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An Introduction to Sociolinguistics Accent and Dialect Future Learn Course

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An Introduction to Sociolinguistics Accent and Dialect Future Learn Course An Introduction to Sociolinguistics: Accents, Attitudes and Identity University of York https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/accents-attitudes-and-identity-an- introduction-to-sociolinguistics/2/todo/63077 Introductions 357 comments Welcome to our course on sociolinguistics. Over the next four weeks we will be exploring a range of sociolinguistic research methods and learn what these methods tell us about our individual sense of identity. You will also study their impact on social factors like gender, social class, and national affiliation. Plus, you will explore the real-world implications of language attitudes on our society as a whole. By the end of the course, we will have explored: • The study of language attitudes • How do you measure attitudes? • What is the relationship between language and identity? • Why language attitudes matter My name is Dr Sam Hellmuth and I will be one of your guides through this course along with my colleagues Dr Claire Childs, Dr Dom Watt, Sarah Lapacz and Justin Lo, so please follow us by clicking the links above… and then coming back! Please note that active tutor facilitation is limited to the number of teaching weeks from when the course run started. Please do not therefore expect any further tutor engagement from 10 August 2020, though you are very welcome to continue to work through the course materials in a self- directed fashion from that point. As you progress through the following steps you will hear from us and a range of other contributors, as we explore the concepts and methods that sociolinguists use to understand how accents, attitudes and identity interact. We look forward to learning with you over the next couple of weeks, and hope that you enjoy the course. Getting the most out of the course 129 comments How this all works You will work independently through the course at your own pace. All of the course content is now available to you, so if you need to, you can work ahead – but as social learning is an important part of the course it would be best if we tried to work through it together! We strongly recommend that you participate in the discussions and share your learning experiences. For any of you who are considering a path in higher education, this will be useful practice for participating in seminars or other group-based learning. Each week will have a theme, and we’ll learn about it through videos, articles and discussion. There will also be other optional tasks and exercises you can try to enhance your learning. As every week builds on the previous one, we strongly recommend you work through the course in order. Each of the four weeks should take you 3 to 4 hours to complete, if you do all the tasks, and there is a test at the end of each week to give an indication of what you’ve learnt. Using FutureLearn If this is your first FutureLearn course, you may find it useful to read the ‘how it works’ guide. We also recommend reading five tips and tools for social learning on FutureLearn to get the most out of the interactive and social learning features of this course. Let’s get started This week we’ll be focusing on how we define accents and language attitudes. So, let’s get started! (And when you have finished reading a section, please “Mark as complete”, and move onto the next step). What is sociolinguistics? Here, Dr Claire Childs explains how Sociolinguistics is a subject which covers a wide range of topics, such as what drives language variation. Is there anything from this short video which surprises you? 0:03Skip to 0 minutes and 3 secondsSociolinguistics, at its core, focuses on the relationship between language and society. Language is naturally diverse - it varies from place to place, over time, between different social groups, and on an individual level. 0:22Skip to 0 minutes and 22 secondsWe also know that people speak differently based on their social context, or when they are trying to communicate something about themselves to an audience. This kind of language variation is completely normal and all around us. As sociolinguistic researchers, we can investigate this diversity in how people sound or the words or grammar they use, to learn more about different communities and how members of these communities are seen by others. We can explore why people speak differently in different situations, and how language is used to communicate social meaning. 0:58Skip to 0 minutes and 58 secondsFor example, as I’m talking to you now, I’m making conscious decisions about my language use that are influenced by my current social context. I’m aware that I’m being recorded, and I want what I say to be understood by an audience of people that I haven’t met before. In these sorts of situations, people might try to speak more ‘carefully,’ perhaps by slowing down their speech, or by using words which are likely to be more widely known. But there are also aspects of my identity that are being communicated to you as I speak which are perhaps beyond my control. 1:31Skip to 1 minute and 31 secondsWhen we listen to people speak - or read what someone has written - we can infer information about the sort of person who produced that language. For example, you might be able to detect where someone is from based on their accent. That said, as we’ll see in this course, the link between how people express their identity through language – and how they are actually perceived by others – is not always straightforward. To begin with on this course, we’ll listen to a recording of a conversation. As you listen to the speakers, think about what sort of things you can tell from their speech, and how you were able to infer that information. We’ll discuss our thoughts shortly. How do linguists define accents? 527 comments Before we have a listen to some different accents, let’s clarify what we mean in this course by ‘accent.’ Across different areas of linguistic research, there is variation in what the term ‘accent’ means. For some researchers, the word ‘accent’ is rather broad in that it describes both the words used by speakers from a given community, as well as the sounds that these speakers make. For other researchers, the term ‘accent’ solely refers to the sounds which make one community sound distinct from another. For example, a Scottish English speaker will make sounds which other listeners might associate as being ‘Scottish’ (rather than English, Welsh or some other nationality). This creates a distinction between an accent (i.e. variation in pronunciation) and dialect (i.e. words and grammar). In this course, we’ll focus on how users of spoken English pronounce words differently to one another, and what this means for how we perceive others. As we’ll see in the next few weeks, there are many different approaches to exploring accents - each with their upsides and downsides for us to consider. That said, we can make a few generalisations about the study of accents in modern-day linguistic research as a whole: • Every speaker has an accent. Sometimes we think of our speech as being ‘normal’, ‘standard’ or perhaps even as not particularly unusual. In truth, we all display different aspects of our identity through our speech. What’s more, different listeners may perceive the same voice differently, each based on their own life experiences. We’ll have the chance to test this point out shortly! • All accents vary. This is something you can hear, for example, in films or TV programmes. While we can still understand the content (or gist) of speech in older recordings - we can also hear that their speech sounds different from modern-day speakers today. Accents are therefore able to change - along with the people who speak them. • All accents (and languages!) are of equal value. In linguistic research, no accent is more ‘correct’ or treated as ‘better’ or ‘worse’ than another. In turn, linguists view all accents as being very much worthy of being studied. What is interesting about this perspective is how it can sometimes differ from the views of non-linguists. It is commonly found in sociolinguistic research that non-linguists might have highly positive or negative opinions about an accent. These opinions can even reach the point where non-linguists might see some accents as being ‘better’ than others. Researchers in linguistics will often try to avoid allowing these more personal opinions to affect their research. To summarise everything so far, in this course, we’ll be thinking about ‘accents’ in terms of how speakers pronounce words differently to one another. We’ll also view accents as something which everyone has, which are however variable (and unique to individual speakers and groups). Finally, we’ll treat all accents as being equally important to linguistic research as a whole. All of these points mean that describing your own experiences with accents in the discussion sections of this course is going to be both insightful and useful for other learners. Listening task: accent variation In this recording, you’ll hear best friends Abbie and Catherine talking about their own accents. Take a note of any impressions you have about these speakers - these can be anything which comes to mind. For example, you might consider the following questions: • What accents do these speakers have? • Were you able to identify where they were from? • What else could you infer from these speakers’ voices? Transcript listening task: accent variation Abbie: But I think just probably because like my parents don’t have particularly distinct accents Catherine: No neither do mine Abbie: Mum is very – Mum’s very RP Catherine: Yeah Abbie: So um I think a lot of where my my stuff has come from is is probably via her Catherine: Mmm Abbie: But um yeah I think it’s just if I’ve if I’ve ever had any comments about my accent it’s usually like oh it’s posh Catherine: Yeah Abbie: Or um people are like oh you’re from the South.
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