Perceptions of Different Accent

Home , General American English, Yorkshire dialect

Masaryk University Faculty of Arts

Department of English and American Studies

English Language and Literature

Hana Richterová

Perceptions of Different Accents of English Bachelor ’s Diploma Thesis

Supervisor: PhDr. Kate řina Tomková, Ph. D.

2013

I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.

…………………………………………….. Author’s signature

I would like to thank all of my American respondents who took the time and effort to

take part in my research, and all of those who helped me contact them via Facebook, especially Karolina Schmid. My greatest thanks go to Mrs. Kate řina Tomková for her continuous support, willingness and inspirational remarks, which were at the very root

of this thesis outline.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction ...... 1

2. Theory ...... 5

2.1 The definition of accent ...... 5

2.2 Development of accents of English...... 6

2.3 Differences between British and American accents ...... 8

2.3.1 The separation of the accents ...... 8

2.3.2 Pronunciation differences ...... 10

2.3.3 Other linguistic differences ...... 13

2.3.4 Sociolinguistic patterns of British and American English pronunciation ...... 15

2.4 The Yorkshire accent ...... 16

2.4.1 Distinctive features in pronunciation ...... 16

2.4.2 Distinctive features in other linguistic categories...... 17

2.4.3 Sociolinguistic and cultural patterns of Yorkshire accent ...... 18

2.5 The Cockney accent ...... 19

2.5.1 Distinctive features in pronunciation ...... 19

2.5.2 Distinctive features in other linguistic categories...... 20

2.5.3 Sociolinguistic and cultural patterns of Cockney accent ...... 21

3. Research ...... 22

3.1 Recordings...... 23

3.1.1 Phonetic aspects of Yorkshire accent recording ...... 23

3.1.2 Phonetic aspects of Cockney accent recording ...... 25

3.2 Questions ...... 27

3.3 Respondents ...... 29

3.4 Evaluations of accents ...... 32

4. Conclusion ...... 40

Works Cited and Consulted ...... 43

List of Tables ...... 45

Appendix I ...... 46

Summary ...... 47

Resumé ...... 48

1. Introduction

In interpersonal communication everyone inevitably makes judgements about the people they speak with and simultaneously makes an impression on the same people. These impressions consist of a vast amount of factors such as physical appearance, non-verbal communication strategies and of course the content of the utterance (communiqué), but one of the most prominent factors that reveals itself immediately is the speaker’s manner of pronunciation, intonation and prosodic features: the accent. An accent is something that every speaker has and that cannot be avoided; although there are “general” or “standard” varieties of languages connected with appropriate accents that are used in media or on official occasions, even the standard forms will always be marked with the idiolect of individual speakers. Whether we are aware of it or not, in every spoken communication we “construct impressions of people from whatever information is available” (Giles and Powesland 1975: 1).

Speaking an accent defines how an individual’s personality will be perceived by others, and that is the reason why the field of phonetics has always been of great interest and attractiveness to the author: by intentionally changing our accent we are actually acting, playing a role. Even though the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis of language determinism has most likely been overcome in the field of linguistics, I find in it a valid point that speaking a language shapes our view of the world to some extent, and

I believe that speaking a different accent helps to immerse oneself in the foreign language speaking world and in the minds of its speakers.

The present study deals with how accents influence the perceptions of their speakers by other speakers of the same language, i.e. English. The thesis focuses on native speakers of English, which applies both to the judging listeners and the speakers who are being judged, and it draws a comparison between the two most prevalent forms

of English: British English and American English. The aim is to monitor the linguistic differences between these two forms from the theoretical point of view, and to assess how native speakers of American English evaluate British English accents and what values they ascribe to their speakers in the research carried out by the author.

The hypothesis that the British and the Americans believe there are differences between them is based on socio-historical background the two countries have had. Ever since the founding of pilgrim colonies in North America through defining events such as the War of Independence, two world wars and an alliance in the Cold War, Great

Britain and United States of America have been in a “special relationship” (BBC News

Magazine, 2012). The thesis claims that a part of this mental image of mutual feeling of difference is reflected in the evaluation of speakers of British English done by speakers of American English. A third person’s point of view, in this case a non-native speaker of English, can bring in an unbiased reflection of these impressions.

The theory defines accent contrasting it with dialect and describes the factors that have an influence on accent perception. The thesis then takes a diachronic view on the history of British and American accents, the separation of the American accent and describes the differences between British and Americans accents in terms of pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary and sociolinguistic features. Then it focuses on two

British accents that were used as recordings in the research for this thesis, Yorkshire and

Cockney, and their linguistic patterns.

The research is based on a survey among native speakers of American English that was carried out online by the author of the study. The participants were instructed to listen to two audio recordings of British accents, the first in Yorkshire accent and the second in Cockney accent, and then they evaluated the speakers in a set of prepared questions. The questions monitored the intelligibility of the accents and the impression

the two recorded speakers made on the American participants. The questions regarded supposed personal qualities and lifestyle choices of the two speakers.

The aim of the survey was to find out what preconceived opinions or prejudices the Americans have towards their across the Atlantic neighbours, the British. Two different accents were used in order to draw a comparison between them and to obtain more interesting results: the rural Yorkshire accent typical for Northern England and the urban Cockney accent associated with London. Any accent resembling Received

Pronunciation (RP) has not been chosen purposefully as there already has been substantial research in the area of perceptions of the B.B.C English (Giles 1970). What has not been studied much so far, however, is the preconceived image of the citizens of the United Kingdom in the eyes of the U.S. nationals, and it is the motivation of this thesis to map this particular topic that borders on several linguistics sub-disciplines: phonetics, phonology and sociolinguistics.

The hypothesis of the research is that the speaker of the Yorkshire accent will be perceived as more good-natured than the speaker of the Cockney accent because of the notions popularly connected to rural Northern England areas – family traditions, close and lasting relationships or solidarity, and that the Cockney speaker will be perceived as more competent because his accent is closer to RP, and RP is associated with competence and socio-economic prestige (Giles and Powesland 1975: 67). The

Yorkshire accent is expected to be more popular overall, which is based on the recent popularity with U.S. viewers of two British television series that feature many characters speaking Northern England accents: Downton Abbey and Game of Thrones .

However, the Cockney accent is also embedded in popular culture, G. B. Shaw’s

Pygmalion to name the most famous, and so Cockney is expected to gain some level of popularity too. This personal hypothesis is admittedly reflected in the selection of

accents I chose to feature in the survey. In the search for recordings, many Yorkshire accent speakers’ recordings that talked about personal stories and many Cockney accent recordings of commercial spirit were encountered, therefore I decided to feature these recordings accordingly; after all, Shaw’s Cockney-speaking Eliza Doolittle was too a saleswoman. The content of the recordings inevitably plays a role in the perception, which cannot be avoided; the choice of the two particular recordings has been a compromise I believe to be the best for the research’s purposes.

2. Theory

2.1 The definition of accent

When speaking of accents, one must be aware of what exactly the term encompasses. The discussion in linguistics has led to the popular use of the term

“variety” (Wells 1982: 3). Variety comprises what a lay person would probably call a “dialect” – a difference in “any or all of the following categories: grammar, syntax, vocabulary, and pronunciation,” as opposed to the standard or general variety of the language (Wells 1982: 3). An accent can be a part of a dialect, but a dialect consists of more linguistic features than pronunciation. This confusion has therefore given rise to the wide usage of the neutral term “variety”. In this thesis, when the term “accent” is used, it denotes the manner of pronunciation, intonation, stress, and other suprasegmental features.

Accents are influenced by many important factors, both inherent and variable according to one’s will. The most commonly used differentiation is geographical – the way a person speaks gives the listeners information about the region where the speaker lives, or where they have spent their childhood, as accent is mostly formed from early childhood and does not tend to change past puberty (Wells 1982: 24). In today’s age of globalisation, the geographical factor remains important in tracing one’s roots, but accents are becoming more and more diffused with increased mobility, which leads to shaping accents by new places of residence.

