the rules? e.g. hide-and-seek, kick-the-can, ghosts, man hunt, capture the flag Is there a game where everybody lines up and runs past one guy and that guy tries to catch them? What did you call that? How did you play? e.g. Red Rover, British Bulldog What about the one where one person is ‘it’ and has to chase all the other children? e.g. freeze tag, TV tag How do you decide who’s IT? Are there any games you used to play at night? Did boys and girls play different types of games? How about your parents or other adults, do you remember them playing any games? e.g. whisk, poker, bridge Did you ever play chicken with bikes? ...what happened? Did you ever smash up a bike? Did you play with skipping ropes? Did you do double dutch? Red hot peppers? What rhymes did you use? Do you remember any? e.g. tinker, tailor…all in together… Did you have any rhymes you used with a bouncing ball? Did you play any clapping games? What rhymes did you use? Did you play hopscotch? How did you play it? How was it laid out? Can you draw it for me? Did you play jacks? How did that go? Did you play marbles? Did you ever have marbles that were special in some way? e. g. beauties Did you have a favourite toy? Who gave it to you? What was the occasion?

5. Games (ball games) Is there any game you played with a ball on the streets, or in a yard, not regular baseball? e.g. Stickball, punchball, dodgeball How did you play? How many guys on a side, usually? What about throwing a ball against the steps? How did that go? Did you ever make a bat out of a broomstick? Did you wrap tape around it? What kind of ball did you use? Did you ever play a game where two guys throw a ball back and forth, and someone in the middle tries to get it? What else do you call that? Did you ever play games in the streets? ...what happened when a car came?

6. Kids/Parents these days A lot of people say that the children today aren’t like they used to be when they were growing up, do you think so? What’s the difference? Why? Can you compare what you did for fun when you were young with what kids do now? Do your parents/sister/brother do things that bug you? What? **Did you ever play tricks on your sister/brother? Or vice versa? What’s the worst thing you ever did? Funniest thing you ever did? ?? What do you hate most about your mother/father? Sister/brother? Why?

7. Neighbourhood Where was home when you were growing up? What’s it like there? What kind of people lived in your area? What took your family there? Because of work? Is it far from where your father [mother] works? How has your neighbourhood changed in your lifetime? / What’s your current area like – how is it different? Do you feel that your neighbourhood is as safe as it was when you were growing up? Why or why not? Was/Is this the kind of neighbourhood where people talk to each other? Do you know any of your neighbours? What are they like? Some people say that nowadays everybody’s just too busy to just stop by to chat. What do you think? Why do you think that has changed? Is there anyone around here you know well enough, just to walk in? Who would invite you in for coffee, just talk? Do people from around here drop by to visit? Is there any neighbourhood place where people get together? Where they can go for a cold drink or tea/coffee in the afternoon? Evening? Is there a local pub/bar that you go to a lot? Where do people get together outside their houses? Are there people you’d like to spend more time with but can’t? Why don’t you see them so much anymore? Do you think the neighbourhood/community could be closer together? How? What do you like best about your neighbourhood? What are the things that make you feel good/bad about your neighbourhood?

8. Neighbourhood issues Did your neighbourhood have delivery people who brought you items to your house? e.g. milkman, ice man, knife sharpener, ice cream truck What do you remember about them? What are your neighbours like? Is there anyone around here who’s a real snoop? Someone who knows everybody else’s business? Someone who causes trouble? Someone who plays loud music? Is there anything that prevents you from getting together with people around here more often? Is there anybody around here that didn’t talk to each other for a while? What kind of thing was it about?

9. Helping out in the community Do you have anyone you can go to for help around here? If you need help, who do you go to? Do you have anyone who you help around here? What do you do? Do you ever get fruit or vegetables from your neighbours? Do you ever give fruit or vegetables to your neighbours? If you’re sick who can you ask to look after the family? Do you have to ask or do people just offer? Have your kids ever stayed with anyone else in the community? If you needed milk/eggs could you ask a neighbour? If you needed a lift in an emergency, who would you ask? Do you lend your car to others? Who shovels the snow in the winter in your neighbourhood? Did you ever you hire local kids to help out with anything? e.g. Baby sitting? Snow shoveling? Dog walking?

10. Community Events A lot of people say that the community used to be closer together and more co-operative than it is today, what do you think? In some communities, they had organisations that did community work. Do you remember any groups like that? [If so] What did they do? Are there organisations like that here now? Did anything really big ever happen around here that you remember? Like a big fire? Or a house burned down? Or a murder? Where? Did you see it? Did people in the neighbourhood help out? With food, clothes, place to stay? What about accidents or police investigations? **Do you remember when … ______? Where were you when ______happened? What did you do when ______happened? How did it affect you and your family? Your neighbourhood? JFK was assassinated John Lennon was assassinated When The Beatles broke up When the Berlin Wall came down Live Aid When Margaret Thatcher left office 9/11

Note: It is very important to be aware of local and supra-local community because referring to them and asking people where they were at the time often elicit excellent narratives of personal experience.

