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

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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?

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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.

Catherine: Yeah

Abbie: It’s like

Catherine: which is weird yeah

Abbie: One of those things is definitely wrong

Catherine: (laughs)

Abbie: Also um I will I will leave up to you to decide

Catherine: Yeah I think the only comments I’ve ever had from people are people been like oh you’re so Northern but that’s rare

Abbie: Yeah Catherine: And it’s only basically it’s only Londoners or sometimes people saying it like as a joke when I’ve talked about my accent and then they’ll say just a joke

Abbie: Yeah

Catherine: But yeah school was I feel like school accents wasn’t really a thing it was more dialect that was the difference

Abbie: Oh right what do you mean

Catherine: Well so like I like people who grown up in that you know like you said generations in the same area can say things like now then and ay up in conversation and although I kind of have an accent that they would just about work in my accent I cannot get away with saying that it’s like obvious

Abbie: Sure sure

Catherine: I am not a local when I say stuff like that

Abbie: Okay yeah Catherine: Or just like people in school it would be really obvious that I that I wasn’t originally from there Why do accents vary?

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As we saw earlier, we touched on the idea that sociolinguists see accents as fluid and ever-changing.

For instance, the English that we read in historical texts or hear in older recordings is different from speakers from equivalent backgrounds today. Sociolinguists are interested in exploring the reasons for this accent variation.

Often when we think of accents, we consider how they vary across geographical regions. For example, we can hear that English speakers from Essex sound different from English speakers from Lancashire. In your own day-to-day lives, you interact with friends and family who might pronounce words quite differently to you. Over the years, linguists have suggested several explanations for why we have so much variation in the English spoken in the United Kingdom - as well as further afield. In the past, natural boundaries like rivers or mountains would have limited the communication of speakers living in different places. Barriers like these meant that the speech of speakers living in different communities would not be influenced by one another, due to a lack of contact. Nowadays, we can overcome these natural or physical boundaries through advances in technology and transport. People can move around far more freely than ever before and can communicate with others from all over the world. With this surge in mobility, different accents can more easily come into contact with one another.

Another explanation for accent variation relates to changes to trading. In the past, speakers from two nearby villages or towns might pronounce words differently to one another - even though there were no natural boundaries between them. Instead, the people living in these places might not come into contact very frequently to trade goods.

Finally, we can also think of the placement of accent boundaries in terms of how they relate to socio-political boundaries. For example, along the England-Scotland border, there is considerable accent variation between speakers who sound more ‘English-English’ (i.e. from England) to those who sound more ‘Scottish English.’ This variation is something which has been researched extensively in recent years as part of the Accent and Identity on the Scottish English Border project. We’ll dig into this project in more detail later in this course.

One explanation for the variation between ‘English-English’ and ‘Scottish English’ speech relates to the expression of cultural or political identity. In other words, speakers can use their speech to signal their membership in a particular group or cultural identity. A speaker living along this border might pronounce words in a more ‘Scottish’ accent, to express their Scottish identity.

The geographical accent boundaries we see today then, are not random or arbitrary. Very often these accent boundaries have ties to some other type of boundary. In the United Kingdom, accent boundaries are thought to be heavily influenced by natural boundaries, historical limitations in trading and transport, and socio- political boundaries.

However, today we’re no longer so restricted in terms of who we can interact with - meaning we can communicate with people from all over the world. So what does this mean for the future of accent variation? We’ll be debating the future of accent variation and language attitudes in the United Kingdom later on in the course. This discussion will come right after we’ve covered in more detail how language attitudes have changed over time.

For now, try jotting down a few ideas about how English spoken in the United Kingdom might sound different in the future. Will we continue to have so much accent variety? Or will we start seeing less accent variation as time goes on? What is a language attitude?

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Before we explore what sociolinguists mean by ‘language attitudes’, let’s take some time to reflect on our own opinions.

• What do you think is meant by a ‘language attitude’?

• Can you think of any examples of language attitudes - perhaps something you have personally experienced or seen? Attitudes, prestige and ideology

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When we talk about language attitudes in sociolinguistics, we’re looking at how people associate different forms of language with positive and negative traits. As well as the idea of a language attitude, there is also the idea of ‘standard’ language. The term ‘standard’ is something which has many different definitions for linguists. That said, we can start by thinking of a standard language variety as one which has prestige, or a language variety that has a more elevated position in society than others.