Age is another criterion of accent forming because voice is physically affected by the human body getting older. Another (socio-) physical factor is the speaker’s

(and listener’s) gender. Listeners tend to distinguish between male and female speakers very precisely, and there are certain notions in speech ascribed to women (tentativeness,

wider pitch range) and to men (slower tempo, smaller intonation range) that highlight the differences between female and male voices (Wells 1982: 21).

The most important accent determinant for this thesis is the socio-economic status of speakers, or class. Especially in Great Britain, where the concept of social classes has been reinforced for centuries by constitutional monarchy and cohabitation of members of aristocracy with the working class, the spoken accent has become an indicator of one’s membership in one or the other group. This separation is fading nowadays, but there are still accents that guarantee prestige for its speakers.

Interestingly, the most prestigious British accent, Received Pronunciation, is not geographically specified and occurs in speakers from all over the United Kingdom

(Trudgill 1990: 2).

2.2 Development of accents of English

When the Germanic tribes Angles and Saxons invaded the isles of what is now

Great Britain, they have brought with them the language that would later become an international lingua franca. Together with the Norman invasion that brought an influence from French, Middle English was born and it replaced Old English, the language of Beowulf. Most phonetic handbooks dealing with history of English begin their diachronic approach to English with Middle English, but not to dwell on it for long, as the most important event from phonetic point of view, the Great Vowel Shift, had started to shape the language into its Early Modern form (Waniek-Klimczak 2012).

The Great Vowel Shift thus gave rise to Modern English by changing the quality of the vowel sounds. As J. C. Wells summarizes it, „the half-close, half-open and open long vowels moved one step closer and the close long vowels diphthongised”

(Wells 1982: 184). This means that what was before pronounced [sweət] would become

[swǺət] (sweet ) as the unrounded vowel /eə/ shifted to the closer unrounded sound of /Ǻə/.

Vowels in words that used /Ǻə/ or /ʊə/ before the Shift transformed to diphthongs, such as in [hʊəz] changing to [hoʊz] or perhaps [həʊz] in what later became today’s [hɑʊz]

(house ). As to why did the Great Vowel Shift happen there is no single explanation and the “search for originating causes of sound change (...) remains one of the most recalcitrant problems of phonetic science” (Labov 1971: ?), but according to the principle of least effort mentioned by Wells, it is in the naturally lazy human nature to make words easier to pronounce, for instance in the case of /t/ glottalization present in the Cockney accent, which removes the need to lift the tip of the tongue to the alveolar ridge (Wells 1982: 97). On the other hand, this theory does not account for all the phonemic changes, and another possible explanation is that people after all understood the need not only to resort to the easiest phonemes, but also to preserve intelligibility of

English by maintaining necessary sound differences.

Another typical change often occurring in the historical development of English is the emerging of various splits and mergers. These are opposites: in a split, what used to be the same phoneme transforms into two different phonemic realizations, whereas in a merger, two different phonemes accept the same pronunciation. Splits and mergers are best illustrated on the so called “standard lexical sets”, a term borrowed from the renowned J. C. Wells (Wells 1982): a typical member of a word group with the same vowel pattern is chosen to represent all the words belonging to that vowel group. There are many examples of both splits and mergers throughout the history; for this thesis, the more relevant examples worth mentioning are the FOOT -STRUT split and the FLEECE merger. In the FLEECE merger, words spelled with ee such as meet or ie such as piece change their pronunciation from /eə/ to /iə/, and words with ea such as meat or ei such as receive changed from /ǫə/ to /iə/ as well, therefore merging their pronunciation to

a single phoneme, /iə/. However, in Northern England there is still some residue of the previous pronunciation pattern, for instance in the Yorkshire accent (Wells 1982: 195).

The same applies to the FOOT -STRUT split, where in most accents of English, the pronunciation is [ fʊt] and [ strȜt] respectively, but in some areas of Northern England this split never occurred and both groups of words have the same phonemic realization

/ʊ/, which can also be observed in the Yorkshire accent.

It was only after the Great Vowel Shift that the inhabitants of Great Britain started to settle other continents and, with the beginning of colonization, started to spread their language in its then form. In the next chapter the focus will be on the separation of American English, one of the most prevalent forms of English nowadays, from its British origins.

2.3 Differences between British and American accents

2.3.1 The separation of the accents

As was previously mentioned, at the beginning of seventeenth century, a group of settlers boarded the Mayflower ship and set off to North America. There were around

30 different communities of English inhabitants on the ship, the best represented community being East Anglia – the eastern part of England comprising of Norfolk,

Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, and Essex. According to Waniek-Klimczak’s data, during the next thirty years, about 250,000 residents with roots in London or East Anglia settled in the north-east of America, and there were also focal points of settlement towards the south in towns such as Jamestown (Waniek-Klimczak 2012). This means that American

English was influenced by the specific phonetic features of the language spoken at the time on the east coast of England and London, at least at the beginning. The settling of the American continent then continued to the inland from east to west; therefore,

pronunciation isoglosses (geographical borders of a certain pronunciation variety) in the

USA can be described as “horizontal bands stretching across the country” (Wells

1982: 467). The arrival of settlers, however, meant for the language that it must inevitably undergo some changes, as the new environment was bound to have influence on the English spoken by the first settlers. The newcomers came into contact with

Native Americans and their indigenous languages, and their own language has reflected this encounter and acquired some new lexical items such as skunk or caucus (Trudgill

2010: 108). Later the inhabitants of the thirteen colonies experienced other European languages in the process of colonization that the British have not, or not in such an extent, such as Spanish or Dutch, and even German and Yiddish (Trudgill 2010: 109), from all of which American English has also borrowed vocabulary. The increasing mobility of people also resulted in more settlers from other European countries arriving in America, namely from Ireland, Netherlands and many others; their language background influenced American English as well.

Given the separated development of the American accent, it is understandable that there are some phonetic phenomena (almost) exclusive for American English. The settlers came from different parts of England, and so speakers of different local accents that would not normally meet in England have interacted and communicated in

America, enabling processes that Peter Trudgill overall calls “dialect contact” (Trudgill

2010). For instance, /t/ flapping appears typically in American English in words such as

[sǺɾǺ] (city ), but does not occur in British English accents (Wells 1982: 76). On the other hand, this development goes both ways, so that glottalization of intervocalic or final- position /t/ such as in [bǢʔə] (butter) or [bȜʔ] (but ) occurs only in British English accents, e.g. as a typical feature of the Cockney accent, but not in American English accents (Trudgill and Hannah 1985: 36).

2.3.2 Pronunciation differences

Taking into consideration the hundreds of years that American English and

British English have developed with limited mutual contact, it seems natural that there are phonetic variations in American English which are not present in British English and vice versa. This subchapter will cover the most important differences between the two in terms of specific phonemes and stress differences, comparing the standard varieties of both, i.e. Standard English and General American, as the forms nationally accepted as language norms. The abbreviations BrE and AmE will be used for Standard

British English and General American English respectively. Where there are two variants, the first one stands for BrE, the latter for AmE.

/r//r//r/ – alveolar trill

One of the most prominent and well-known differences between British and

American English is rhoticity – pronouncing of postvocalic (non-prevocalic) /r/ , or lack thereof. In BrE, the majority of varieties are non-rhotic, meaning that postvocalic /r/ is not pronounced like in [kɑə] (car ), whereas in AmE, most varieties are rhotic, and postvocalic /r/ is pronounced as in [kɑər] . However, even in BrE a postvocalic /r/ can be pronounced as the correct form of pronunciation in case there is another vowel present after it: [ ðə kɑər Ǻz ] (the car is ), and also in the case of intrusive (intervocalic)

/r/ such as in [ðǺə aǺdǺər Ǻz] (the idea is ). What’s more, some regional varieties of AmE deviate from the norm and are non-rhotic, mostly in the south (Alabama, Georgia) and parts of New England such as New York or Boston, and likewise, some northern accents of BrE are rhotic such as Lancashire (Wells 1982: 368).

vowels before /r//r//r/

The alveolar trill is interesting not only on the basis of actually being pronounced or not, but also from the point of influence on vowels that precede it. Where there normally is a difference in BrE between [Ǻr] in words like mirror and [ir] in words like nearer , American English tends to blend /Ǻ/ and /i/, making mirror and nearer rhyme and simultaneously shortening the vowel of the FLEECE lexical set in nearer .