11. Parents and Family Do you have any idea how long your family has been living in this country [city/neighbourhood]? Where did they come here from? **Do you remember coming to this country/city/neighbourhood? Tell me about it. What kind of upbringing did you have? What kind of kid were you when you were growing up? Were you a troublemaker? What kinds of things did you do to get into trouble? How where you punished? By who? Were you ever grounded? Did you ever get blamed for something you didn’t do? Did you have any rules about when you had to be in at night? What happened when you stayed out late? Did you ever get caught sneaking out? Why? If you got into trouble from your parents could you talk to them? Which parent would you choose to talk to? Why? Where your parents really strict? What sort of person is your father? What is your mother like? Did your parents have any ideas about what they wanted you to be? How far did they want you to go in school? How far did you get a chance to complete? Did you get an allowance? How much was it? What could you buy with that amount of money then? Do you have siblings? How many? How did being the youngest/oldest/in the middle effect how you were treated? Do you feel that your siblings got away with things that you never did or did you get away with things that they didn’t? What kinds of things? Were you close to your siblings growing up or did you fight a lot? How about now? Did you/Do you spend much time with your______? Grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins etc Why or why not? Did you ever go on vacations as a family? Where would you go? How would you get there? Did you get along while you were on vacation? **Have you ever been really embarrassed by something your parents/siblings said or did? ...what happened? How did you react? What can you say from hindsight?

12. Dating Practices Do you remember going out on dates? Do you go out on dates? Have you ever gone on a date with a boy/girl? When did you (or your friends) start dating? How did your parents react? How long did you date? Did you ever have a boyfriend/girlfriend that your parents/friends didn’t like? What kinds of problems did that cause? Where do kids go on dates around here? How do you get around? Do you drive? Bus? Parents? If you were going out with someone, would it make you jealous if he asked someone else to dance at a party? Is there anything else that would make you jealous? How do you get rid of a guy/girl that you don’t like anymore? **Have you ever been dumped? ...what happened? **Have you ever dumped anyone? Why? Are there any guys your parents wouldn’t let you go out with? Was it because of age? Race? Religion? What kind of guy/girl do you like? What kind of guy/girl do you want to marry? Do you care if he/she goes to college? Do you think there’s such a thing as a “generation gap”? Can you talk to your parents? To your mother? Your father? What are things you can’t talk to your parents about? About sex? About boyfriends/girlfriends?

13. Social Practices Are there people around here you spend a lot of time with outside your family? Do they live nearby? Whereabouts? What do you do together? Is there anyone around here you get together with socially? e.g. Play cards? Bowling? Go to matches? Get together on holidays? Did you ever go to dances? What kind of entertainment did they have? Whereabouts was the hall? Did you dance? What kind of dancing did you do? What would people wear?

14. Traditions What kinds of traditions can you remember growing up with in your family? Do you (plan to) keep these traditions alive with your own family? How did you celebrate ______? [insert appropriate cultural celebration and questions] What was Christmas like in your family? Who picked out the tree? Who decorated it? Did you write to Santa Claus? Did he bring what you wanted? When did you open your presents? How did you open your presents? Did you have to go in order? At whose house did you celebrate? What did you eat at Christmas? What’s your favourite memory of Christmas? What was your best Christmas? What do you usually do on New Year’s Eve? How about Valentine’s Day? Easter? Mid summer’s Eve? [insert appropriate cultural days]

15. Work Life What was your very first job? How old where you when you started to work? Can you remember how much you earned? Do you remember what you were excited to spend your hard-earned money on? What did your parents do to earn a living? Do young people feel the same way about working that they did in your day? What did your parents want you to do for a living? What do you do? What would you like to do?

16. Marriage/Partners How did you meet your wife/husband/partner? Why did you decide to get married? How did the marriage proposal happen? Can you remember what you said? Can you remember how your wife/husband reacted? There must have been a time when you didn’t know you were going to get married, and then a time when you did? How did that happen? What was your wedding like? Did anything funny/interesting happen? Did her [his] parents approve of you? [If so] Why? [If not] Why not? Did you ever live with your in-laws after you got married? How did that work out? Tell me about your first house together? Who picked it out? Where was it? Were you excited? How long did you live there?