For people who speak using a standard variety, they might find that they come across to others positively - for example, as being well- educated. For instance, it might be advantageous for a candidate in a job interview to speak using a standard variety, rather than with a more regional or foreign accent. While a job advertisement might not directly ask for a candidate with a particular accent, this might be something which employers judge when selecting a suitable candidate from a group of possible employees. This preferential treatment might be a result of the accent in question having what sociolinguists call overt prestige.

A good example of an accent variety with overt prestige is ‘Received Pronunciation’ (RP English, or RP). RP English is known as ‘BBC English’, due to its association with speech used in early radio and television broadcasting. In truth, RP English is quite varied in terms of word pronunciation. This variation is due to several factors, including the social class or age of the speaker, and the age the speaker acquired their RP accent. Nonetheless, people often think of RP English as a single accent, spoken by people with a privileged upbringing. Back in the early days of news broadcasting, this accent was promoted, and presented above all others as the ‘correct’ and ‘more suitable’ variety of English. This tendency to feature speech that only represents a small (but privileged) section of society - in (what would be at the time) new technologies - is an example of overt prestige.

On the flip side, there is also what is known as covert prestige - meaning that non-standard varieties are associated with positive attitudes. Good examples of covert prestige can be found right across advertising in the media. For example, native English speakers often associate Yorkshire English accents with being trustworthy and hardworking. Therefore, actors with these voices are hired to be the voice of companies who want to promote these values.

Of course, these positive and negative associations about accents do not come from nowhere. These attitudes develop over time for a variety of different reasons, such as through social or political change. It is important to keep in mind at this stage that these shifts in attitudes do not happen without context. Instead, these changes in attitudes to accents reflect a change in attitudes towards the people who use these accents. These attitudes also do not emerge from nothing. There must be social consensus (or agreement) about what is considered prestigious or not for this to be so. What is remarkable about attitudes to RP, in particular, is just how far- reaching and established they are. Globally, RP English still carries overt prestige and has done so for decades. Part of RP’s ‘success’ in maintaining its position of overt prestige might also relate to the strength of language ideologies. As long as RP English is seen as a highly prestigious and desirable accent, the ideology that RP is somehow more prestigious than other accents will continue to be perpetuated.

To sum up, there is a widely-held idea of a ‘standard’ accent of English. This accent is linked with increased social prestige and is seen by many as something aspirational. Meanwhile, regional accents have what is known as covert prestige. In other words, these accents might still have positive associations - but these associations are less evident than the benefits of a standard variety. In turn, whether or not an accent is seen as prestigious (or viewed positively or negatively) largely depends on how the speakers of that accent are seen by society. Ideologies also influence these views on accent, or beliefs people hold about language. Case study: an example of a language attitude

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Let’s look now at a real-life example of a language attitude.

The text below is taken from an email sent to BBC presenter Steph McGovern after one of her regular appearances on television:

Hi Steph,

Please don’t get me wrong, I like you and think you do a very good job and I’m not being patronising there. Your accent doesn’t bother me apart from one word that you mangle. “Here.” You say “heyah.” Sorry, but could you please just say ‘here’ as one syllable. You don’t have to put on a posh accent. Just say the word as it’s meant to be said.

Thank you

Now, take some time to reflect on the example above and share your thoughts in the comments if you’d like. Things to consider could be:

• How are language attitudes expressed through the example?

• What does this tell us about the author of the email?

• What does this example tell us about language attitudes in connection to television broadcasting? Language attitudes and television broadcasting

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After you had the chance to reflect on the example of a language attitude presented in the previous step, let’s now think about what we, as linguists, can take away from this message.

One thing worth noting is how the author of the email displays an awareness of accent variation and attitudes. In particular, the author understands that Steph’s speech sounds different from other accents more associated with television broadcasting. The author also seems to think that Steph is trying to adapt her speech to ‘better fit’ her profession by sounding ‘posh’.

Another thing to note is how the author believes that the word ‘here’ only has one acceptable pronunciation. This comment suggests that the author has a particular ideology, or belief, about language. Notably, more standard pronunciations may be thought of as more “accurate” than non-standard, or regional pronunciations. As we’ve already seen, in linguistics accents are treated as something which are inherently subject to change. Therefore, we would expect that words will be pronounced differently depending on the speaker’s background.