Similar situation arises in differencing between marry and merry : where in BrE the first is [mærǺ] and the second [mǫrǺ], in some areas of the United States, namely New

England and the middle and far west, the prevalent pronunciation of both is [mǫrǺ] – marry and merry become homophones (Wells 1982: 480-1).

Words such as hurry usually fall into the STRUT lexical set, but in AmE, the half- open back unrounded /Ȝ/ before /r/ is quite rare and “virtually restricted to New York

City” (Wells 1982: 480); it is replaced by /Ǭ/ or /ǭ/, so that hurry and furry sound practically the same. However, the vowel /Ǭ/ is phonetically very close to /Ȝ/, so this distinction is not considered a merger with the NURSE lexical set.

///Ǣ/ǢǢǢ// ‰‰‰ ///ɑ/ɑɑɑ//// – open back rounded vowel/open back unrounded vowel

This is a distinctive difference in the LOT lexical set: where Received

Pronunciation usually pronounces the rounded open vowel in [lǢt], General American pronunciation is the unrounded open [lɑt] (lot) (see lottery in Appendix I). Sometimes, the half-open back rounded vowel /Ǥ/ of the THOUGHT lexical set is mentioned in close connection to these two, because in the midlands and south of the United States, where the THOUGHT -LOT merger is widespread, /Ǥ/ and /ɑ/ are not distinct, and on rhymes both with John and with lawn (Wells 1982: 245).

///ɑə/ɑəɑəɑə// ‰‰‰ ///æ/æææ//// – half-open front unrounded vowel/open back unrounded vowel

In the BATH lexical set there is one of the most prominent different sounds between British and American accents. Whereas in BrE, the pronunciation is [bɑəȅ], in

AmE the word is pronounced with the open [bæȅ]. Both the vowels occur in both varieties of English, but in words such as ask, dance or laugh , the difference is most noticeable. In some accents in the north of England though, the vowel is shortened and

[lɑəftə] becomes [lɑftə] , or more precisely [lɑftər] (laughter ), as some northern BrE accents tend to be rhotic rather than non-rhotic (Wells 1982: 353-67).

///j/jjj//// – palatal approximant

Almost all English accents, both British and American, have been subjected to the so called Early Yod Dropping (Wells 1982: 206), which meant the loss of [juə] after palatal consonants and /r/ , so that e.g. threw and through have become homophones.

However, in AmE this process went further and resulted in the loss of /j/ after all coronal consonants /t, d, n, ȅ, s, z, l/. The standard Received Pronunciation retains [juə] after these consonants, so the BrE [djuətǺ] is pronounced [duətǺ] (duty ) in AmE (Wells

1982: 489). word stress differences

As was mentioned before, English has been influenced by French in history, and has borrowed many loanwords that became part of English vocabulary. These words with French origin are often pronounced differently by speakers of BrE and AmE regarding word stress: where BrE tends to put stress on first syllables, AmE stresses the final syllable. For instance, ballet is pronounced [,bæleǺ] in British English but [bæ,leǺ] in American English. On the other hand, AmE tends to have stress on the first syllable in many words in which BrE has stress on other syllables – the word adult is

pronounced [,ædȜlt] in General American but [æ,dȜlt] in RP. Also, in polysyllabic words (4 and more syllables) with suffixes –ary and –ory, the last syllable is reduced such as in [,dǺkʃənrǺ] in British English, whereas in AmE, the penultimate syllable is stressed as in [dǺkʃə,nærǺ] (dictionary ) (Trudgill and Hannah 1985: 42-43).

2.3.3 Other linguistic differences

British and American English naturally does not vary in pronunciation only.

There are differences in other linguistic categories: in this subchapter, the following will be briefly covered to encompass the most prominent differences: grammar, vocabulary, and spelling. grammatical differences

As Trudgill and Hannah discuss the level of grammatical differences, “at the level of educated speech and writing, there are relatively few differences in grammar and spelling” between BrE and AmE (Trudgill and Hannah 1985: 45). The most prominent grammatical difference can be observed in irregular verbs inflection, where some verbs considered irregular in BrE take on a regular form in AmE. In some cases, the difference is only in voicing the final consonant (BrE burnt ‰AmE burned ), in others the change is also in the vowel that changes e.g. from the BrE past and past participle of to dream from the vowel /ǫ/ (dreamt – [drǫmt]) to /i/ in the AmE variant

(dreamed – [drimd]). Trudgill and Hannah also note that the typically American past and past participle of to get , i.e. gotten , is not used in BrE (Trudgill and Hannah 1985:

47), but according to the author’s opinion, nowadays this verb form is used quite frequently in British English as well. The two varieties of English also differ in the use of auxiliary verbs in many slight details: for instance, BrE consideres the verb to have

as more active, whereas AmE lacks the dynamism for to have and uses it only as a stative auxiliary (Trudgill 2010: 110). American English is also more open to new word formations and more often creates new verbs by adding the suffixes –ify and –ize or creates verbs by zero formation from nouns (Trudgill and Hannah 1985: 47-48). lexical differences

Perhaps the most apparent difference between BrE and AmE that confuses even native speakers from opposite sides of the Atlantic is the varying vocabulary. The reasons for new vocabulary to occur in AmE are the same as reasons described in 2.3.1, i.e. different environment, intermingling of different regional speakers and influence of newly encountered inhabitants and foreigners. Different technological development that had progressed in the two countries can be also added to the list of influential factors

(Trudgill and Hannah 1985); even the most common appliances and machines differ in name, such as in BrE hoover vs. AmE vacuum (floor-cleaning device) or BrE bonnet vs.

AmE hood (metal part of car that covers the engine). orthographical differences

Spelling is probably the least striking difference from all here discussed, however, the differences are still respected and therefore should be mentioned too.

There is a number of sets of words where BrE and AmE typically vary. Taking into consideration the age of sources used in this regard (Trudgill and Hannah 1985, Wells

1982), those considered by the author to be still up-to-date are for example:

BrE –our / AmE –or ( colour/color )

BrE –re / AmE –er ( centre/center )

BrE –ce / AmE –se ( licence/license )

BrE doubled consonant / AmE single consonant ( travelled/traveled )

BrE retains French diacritics / AmE leaves them out ( café/cafe)

2.3.4 Sociolinguistic patterns of British and American English pronunciation

Among the differences between these two varieties of English also count the different sociolinguistic patterns, perceptions and judgements of their speakers on others. The research in this thesis deals with accents that are generally understood as being “outside the norm” or non-standard. This implies that there are certain forms of languages that are perceived as setting the norm or standard, and indeed there are such forms. This subchapter will refer to the two standard varieties of BrE and AmE,

Received Pronunciation and General American, and describe the allocation of prestige in accents of British and American English.

As Howard Giles observes, “the English are (...) particularly sensitive to variations in the pronunciation of their language” (Giles and Powesland 1975: 24), and other renowned authors agree on this as well (Wells 1982, Trudgill 1985, Trudgill

1990). England has always had more regional and social variation in pronunciation than the USA, for both geographical and historical reasons (Giles and Powesland 1975: 25), and both the regional and class affiliation seems to be of more significance to the British

(Trudgill 1990). Received Pronunciation is now perceived as a region-less accent, but originally it arose from the south-east of England, and because this region with London in its centre was the politic and commercial centre, it gradually gained more prestige than any other accent of BrE. This explanation corresponds with the “imposed norm hypothesis”, which believes that prestige accents are not phonetically superior or more pleasing than others, but that their prestigious status was brought on by socio-cultural circumstances. The opposite of this theory is the “inherent value hypothesis”, which suggests that accents that carry the most prestige within a language community have become prestigious thanks to their phonetic features, which are intrinsically more pleasant to the ears than others (Giles and Powesland 1975, Mugglestone 2003).