17. Family meals/crafts A lot of people have their best meal on Sunday, what was it like in your family What kinds of things do you remember eating? A lot of people remember their mom/dad making special foods? What do you remember about the foods your mom/dad used to make? What did you mother/father, grandmother/grandfather like to eat? Do you like cooking? Baking? What kinds of things do you like to bake/cook? A lot of traditional recipes aren’t written down, can you tell me how to make____? [name a traditional food that you know is part of interviewee’s culture…] Is food different from when you where younger? Why do you think that’s true? What kinds of crafts did people used to do, in the old days? e.g. needlework, sewing, basket weaving etc. Who taught you how? What kinds of things would you make? Would you make things just for your family or for selling too?

18. Folk Remedies Did people go to doctors in the olden days? Do you go to the doctor when you’re sick? I’ve heard people say that in the olden days, people relied on traditional medicines and natural remedies, do you remember that? What kinds of remedies do you remember? e.g. bark of cherry, dogwood trees, sassperella bush, teaberry leaves A lot of people talk about ______[fill in traditional cure of culture] what was that? How was it made? What kinds of things did it cure? e.g. colds, aches, pains, constipation I can remember my mom/dad/grandmother /grandfather taking ______Have you ever heard of that? e.g. garlic, hot rum toddies, Vitamin C, echincea etc. What do you do to prevent colds/flu? What do you do when you get sick?

19. Common Sense People talk a lot about common sense. What is common sense in your opinion? Did you ever meet anybody that had a lot of common sense? Did you ever meet anybody that had no common sense? Do you think you get more common sense as you get older?

20. Birthdays When is your birthday? Are there any down sides to having your birthday when it is? e.g. too close to Christmas, school is out for summer **What is the best birthday party you ever had? What is the best birthday party you ever went to? Has anyone ever held a surprise birthday party for you? Who did it? Were you really surprised or did you pretend? Has anyone ever forgotten your birthday? Did you ever have sleep-over parties? Did you get in trouble for talking all night? What did your parents do when you wouldn’t go to sleep? **What’s the most fun you ever had at a sleep over?

21. Fights/Arguments Have you ever witnessed a fight? Where was it? What was it about? Do you ever have fights around here? How do they start? Do girls fight around here? Did you ever get into a fight with a girl/guy? Do you remember getting into an argument with someone? Who was it with? What was it about? How did you resolve your differences? How did it all turn out?

22. Travel Have you had the opportunity to travel? Where did you go? How long? Anything interesting happen? Many people experience problems when they are at airports, has this ever happened to you? e.g. missing bags, delays/cancellations, missing a flight, communication problems etc Has a communication barrier created any funny moments in any of your travels? Did you ever loose your luggage? Miss a plane? Get stranded? Where would you like to go that you’ve never been? Why? **What’s the funniest/scariest thing that ever happened to you when you were travelling?

23. Miscellaneous Have you ever met/seen someone famous? Who was it? Where was it? Did you talk to them? Do you/have you done any volunteer work? Do you play any musical instruments? If yes, which ones? For how long? What made you start? e.g. school, parents If no, is there an instrument you would like to learn to play? Why? Did your family have any pets? What do you remember about them? Did you ever have a pet run away? ...what happened? Do you have any pets now? Sometimes people who have pets teach them tricks … what are your pets like? Can [name the pet] do any tricks? Have you ever thought about what you’d like to do in the future? What kinds of things would you like to do that you’ve never done? Where do you see yourself in twenty years? Do you have a dream? What is it?

24. Uncommon Experiences When people think back on their lives, there’s always something that sticks out as being really unusual … did you ever have anything like that happen to you? Have you ever witnessed a terrible accident or tragic event? ...what happened? Did you try to help? Have you ever been in the hospital? How long? What for? Sometimes in families there’s someone who gets a feeling that somethingis going to happen, and it does happen. Is there anybody like that in your family? Do you remember anything like that that came true? What was the longest streak of luck you ever had? What about bad luck? Do you ever do anything to ensure that you’ll have good luck? What? Are you lucky at cards? Are you lucky with women/men? Have you ever been somewhere new and know that you’ve been there before? Have you ever had a ‘near death’ experience? ...what happened? Did it change you? Do you ever remember a time that you were really afraid? When was that? ...what happened? How did you feel about it afterwards? Did you ever know somebody that wasn’t afraid of anything? What kind of person was he? Or is it just that some people can’t admit it when they are afraid?

25. Dreams Do you ever have trouble going to sleep at night? What do you do if you can’t? Do you sleepwalk? Do you talk in your sleep? Where did you go? What did you say? If no, do you know someone who sleep walks/talk in their sleep? Do you ever think about your dreams? Do you remember them? Do you dream in colour? Did you ever have a dreams that came true? Do you ever tell people about your dreams? Some people say if you do, the dreams will come true. Can you wake up if you don’t like a dream? Or keep on dreaming, if you like it? Was there ever a dream like that, where you just didn’t want to wake up? Do you ever actually know you’re dreaming, and say to yourself, “hey this is a dream”? And realize you can do whatever you want? Did you ever have a dream that really scared you? ...what happened? Do you think dreams can mean anything? **Did you ever have a dream that you thought meant something?