There are innumerable examples of language attitudes available to us as researchers - from our everyday interactions with others or comments posted online. By looking at real-world examples like this email, we can better understand the barriers that are faced by speakers when it comes to, for example, treatment in the workplace.

0:03Skip to 0 minutes and 3 secondsOften when people talk about how they feel about a variety of speech, they’ll touch on the idea of “correctness”. They might feel that certain words or sounds are “wrong” or are in some way inappropriate. In doing so, they are comparing that variety with one that they consider “correct”. Languages typically have a standard variety - the kind of language that carries prestige in society. The standard language variety is often taught in schools and used to write formal publications like newspaper articles or other kinds of non-fiction. Taking the English language as an example, even in a relatively small country like the United Kingdom, there is a huge amount of linguistic variation, much of which would not be considered as ‘standard’. 0:50Skip to 0 minutes and 50 secondsIn fact, most people who speak English around the world don’t necessarily speak with what could be called a Standard English accent or dialect. Varieties of a language that deviate from the standard - or, rather, users of that variety - can sometimes become associated with negative traits. For example, as we’ll see in Week 4, there is research that links certain British accents with the perception of committing criminal behaviour. Of course, there is nothing intrinsically ‘criminal’ about the particular sounds or words that occur in these accents, which tells us that attitudes like these toward language are arbitrary. In other words, there is no real connection between, say, a speech sound and a concept such as ‘criminality’. 1:33Skip to 1 minute and 33 secondsIn a similar vein, people often have very positive attitudes toward standard varieties - for example, associating them as sounding intelligent or authoritative - even though there is nothing intrinsically ‘intelligent’ or ‘authoritative’ about the language variety itself; these attitudes are formed by making a link between linguistic features and more abstract social traits. The association listeners make between a particular accent and a positive or negative trait can be a reflection of the listener’s own attitude towards the people who speak with that accent, and can lead to bias towards or against particular groups of speakers, as we’ll explore further in Week 4. Language attitudes and correctness

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In this video, Dr Claire Childs explains the link between the attitudes we have about accents and how these relate to ideas of ‘correct’ language use.

Let’s take some time now to reflect on the attitudes which relate to our own accents. What attitudes do you think other people might have to your accent?

• Are there any stereotypes associated with your accent?

• Have you had an experience of either a positive or negative reaction to your accent? Performing identity

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Our identities are made up of many different aspects. For example, we might think of ourselves and others in terms of broad categories such as our gender, ethnicity, and sexual orientation. This approach was undoubtedly taken by some of the earlier researchers in sociolinguists, who would assign the participants in their studies to a pre-determined category. But we can also think of ourselves as members of a seemingly infinite number of groups, when we consider who we are friends with and who we interact with, both face-to-face and online.

For sociolinguists nowadays, our identity is not treated as something unchanging or ‘fixed’. Instead, identity is seen as fluid or something which people constantly create through interactions in everyday life. Language and identity are completely intertwined with one another. Think about your own day-to-day experiences. The way that you speak at school, college or work is likely to be different from how you would talk at home, with friends or family. At the end of the day, you are still ‘you,’ but you have changed how you come across, based on who you are interacting with at any given time. We can all signal our membership of these broader or more closely- knit groups through our language use. We can also use language to express multiple parts of our identities at once.

The expression of identity does not happen in a vacuum, nor does it happen with complete freedom. It can be argued that our expression of identity is continually shaped by the situational context that we’re in at any given time.

Just as the idea of ‘identity’ is complex and varied, so too are the ways sociolinguists try to study it. There are many different perspectives: some from mostly sociolinguistic approaches, and others which come from other subject areas like anthropology, psychology or cultural studies. Increasingly, researchers in sociolinguistics also look to other disciplines like these for ways to better understand identity.

Later in this course, we’ll introduce a few approaches used to study language and identity in sociolinguistic research. Along the way, we’ll also think about how we go about defining and expressing our own identities. Case study: an example of language attitudes in older media

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Back in 1780, Irish stage actor Thomas Sheridan authored the book ‘A General Dictionary of the English Language’. In this book he wrote the following:

The total neglect of this art [of speaking] has been productive of the worst consequences…in the conduct of all affairs ecclesiastical and civil, in church, in parliament, courts of justice…the wretched state of elocution is apparent to persons of any discernment and taste… if something is not done to stop this growing evil …English is likely to become a mere jargon, which every one may pronounce as he pleases.

