Perceptions of Different Accent

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 1 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 2 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

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