26. Important Historical Events **Where were you when you heard that ______? What did you do? How did ______effect you and your family? When The Beatles broke up When the Berlin Wall came down Live Aid When Margaret Thatcher left office 9/11 7/7 When the Queen Mother died When we declared war on Iraq Royal Weddings Do you remember when you first voted? Have you ever been to an election party?

27. Language Have noticed any interesting things about the way people speak English around here? A lot of people think that English has changed a lot/is changing a lot, do you think so? Have you noticed any changes in the way people talk and sound around here? Can you tell by the way people talk around here that they come from here? Do people in this neighbourhood sound different? How about the difference between old and young speakers? Do you sound the same as your parents? Do your parents sound the same as you? Do your kids? Do you think that your ethnic background plays a role in how people sound? How? Why? Do you speak the same way as your friends? What kinds of differences to you notice? Has anyone ever told you, you sound different? Why? Do you sound different from your parents? Why? What kinds of words do you use that other people don’t use? Have you ever tried to change the way you talk? Why? What did you do? Has anyone ever given you a hard time about the way you talk? What did they say? What did you think about that? What did you do about it? Do you think that how you sound plays a role in how others perceive you? Do you think that you try to change how you sound when you are in certain environments? Which ones? Why? What do you think about the way that youth today sound? What has changed? What hasn’t? Appendix C.

Word List & Minimal Pairs list had London tuck spar born purr banner Bill foaling cud goalie bowl solely hate running ringing sample hear hid wholly calf getting whole batter bell heed wait coal here poling brother cold void soul rolling England spa bomb shoal mole caught bowler poll moler hide foal buck hail bear can polaroid peel goal master coat fool boil hill hard dull crooks eight polar poor clear love pore took hoot

94 fear but shearing batty ruck doling ceiling rook bought pour coaly aunt think head heard pal molar beer ring ant aisle heel pole weight balm comma ball luck put stood solo stud happy Newcastle dole hot ate could can't 'H' boat roll hood poler better asp Rolex sandal dance paw sole Hannah putt code holey look crux soulful ask book holy how dab boy canal Shearer sing it hell Hole Do these words sound the same or different to you? Read aloud and explain bought ~ boat book~ buck caught ~ coat spa ~ spar three ~ free hair ~ her poor ~ pour stood~stud eight ~ ate book ~ buck weight ~ wait hair ~ air holey ~ holy anti ~ auntie here ~ hear sure ~ shore saw in ~ soar in

Appendix D.

I am doing an MA and PhD at Newcastle University, funded by the ESRC, under the supervision of Dr Danielle Turton. I am studying the interactions between class, upbringing, language and culture. I’m interviewing people from around the country and talking to them about their experiences, memories and stories. What I do is simply sit down and talk to people for about an hour, or as long as you feel comfortable talking to me. We'll talk together about topics such as your school, your community, your neighbourhood, the games you used to play as a child, your hobbies, your work life and general personal experiences. Although the findings of this study will not benefit you directly, by participating in this study you will be contributing to the production of new and potentially important knowledge about social and linguistic interactions and the changes going on around the country. I would be happy to send you a summary of my findings at the end of the project if you like to know how the research turns out. Because I won't be able to remember everything everyone says exactly, I ask your permission to record our conversation. However, everything that is said is kept entirely confidential and you will remain entirely anonymous. No one will have access to the data except academic researchers and no one will have access to the recordings unless they follow the same procedures as I do for keeping it confidential and anonymous. By signing below you agree to the above, but participation in the project is entirely voluntary and you may withdraw at any time if you choose. You can tell me not to record part of what you say, or to erase part of it. It is entirely up to you. Many thanks, Caitlin Halfacre [email protected]/[email protected]

Name:______

Signed:______

Date:______97 Appendix E.

Date of recording: 2018

Name Contact email Date of Birth Sex Ethnicity Place of Birth (+partial postcode if known) Postcode/region for majority of childhood Current postcode (first half) Number of moves outside your current region Junior Education (state /private/boarding etc.) Secondary Education (state /private/boarding etc.) Level of education completed Current Occupation Region where parents were raised Parents’ schooling (state /private/boarding etc.) Parents’ level of education completed Parents’ occupation

Do you have any memory of actively changing your accent?

Appendix F.

Data

• Data for this project can be found at: https://bitbucket.org/caitlin91/sel8510/src/master/data/ • R scripts for this project can be found at: https://bitbucket.org/caitlin91/sel8510/src/master/scripts/