According to various studies, RP possesses the most prestige in BrE, being followed by

Scottish and Irish, other regional English accents (Welsh, Northern English), and the list is closed by the least prestigious accents of large industrial towns such as Liverpool,

Birmingham or Leeds (Coupland and Bishop 2007, Wells 1982). The closer to RP, the more prestige the speaker is perceived to have; a number of regional accents, on the other hand, are judged highly on trustworthiness and honesty (Coupland and Bishop

2007: 77), which seem to be on the opposite of prestige many studies on accent perceptions.

In the U.S., there is no one regional variety that would enjoy considerably more prestige than others, although there have been attempts by for instance William Labov to measure the prestige of AmE accents in several variables, e.g. rhoticity or height of specific vowels (Giles and Powesland 1975: 38). If there is any difference in prestige allocation, it is between the so-called “White” and “Black” English, for the lack of a better term. Giles remarked that “sounding White is equated with high status” (Giles and Powesland 1975: 43), but since some 40 years have passed since then, the situation has perhaps undergone a change thanks to the globalized nature of today’s culture and media. There is also a tendency for prestige in accents of AmE to be stronger in the

North and wane towards the South (Giles 1975).

Let us now concern with linguistic patterns of two specific BrE accents.

2.4 The Yorkshire accent

2.4.1 Distinctive features in pronunciation vowels

There are two distinctive features that separate the Northern (and Midlands) BrE accents from their Southern counterparts: the absence of the FOOT -STRUT split that was

already mentioned in 2.2 and absence of broadening of the BATH lexical set mentioned in 2.3.2, paragraph /ɑə/ ‰ /æ/. In the Yorkshire accent then, put and putt are homophones pronounced [pʊt] and the vowel in gas and glass is the same open mid unrounded vowel /a/ (Wells 1982: 349). Northern accents generally feature more open vowels; /æ/ transforms into short /a/, so the TRAP words are pronounced [trap] . The middle class in Yorkshire and other Northern regions tries to escape the local stigma and replaces the STRUT words’ /ʊ/ with /ə/, but short / a/ in the BATH lexical set is an important part of the Northern identity (Gupta 2005: 23). The FLEECE merger has not undergone completely in Yorkshire accent, so there is a distinction between words like meet [məǺt] and meat [mǺət]. A more traditional-accent pronunciation in some areas of

Yorkshire is [lǤv] (love ) that rhymes with of (Wells 1982). consonants

The Yorkshire accent is typically non-rhotic, although there are some areas of

Yorkshire that feature a post-vocalic “/r/-coloured sound” in words like farmer (Wells

1982: 368). There is a particular phenomenon in Yorkshire when a final voiced consonant is followed by an initial voiceless consonant, such as in wide trousers – the final voiced consonant becomes devoiced, so the pronunciation [waǺt traʊzəz] is actually homophonic to white trousers. H Dropping is also present in Yorkshire accent, making happy pronounced [apǺ] (Wells 1982: 367).

2.4.2 Distinctive features in other linguistic categories

Every regional accent usually features a couple of lexically uncommon words, and so does Yorkshire: sand-shoes (trainers) or tab (ear), or old dialect words like owt

(anything) and nowt (nothing) 1 may serve as an example (Trudgill 1990). Yorkshire also features grammatical deviations from Standard English. In possessive pronouns, the word us is often used instead of me or our (we should put us names on us property ), me sometimes replaces my (me worries drifted away ), and third person was can be substituted with were (it were lovely) (Petyt 1985: 190). Like in many non-standard dialects, the double-negative is present in the Yorkshire accent as well, enabling sentences such as I was never scared of nobody (Petyt 1985: 238).

2.4.3 Sociolinguistic and cultural patterns of Yorkshire accent

Although rural accents tend to be ridiculed in comparison to urban accents

(Labov 1971), regional accents such as Yorkshire play a part in personal identity of their speakers. Despite some accents of northern industrial towns (such as the

Birmingham “Brummie”) being stigmatised and not enjoying much popularity (The

Telegraph, 2008), the Yorkshire accent has apparently always been perceived as likeable, and in a recent study at Bath Spa University, Yorkshire has beaten all other regional BrE accents and was perceived by the participants as "wise, trustworthy, honest and straightforward" (The Guardian, 2008). In a larger scale study by Strongman and

Woosley mentioned by Howard Giles, speakers of Yorkshire accent were perceived as more honest and reliable than speakers of London accents (Giles and Powesland 1975:

66).

Speakers and lovers of the Yorkshire accent are united in the Yorkshire Dialect

Society , which holds meetings and cultural events (YDS, 2010). Yorkshire accent is embedded in popular English literature such as Charlotte Bronte’s work (Smith 1987:

637). The accent has gained recognition with airing of the Downton Abbey series set in

1 Derived from Old English, these traditional-dialect words are on decline.

the North Riding in Yorkshire at the Highclere Castle (The York Press, 2010) that features matching Yorkshire accents of its protagonists. Another internationally popular series Game of Thrones also grants Yorkshire speakers, Sean Bean to name the most well-known, some on-screen time accessible to English speakers from all around the world (Daily Telegraph, 2002).

2.5 The Cockney accent

2.5.1 Distinctive features in pronunciation vowels

The Cockney accent is the traditional accent of working-class Londoners from the East End suburbs Hackney, Shoreditch, Whitechapel and others, and true Cockneys are supposed to live within earshot of the Bow Bells of St. Mary-le-Bow

(Wright 1981: 11). Its most prominent distinctive feature is the shifted diphthongs. The

/aǺ/ of [baǺt] (bite ) becomes /ǢǺ/ as in [bǢǺʔ], /eǺ/ of [reǺn] (rain ) becomes /ȜǺ/ as in

[rȜǺn] , /əʊ/ of [kəʊt] (coat ) becomes /aʊ/ or /æʊ/ as in [kaʊʔ]. In addition, the FLEECE and GOOSE words are diphthongised; the /Ǻə/ of [pǺəpl] (people ) is pronounced /ǠǺ/ as in

[pǠǺpl] , and /uə/ of [guəs] (goose ) is diphthongised in /əʉ/ - [gəʉs]. On the other hand, the MOUTH words are monophthongised from [maʊȅ] into [maəf]. Otherwise, the

Cockney vowel (and consonant) system is very close to London English, which is

“almost isomorphic to RP” (Wells 1982: 304,321). consonants

Glottalization was already mentioned in 2.3.1 and is a widespread feature of

Cockney, with glottal stops replacing not only / t/, but also other voiceless plosives / p/ and / p/. H Dropping is also present in Cockney, although highly stigmatised by speech-

conscious individuals. Another distinctive feature of Cockney is Th Fronting: replacement of dental fricatives / ȅ/ and / ð/ by labiodentals / f/ and / v/, making [ȅǺn]

(thin ) sound like [fǺn] and [brȜðə] (brother ) sound like [brȜvə]. As many other accents of

Southern England, Cockney is non-rhotic and does not pronounce /r/ in post-vocalic positions, the only exception being the intrusive (intervocalic) /r/ . The final –ng is either shortened and taking is pronounced [tȜǺ kǺn] , or /g/ is replaced with /k/, resulting in [tȜǺkǺnk] (Wright 1981: 126-38, Wells 1982: 301-35).

2.5.2 Distinctive features in other linguistic categories

Cockney is not so well-known because of its pronunciation only – the most prominent non-phonetic feature of Cockney is the famous rhyming slang and peculiar vocabulary. The rhyming slang, substitution of expressions with other words that rhyme perfectly and often allude wittily to the original expression ( trouble an’ strife = wife, loaf of bread = head), is an intriguing way of speaking that leaves listeners puzzled and contrasts with “slurrings and shortenings elsewhere in city speech” (Wright 1981: 95).

The lexis of the Cockney accent also features many distinctive phrases and vocabulary in general: gapin’ (yawning), moggy (cat), schmutters (rubbish), ‘avin it away (working idly) or goin’ to the flicks (the cinema), with some of them being of foreign origin

(Yiddish, German or Polish) (Wright 1981).

Grammatically, Cockney tends to leave out verbs and substitute them with emphasised subjects, and also not to distinguish between past tense and past participle

(do /done /done , speak/spoke/spoke ), or even to omit words completely ( Tha’ i’, love? =

Is that it, love?). Doubling negatives for emphasis is also common ( I ain’t got none )

(Wright 1981).

2.5.3 Sociolinguistic and cultural patterns of Cockney accent

Since the nineteenth century, Cockney has been perceived negatively as a “modern corruption without legitimate credentials, unworthy of (...) any person in the capital city of the Empire” (Santipolo n.d.: 421). The glottal stop, for instance, was formerly “a feature of lower-social-class dialects” (Trudgill 1990: 12). Since then, however, the public opinion has fortunately changed and Cockney is now largely perceived as equally valuable linguistic variety of English with many of its original features making way to the current Estuary English (Santipolo n.d.).

The Cockney accent and dialect has been present in English literature ever since

Geoffrey Chaucer and it is most distinctive in the works of Charles Dickens and G. B.

Shaw, whose Pygmalion was adapted for screen in My Fair Lady, becoming a never- aging classic. The British Broadcasting Corporation is nowadays widely featuring

Cockney speakers among others (Mugglestone 2003), refraining on insistence on RP only and allowing the accent to become well-known and popular; in a recent survey among 2000 British respondents, the Cockney accent was voted the fourth most popular, ranking at the same place with none other than the Yorkshire accent (The

Telegraph, 2008).

Given this overview of the level of difference between British and American

English from both diachronic and synchronic point of view in socio-historical, linguistic and sociolinguistic categories and the sociolinguistic patterns of Yorkshire and Cockney accent, the present study will now proceed to the research on perceptions of these two

British English accents by native speakers of American English.

3. Research

The research for this thesis was carried out online using SurveyGizmo.com, a specialized website for creating surveys. The desired participants were people who are currently living in the United States, so the social network Facebook was used to spread the survey among Americans by means of personal messages including the link to the survey, which were sent to the author’s Facebook friends, who sent the message forward to their American acquaintances. This proved to be a very effective method and perhaps the best possible in the circumstances and time span of the thesis writing process. The only condition for the American respondents was stated not to be working in the field of language teaching, as that would manifest in their higher consciousness of accent influence on perceptions of speakers. The survey was made accessible online on

17 th February 2013 and closed to evaluate the results on 14th April 2013, gathering the total of 25 responses. Completing of the whole survey took each participant about 10 minutes, which was considered long enough to obtain relevant information, but at the same time conveniently short so it would not put the potential respondents off.

The recordings were chosen to reflect the wide range of British English pronunciation; therefore, the survey featured two different recordings of accents that are different on several levels. Yorkshire accent represents rural areas, Cockney accent is typically urban, and so the sociolinguistic connotations of Yorkshire reflect the notions usually connected to rural areas (more friendly, sympathetic and good-natured) and connotation of Cockney reflect urban areas (more intelligence, authority and self- confidence) (Mugglestone 2003: 51). This difference is reflected in the phonetic realization of the accents too; no one would deem the accents very similar. Neither of the accents is very close to RP, but the Cockney is phonetically closer (Wells 1982).

Both accents are also relatively well-known and present in English literature, cinematography and media, so that they should not be completely strange to Americans.

The survey consisted of four sets of questions preceded by playing the recording that was available to be played as many times as needed throughout the whole survey.

The respondents did not have access to any transcription of the recordings, nor is it available online. The recording was in audio form only in order to make the respondents focus solely on the accent and not on the appearance of the speakers.

3.1 Recordings

3.1.1 Phonetic aspects of Yorkshire accent recording

The Yorkshire accent recording is spoken by a young male voice, approximately

35 years old, and was found on a website with a database of short audio recordings of various accents of English. The speaker’s manner of speech was found to be in accordance to Yorkshire accent pronunciation by both the author and the supervisor of this thesis, PhDr. Kate řina Tomková, Ph.D, whose specialization is Phonetics and

Phonology of English. The recording is 38 seconds long, the speaker has relatively wide intonation range and pitch (especially when he does an impression of a female speaker), and the speed of his speech varies from moderately fast to fast.

Transcription of Yorkshire accent recording

(Male voice speaking, no background noises) “ When I realized that we won the lottery

I was in the kitchen, and Frankie’s making a cup of tea. And I s’, I said: ‘Frankie’, I said ‘Frankie, we’re rich!’ She said ‘No, no, no’, she said we’ve got comfortable lifestyle and we’re happy, and I said ‘No, no, you don’t understand, I said we’re millionaires! We, we won the lottery!’ And there was a...a lot of hugging, and a lot of

kissing, and a lot of screaming, from both of us admittedly. And as I slouched down on the sofa and all me worries just drifted away, I said to her, I said ‘Frankie love, come on, let’s have a brew.’”

Phonetic transcription of the Yorkshire accent recording

[wen aǺ rəǺlaǺzd | ðət wi wǢn ðə lǢtəri | aǺ wəz Ǻn ðə kǺtʃən | ənd frankǺ z meǺkǺŋ ə kʊp

əv kǺsǺŋ | ənd ə lǢʔ əv skriəmǺŋ | frəm bǢəθ əv ʊz ədmǺtǺdli | ənd az aǺ slaʊtʃt daʊn Ǣn

ðə sǢəfər ənd Ǥəl miə wȜrǺz dȢəst drǺftǺd əweǺ | aǺ sed tə hər | aǺ sed frankǺ lǢv | kǢm

Ǣn | lets həv ə bruə]

The following table covers the most distinctive phonetic differences in the

Yorkshire accent recording in comparison with Received Pronunciation standard of each expression. The expressions can be compared with words marked by the respondents as most different from their American accent (see Appendix I).

Table 1 Distinctive phonetic features in the Yorkshire accent recording

Yorkshire Accent Received Pronunciation

realized [rəǺlaǺzd] [rǺəlaǺzd]

Frankie [frankǺ] [frænkǺ]

cup [kʊp] [kȜp]

no [nǢə] [nəʊ]

happy [apǺ] [hæpǺ]

understand [Ȝndəstand] [Ȝndəstænd]

hugging [ugǺŋ] [hȜgǺŋ]

both [bǢəθ] [boʊθ]

us [ʊz] [əz]

as [az] [æz]

sofa [sǢəfər] [soʊfər]

love [lǢv] [lȜv]

come [kǢm] [kȜm]

3.1.2 Phonetic aspects of Cockney accent recording

The Cockney accent recording was found on the voiceovers.co.uk commercial database of English speakers and was spoken by Guy Harris, a voice over artist based in

Leicester, England. Among other available recordings, his Cockney accent extract had the best length, absence of distractive background noises and an excellent show of many typical phonetic features of Cockney. The recording is 34 seconds long, the speaker has smaller intonation range and pitch than the Yorkshire speaker, and the speed of his speech is moderate and does not vary much during the whole recording.

Transcription of Cockney accent recording

(Male voice speaking, a slight disturbance in the background) “You see, when people think of GEICO they think of car insurance, and of course, savin’ money. Sometimes, that can lead even the savviest driver astray. Take for example the motorcycler. GEICO wanted to save money on his car insurance, only to realize that he doesn’t actually own a car! Needless to say he’s quite embarrassed, isn’t he? Doesn’t matter; GEICO insures ATVs an’ motorcycles as well. That way, no one ends up looking foolish.”

Phonetic transcription of the Cockney accent recording

| ju siə | wen pǠǺplʜ fǺŋk əv ǱaǺkəʊ ðeǺ fǺŋk əv kɑər Ǻnʃʊərəns | ənd əv kǤəs | sȜǺvǺn mȜni

ǱaǺkəʊ Ǻnʃʊəz | eǺ tǺə vǺəz ən məʊʔəsaǺklʜz əz wel | ðət wȜǺ | neʊ wȜn endz Ȝp lʊkǺŋ fəʉlǺʃ |

The following table covers the most distinctive phonetic differences in the

Cockney accent recording in comparison with Received Pronunciation standard of each expression. The expressions can be compared with words marked by the respondents as most different from their American accent (see Appendix I).

Table 2 Distinctive phonetic features in the Cockney accent recording

Cockney Accent Received Pronunciation

people [pǠǺplʜ] [pǺəplʜ]

think [fǺŋk] [ȅǺŋk]

GEICO [ǱaǺkəʊ] [ǱeǺkəʊ]2

saving [sȜǺvǺn] [seǺvǺŋ]

sometimes [sȜmtǢǺmz] [sȜmtaǺmz]

driver [drǢǺvər] [draǺvər]

take [tȜǺk] [teǺk]

motorcycle [məʊʔəsǢǺkl] [məʊtəsaǺkl]

needless [nǠǺdləs] [nǺədləs]

say [sȜǺ] [seǺ]

2 Expected RP form of the [eǺ] diphthong.

isn’t he [Ǻnt hiə] [Ǻznt hiə]

matter [mæʔə] [mætə]

way [wȜǺ] [weǺ]

no one [neʊ wȜn] [nəʊ wȜn]

foolish [fəʉlǺʃ] [fuəlǺʃ]

3.2 Questions

There were three sets of questions for each accent and a fourth set of demographic questions at the end. The first set investigated the intelligibility of the accent and a very rough first impression. The second set had the respondents evaluate the speaker’s personal qualities on a pre-made Likert scale which enables respondents to simply click on a button for one option on a three to five option scale, expressing their degree of agreement or disagreement with the speaker’s presumed qualities. The third set of questions evaluated the alleged lifestyle and occupation of the speaker on a Likert scale ranging from low to high expectations in each sphere. The fourth question set monitored demographic data and information about the respondents’ own accent and place of residence.

Intelligibility and first impression

The first set of questions was mostly informative for reasons of relevance of the research results: the level of understanding the recording was monitored on a Likert scale, the respondents were asked to write down the words that strike them as most different from their own accent (see Appendix I), and the first impression of the speaker was also monitored on a Likert scale (see Table 3).

Perceived personal qualities

The second set of questions was inspired by previous studies from many authors carried out by experts on sociolinguistic and phonetic perception, summarized by Giles and Powesland (1975). In these studies, there seems to be a pattern when comparing perceptions of Received Pronunciation and rural accents, which can be roughly divided into two main personal characteristics groups: for this study, the set of perceived personal qualities of RP will be called competence and the set of perceived qualities for rural accents will be called good-naturedness . Various qualities from these sets were used as questions in the research and were shuffled randomly so that the respondents were not likely to notice this two-sided pattern. There were included both qualities that are generally perceived as “good” and as “bad” character traits.

The competence set of qualities was represented in the research by following qualities: high intelligence , arrogance , ambitiousness , confidence , slyness .

The good-naturedness set of qualities was represented in the research by following qualities: kind-heartedness , naivety , reliability , honesty , sociability , trustfulness .

The evaluation of personal qualities was done with the following option scale:

Likert scale: Strongly agree | Agree | Neutral | Disagree | Strongly disagree

Lifestyle , occupation, and general socio-economic status

The third set of questions was also inspired by studies mentioned above and comprised of questions evaluating the following criteria: level of education

Likert scale: Very high | High | Average | Below average | Low occupational prestige

Likert scale: Very prestigious | Respectable | Ordinary | Non-qualified salary level

Likert scale: Very high | High | Average | Below average | Low interpersonal relationships quality

Likert scale: Very Satisfactory | Satisfactory | Average | Below average | Poor

Demographic data of respondents

The fourth set of questions was directed at collecting demographic data of the respondents with focus on the respondents’ own accent. The following questions were asked: gender : male | female age : under 18 | 18-24 | 25-34 | 35-44 | 45-54 | 55+ place of birth : list of all U.S. states place of residence : optional question – if different from place of birth and considered significant for accent shaping description of own accent (e.g. typical for my area, a blend of X/Y etc. ): open-ended control question

3.3 Respondents

The respondents were addressed by messages using the social network Facebook either directly by the author or by the author’s friends. Their names were obtained on

Facebook as well; none of the respondents were friends of the author. The message contained an introduction of the research, its purposes, estimated length of the survey

completing, link to the survey, and a polite request to fill in the survey. The gender and age of the participants is dealt with in Table 8.

Table 3 Demographic data of respondents 3

Gender female 80% male 20%

18-24 years 64% under 18 years 20% Age 25-34 years 12% 35-44 years 0% 55+ years 4%

The predominance of female respondents was not opted for but was probably caused by the author appealing to more women than men as the “mediators”, who then also sent the message to more female than male friends. According to Wells, women tend to evaluate speakers more positively (Wells 1981: 21), which could have led to the research results being more favourably evaluated.

The average age of the participants is also not surprising as the Americans were addressed by the author or her friends of the same or similar age (23), but there was also a Texan family of five among the members. This means that the majority of respondents probably have been exposed to modern culture and the variety of British accents that are contained in it and should not be influenced by obsolete opinions on the naturally superior status of Received Pronunciation and the inferior rank of accents that deviate from the standard pronunciation (Mugglestone 2003, Wright 1985).

3 The percentage of results is illustrated by font size as follows:

> 70% ‰ 15 ; 69-50% ‰ 14 ; 49-35% ‰ 13 ; 34-20% ‰ 12 , 19-10% ‰ 11 , < 10% ‰ 10

The place of birth (or place of residence where it was given as a significant influence) is covered in the following graph.

Table 4 Places of birth of respondents

This image illustrates the geographical spread of the American respondents and shows that all parts of the United States were represented in the research.

The South was represented by: Texas (with the most respondents), Mississippi,

Tennessee, Alabama, and Florida.

The Northeast was represented by: New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania,

Massachusetts, and Delaware.

The Midwest was represented by: Nebraska and Illinois.

The West was represented by: Wyoming, Utah, California, Washington, and Alaska.

3.4 Evaluations of accents

After almost two months of sharing the survey among American respondents,

the questionnaire was closed and results were viewed. The website offers various tools

to see the results as both aggregative and individual, and both of these were used in

obtaining the results. The following tables show the aggregative results sorted by sets of

questions.

Table 5 Intelligibility of Yorkshire and Cockney accents

Yorkshire Cockney

I understood the speaker clearly with no troubles. 60% 76%

I understood the speaker for most of the recording and 40% 24% only did not catch one or two words.

I understood the speaker with difficulties and did not 0% 0% catch several words.

I did not understand the speaker for most of the 0% 0% recording.

I did not understand the speaker at all. 0% 0%

The Cockney accent was more intelligible than the Yorkshire accent for

American respondents, and that is presumably because Cockney is phonetically closer

to Received Pronunciation, with which might the U.S. participants be most familiar. On

the other hand, the recent popularity of television series featuring North England

accents (see 2.4.3) could lead to Americans being more familiar with Yorkshire accent,

but obviously it has not had such an influence.

The first set of questions also comprised of the following inquiry: What is your

first impression of the speaker’s personality? The aim of this question was to obtain as

unbiased first impression as possible after the first encounter with the accent before exposing the respondents to more controlled questions of 2 nd and 3 rd set.

Table 6 First impressions of speakers’ personality

Yorkshire Cockney

Very likable 60% 16%

Likable 32% 48%

Neutral 8% 32%

Unlikable 0% 4%

Very unlikable 0% 0%

The Yorkshire accent speaker was perceived as more likable after the first listening to the recording, with the overall of 92% of positive responses. The Cockney accent speaker was also predominantly perceived as likable with the overall of 64% of positive reactions. However, Cockney received roughly a third neutral responses; this might be put down to the contrast of the recordings’ content; the Yorkshire recording is concerned with sharing a happy event with a partner, whereas the Cockney recording is of a more matter-of-fact nature. The lower likability of Cockney is therefore attributed to the content rather than the accent itself.

The next two tables show the results of the two sets of questions focused on perceived personal qualities: the competence and the good-naturedness sets.

Commentary on the results is always stated below the table.

Table 7 Competence set questions 4

Yorkshire Cockney

Neutral 48% Neutral 56% High intelligence Agree 44% Agree 36% Strongly agree 4% Disagree 8% Disagree 4%

Neutral 44% Disagree 52% Agree 28% Arrogance Strongly disagree 32% Disagree 20% Neutral 8% Strongly agree 4% Strongly disagree 4%

Neutral 48% Agree 60% Ambitiousness Agree 32% Neutral 24% Disagree 12% Strongly agree 16%

Neutral 56% Agree 52% Confidence Agree 36% Strongly agree 32% Strongly agree 8 % Neutral 16%

Agree 32% Disagree 56% Disagree 32% Slyness Strongly disagree 28% Neutral 24% Neutral 16% Strongly agree 8% Stronly disagree 4%

With the competence questions set, the hypothesis expected prevalence of negative responses in the first column for Yorkshire accent and positive responses in the second column for Cockney accent.

In high intelligence , both accents scored the majority of neutral responses, and

Yorkshire scored 44% on agree , which beats Cockney with 36% agree responses; the

Yorkshire speaker was perceived more intelligent; the hypothesis was not confirmed.

The Cockney speaker was not evaluated a highly intelligent person based on his accent,

4 The percentage of results is illustrated by font size as follows:

> 70% ‰ 15 ; 69-50% ‰ 14 ; 49-35% ‰ 13 ; 34-20% ‰ 12 , 19-10% ‰ 11 , <10% ‰ 10

which might be connected with the former lower-class status of Cockney accent

(Trudgill 1990: 12).

Arrogance is a trait generally perceived as “bad”, so more polarized results were expected. Yorkshire gained an 82% majority of disagree and strongly disagree votes, thereby confirming the hypothesis. Cockney was predominantly evaluated neutral but with 28% of agree votes and 20% disagree votes; the respondents were ambivalent, but the primary hypothesis of Cockney being more arrogant was confirmed to a point.

In ambitiousness , the results in Cockney were according to the hypothesis with the majority of agree evaluations. Yorkshire was mostly perceived neutral , but a third of respondents disproved the hypothesis and clicked on agree ; interestingly enough, the recording does not mention any plans to spend the lottery prize, so some amount of ambitiousness can be ascribed solely to the Yorkshire accent.

In confidence , Cockney also scored according to the hypothesis with the aggregate of 92% positive votes. Yorkshire was again perceived as neutral with one third of respondents choosing agree ; again, more amount of a quality typical of the competence set was attributed to the rural Yorkshire accent.

Slyness is another controversial characteristic. Yorkshire accent was evaluated precisely in accordance to the hypothesis with overall 84% of negative perceptions.

With Cockney, the responses were very ambivalent; the aggregate of all positive votes was slightly higher (38%) than the total of negative responses (36%). Along with the fact that the Cockney speaker was also evaluated as more honest than expected (see

Table 8), the conclusion is that Cockney accent is perceived as more sincere than expected.

Perceptions of the good-naturedness set of qualities were allotted as follows:

Table 8 Good-naturedness set questions 5

Yorkshire Cockney

Agree 56% Neutral 64% Agree 24% kind-heartedness Strongly agree 40% Strongly agree 8% Neutral 4% Disagree 4%

Neutral 44% Disagree 56% naivety Agree 32% Neutral 28% Disagree 24% Agree 12% Strongly disagree 4%

Neutral 40% Agree 48% Agree 36% reliability Neutral 44% Disagree 12% Strongly agree 8 % Strongly ag ree 8% Strongly disagree 4%

Agree 76% Neutral 36% honesty Strongly agree 16% Agree 36% Neutral 4 % Disagree 28%

Agree 56% Agree 56% sociability Strongly agree 40% Neutral 32% Strongly agree 8% Neutral 4% Disagree 4%

Neutral 48% Agree 76% Agree 24% trustfulness Strongly agree 12% Neutral 12% Disagree 20 % Strongly agree 8%

With the good-naturedness questions set, the hypothesis would expect prevalence of positive responses in the first column for Yorkshire accent and negative responses in the second column for Cockney accent.

5 The percentage of results is illustrated by font size as follows:

> 70% ‰ 15 ; 69-50% ‰ 14 ; 49-35% ‰ 13 ; 34-20% ‰ 12 , 19-10% ‰ 11 , <10% ‰ 10

In kind-heartedness , the Yorkshire accent gained almost all positive evaluations, whereas Cockney scored the majority of neutral perceptions. This is one of the perceptions where the content of the Cockney recording probably played more significant part – the recording is of commercial, not personal nature. However,

Cockney also achieved an overall third of positive votes from respondents; therefore, despite the content, the Cockney speaker was also perceived as kind-hearted by some, disproving the hypothesis to some extent.

The Cockney accent speaker was not perceived as naive , whereas the Yorkshire speaker was evaluated either neutral or positive in naivety ; these results confirm the hypothesis.

With reliability , the Yorkshire accent was predominantly perceived as reliable , but almost half of the respondents showed indecisiveness in this regard. Cockney also disproved the hypothesis by 40% of the votes neutral and aggregate of 40% agree and strongly agree votes; both accents were therefore perceived similarly reliable .

The Yorkshire accent was evaluated as extremely honest , whereas Cockney gained the majority of neutral votes. However, one third of respondents clicked on agree in Cockney in connection to honesty ; Cockney was on the whole perceived as more honest and less sly than expected.

In sociability , both accents scored the same 56% of agree evaluations.

Sociability is on the border of the competence and good-naturedness set according to previous studies (Giles and Powesland 1975), because RP speakers were also perceived as having a network of possibly profitable relationships. Taking this into consideration, high sociability can be interpreted from different points of view: either as a perceived friendly and open personality trait or as a convenient means to an end.

The Yorkshire accent speaker was perceived as extremely trustful , while the

Cockney speaker received half of neutral evaluations and a rough third of overall positive votes, which is unexpected and disproves the hypothesis, as the content of the

Cockney recording is commercial; if a different Cockney recording with a personal- based content had been used, the perceived trustfulness would presumably be even higher.

The third set of questions evaluated perceived lifestyle, education and socio- economic status of the speakers. The results are as follows:

Table 9 Lifestyle and occupation set questions 6

Yorkshire Cockney

Average 84% Average 56% High 32% level of education High 12% Below average 8% Very high 4% Very high 4%

occupational prestige Ordinary 76% Respectable 68% Respectable 24% Ordinary 32%

Average 72% Average 68% salary level Below average 16% High 24% Very high 4% High 12% Below average 4%

Satisfactory 48% interpersonal relationships Satisfactory 60% Very sat isfactory 28% Average 40% quality Very satisfactory 8% Average 12% Below average 4%

6 The percentage of results is illustrated by font size as follows:

> 70% ‰ 15 ; 69-50% ‰ 14 ; 49-35% ‰ 13 ; 34-20% ‰ 12 , 19-10% ‰ 11 , <10% ‰ 10

The hypothesis, according to similar researches e.g. by Strongman and Woosley or Cheyne (Giles and Powesland 1975), was that the Yorkshire accent speaker’s socio- economic status will be perceived as lower than the Cockney speaker’s because

Cockney is phonetically closer to RP in both vowel and consonant systems, and RP speakers’ social status has always been evaluated as the highest of all BrE accents in both older and recent studies (Giles and Powesland 1975, Mugglestone 2003, The

Guardian 2008).

Concerning the perceived level of education , the Yorkshire accent speaker was evaluated predominantly average . Cockney was also evaluated average by a rough half of respondents, but 36% of them thought his achieved education was high , in contrast with the mere 12% of high level of education for the Yorkshire speaker; with Cockney formerly being downgraded as lower-class, the number of high votes confirms the hypothesis that accents closer to RP are perceived as more prestigious.

Occupational prestige shows an interesting division: 76% of participants evaluated the presumed job of the Yorkshire speaker ordinary , whereas a similar number (68%) perceived the Cockney speaker’s occupational status as respectable .

Given the Cockney speaker is promoting car insurance, which is not typically a very well-respected occupation, this result can be ascribed to the Cockney accent and his urban connotations. The Yorkshire speaker does talk about winning a large amount of money, but there is no information about his or his wife’s/girlfriend’s occupation, so the result for Yorkshire accent can also be attributed to the phonetic aspects and not the recording’s contents.

The salary level is related to occupation, and in the Yorkshire accent recording there is some information given on the financial situation of the speaker (We have a comfortable lifestyle and we’re happy ); in Cockney there is naturally not. However,

both accents were evaluated surprisingly similarly – average . In Cockney, that might be attributed to the fact that the speaker’s occupation is given (although it was perceived as respectable ) and people might have actual knowledge on insurance brokers’ salary levels . On the other hand, Cockney scored a quarter of votes in high salary level evaluations, which is in accordance to the hypothesis of accents close to RP having higher socio-economic status.

The interpersonal relationships quality question is, like sociability , on the border between the competence /urban accents end of scale and the good - naturedness /rural accents end of the accent evaluations scale. The Yorkshire speaker was evaluated as having better relationships with friends, co-workers and family members than the Cockney speaker, but the Cockney was not perceived as having poor social relationships either; this disproves the hypothesis that RP speakers and phonetically close accents speakers are perceived as predominantly calculating and work-focused (Mugglestone 2003).

4. Conclusion

Accent plays a significant part in constructing one’s perceived identity in the eyes of other people, who inevitably make judgements about speakers of any language based on their accents, and is influenced by geographical factors, age, gender and socio- economic statuses of speakers. Accents of British English have developed throughout the history, have gone through the Great Vowel Shift, and eventually have stood at the formation of American English accents. The English of United States of America has been developing separated from British English for centuries, and this fact can be observed in phonetic and many other linguistic and sociolinguistic features of the two varieties of English.

Two representatives of the wide variety of accents of the British Isles, Yorkshire and Cockney, have been chosen to be featured in the research for this thesis for their mutual dissimilarities. The accents have been described from phonetic, generally linguistic and sociolinguistic points of view to illustrate the linguistic and cultural differences between them and outline hypotheses for the research. Recordings of speakers of both accent have been found and used in survey, making American respondents evaluate the personalities and socio-economic status of the speakers based on their manner of speech.

The hypotheses for the research have come from previous studies in perceptions of British English accents, whose participants evaluated urban accents speakers as competent, work-focused, intelligent and ambitious but lacking good-heartedness and friendliness, and rural accents speakers as trustworthy, honest and good-natured but lacking confidence and work-related ambitiousness.

The American respondents have been found to have surprisingly similar opinions on British English accents as the British themselves stated in previous studies, and the respondents evaluations predominantly confirmed the hypotheses, even though

American English has different phonetic patterns and its accents are much less regionally and socially divided. The similarity of opinions can be explained by the intertwined globalised culture that enables Americans to grow used to various British accents thanks to television, film, and radio. Both accents have been evaluated as highly intelligible, Cockney being more intelligible than Yorkshire.

The Yorkshire accent has been evaluated as more likeable, more good-natured and less competent than Cockney, which can be attributed to English rural accents generally being perceived as sounding good-natured, and also to recent international popularity of television series featuring North England accents speaking characters. The

socio-economic status of the Yorkshire speaker has been evaluated as average and as lower than in the case of the Cockney speaker. The Cockney accent has been generally evaluated less likeable than Yorkshire, and has been perceived as sounding less good- natured and more competent than Yorkshire but less competent than Received

Pronunciation had been evaluated in previous phonetic studies, and that can be ascribed to its former lower-class status; at the same time, however, Cockney has evaluated competent enough to make the conclusion that its former disparaged status is not valid in the eyes of native speakers of American English.

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List of Tables

Table 1 …………………………………………………………………………….. 24-25

Table 2 …………………………………………………………………………….. 26-27

Table 3 ………………………………………………………………………………... 30

Table 4 ………………………………………………………………………………... 31

Table 5 ………………………………………………………………………………... 32

Table 6 ………………………………………………………………………………... 33

Table 7 ………………………………………………………………………………... 34

Table 8 ……………………………………………………………………………….. 36

Table 9 ……………………………………………………………………………….. 38

Appendix I

Words perceived as most different from American English accents

Yorkshire accent Cockney accent lottery (8x) motorcycler (10x) cup, cuppa (6x) people (9x) happy (6x) matter (9x) realized (4x) isn’t he (6x) hugging (4x) foolish (5x) sofa (3x) he (4x) love (3x) example (2x) won (2x) that (2x) let’s (2x) only (2x) brew (2x) car (2x) a lot of (2x) doesn’t Frankie embarrassed comfortable motor understand astray words ending with -ing course admittedly saving away way hot

Summary

The aim of the present thesis was to monitor how native speakers of American

English accents perceive the phonetic aspects of speech of British English accents speakers. Two representatives of accents of the British Isles, Yorkshire and Cockney, were chosen to be featured in the research for this thesis, as representatives of rural, and of urban accents of British English respectively, and were evaluated by speakers of

American English.

First, the general accent-influencing factors are introduced. The differences in development of Standard British English and General American English are described from diachronic point of view, and then the two varieties are compared on phonetic, grammatical, lexical, orthographical, and sociolinguistic levels. The two chosen accents of British English are then described from phonetic, generally linguistic and sociolinguistic points of view to illustrate the linguistic and cultural differences between them and outline hypotheses for the research. Recordings of speakers of Yorkshire and

Cockney accents were used in an online survey, in which American respondents evaluated perceived personal qualities and socio-economic statuses of British speakers based on their manner of speech.

The evaluations of Yorkshire and Cockney accent by Americans were both similar to evaluations of the same accents by speakers of British English. The rural

Yorkshire accent was perceived as less intelligible, more likeable, more good-natured and less competent than the Cockney accent by the participants, and the socio-economic status of its speaker was found average and comparatively lower than in the case of

Cockney. The urban Cockney was evaluated as more intelligible, less likeable, less good-natured and more competent than the Yorkshire accent, and its socio-economic status was perceived as higher than Yorkshire, but as lower than the prestigious RP.

Resumé

Cílem p ředkládané práce bylo zjistit, jak rodilí mluv čí amerických p řízvuk ů angli čtiny posuzují fonetické aspekty řeči rodilých mluv čí britských p řízvuk ů angli čtiny. Dva p řízvuky britské angli čtiny, yorkshirský a cockney, byly vybrány do výzkumu k této práci jako zástupci typicky venkovského a typicky m ěstského p řízvuku britské angli čtiny, a byly ohodnoceny americkými ú častníky internetového výzkumu.

Práce p ředstavuje obecné faktory ovliv ňující p řízvuk řeči. Z diachronického hlediska popisuje rozlišnosti ve vývoji standardní britské angli čtiny a obecné americké angli čtiny, na čež jsou tyto formy porovnány z fonetického, gramatického, lexikálního, ortografického a sociolingvistického hlediska. Následuje popis obou vybraných britských p řízvuk ů z fonetické, obecn ě lingvistické a sociolingvistické stránky za

účelem demonstrování jejich jazykové a kulturní odlišnosti a nastín ění hypotéz pro výzkum. Ve výzkumu byly použity nahrávky mluv čích p řízvuk ů yorkshirského a cockney, na nichž ameri čtí ú častníci studie hodnotili domn ělé osobní vlastnosti a spole čensko-ekonomický status mluv čích t ěchto p řízvuk ů na základ ě jejich mluveného projevu.

Vnímání yorkshirského a cockney p řízvuku se u amerických respondent ů podobalo hodnocení stejných p řízvuk ů mluv čími britské angli čtiny. Venkovský yorkshirský p řízvuk byl ú častníky posuzován jako mén ě srozumitelný, více sympatický, více dobrosrde čný a mén ě kompetentní než p řízvuk cockney, a jeho sociáln ě- ekonomické postavení bylo shledáno pr ůměrné a nižší v porovnání s cockney přízvukem. Urbánní p řízvuk cockney byl vnímán jako srozumiteln ější, mén ě sympatický, mén ě dobrosrde čný a kompetentn ější než yorkshirský p řízvuk, a jeho spole čensko-ekonomický status byl ohodnocen jako vyšší než u yorkshirského přízvuku, ale nižší než u prestižní „Received Pronunciation“.