English today has not yet reached the state of ‘mere jargon’, nor (as we’ll see in this course) can it freely be spoken in any way people choose without consequence. This quote really hits on the idea of language ‘correctness’ - this is the view that there are ‘correct’ forms of language. We know already from linguistic research that language is ever-changing and fluid. This means that rigid ideas about what should or shouldn’t be said are not supported by empirical research. Instead, these views seem to be motivated by beliefs or attitudes about accents, and - more specifically - about the people who speak with those accents.

This quotation from Thomas Sheridan shows that attitudes to accents - like those expressed by the email author from Step 1.11 - have clearly been around for a long time, and are still pervasive to this day. This raises the question of whether views on ‘correctness’ are here to stay. In the next step, we’ll try making some predictions about what we think accent variation and language attitudes will look like in the future. How do you think accent variation and attitudes to language will change in the future?

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Time now to gaze into our crystal ball and try to see what the future holds for accent variation…

Let’s focus on how the speech of people living in the United Kingdom might change - if at all!

• Will we see more or less accent variation?

• What sort of things will affect this variation or lack of change in accents?

• How might our language attitudes change along the way?

This week we were introduced to the study of sociolinguistics as a discipline which, broadly speaking, focuses on the relationship between language and society. We learned about accents and how the term is defined in a linguistic context, and about the distinction between an accent (i.e. variation in pronunciation) and dialect (i.e. words and grammar). It is important to remember that every speaker has an accent, that all accents vary, and that these are all of equal value.

• We also engaged in first discussions around the topic of language attitudes and linguistic identity and how both shape our world and behaviour. We talked about that people associate different accents with positive and negative traits, and that accents can carry overt or covert prestige.

• Another topic we talked about is identity and how it is something fluid rather than static, as it constantly changes and is recreated through interactions in our everyday life. Additional resources for Week 1

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Each week, we will also present you with some additional resources you can check out should you feel like it. These are optional extra content.

Below are some additional sources to read and explore.

These two books could be of interest to you:

Beal, J. C. (2010). An Introduction to Regional Englishes: Dialect Variation in England. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Hughes, A., Trudgill, P. & Watt, D. (2012). English Accents and Dialects: An Introduction to Social and Regional Varieties of English in the British Isles (5th ed.). London: Hodder Education.

If you like, you can read an article where the author talks about her experience with accent attitudes and highlights issues in politics and society. https://inews.co.uk/opinion/comment/i-changed-my-accent-to-make-myself-sound-posher-even- that-wasnt-enough-for-some-wealthy-friends-322358 Welcome to Week 2!

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Welcome back to Week 2!

This week we’re bringing the focus to how sociolinguists measure linguistic features.

We’ll start by watching Dr Dominic Watt explain more in our opening video. 0:05Skip to 0 minutes and 5 secondsWelcome to our second week on accents, attitudes and identity. This week, we’ll be looking at how sociolinguists go about measuring attitudes - that is, what is actually measured in language research - and the different ways that these variables can be drawn out of speakers. Then, we’ll have a listen to some speech data of our own and examine some variables together. Let’s get started!

To get us started on looking at linguistic variables, take a look at the image above.

What would you call this item in your day-to-day life? Does the name of this item change depending on who you’re talking to? Let us know your thoughts in the discussion below!

What is this thing called? Roll / Bread roll

Bun

Cob

Barm / Barm Cake

Bap

Tea Cake

Something else

What are linguistic variables?

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An idea central to the collection and analysis of sociolinguistic data is the linguistic variable.

This concept can be tricky to grasp at first. William Labov, a hugely influential researcher and author in sociolinguistics, describes the linguistic variable simply as “two or more ways of saying the same thing.” Our words for ‘bread rolls’ in the previous task is an example of a linguistic variable at work. The image we looked at was deliberately chosen because it is a picture of something which is known to be a source of variation for English speakers (that is, there are lots of different names for bread rolls).

When planning research, it is good practice for researchers to begin by identifying what linguistic variables they want to study. By choosing one or more variables from the outset, researchers can better plan how best to collect the most relevant data. For example, if you wanted to study how people say the ‘a’ sound in words like ‘grass’ and ‘giraffe’, you would need to make sure the data you collected had opportunities for these sounds to occur. You could ensure these sounds were present by choosing a method of data collection which involved participants reading aloud words that you have selected, for example. In other types of linguistic research, variables might not be focused on speech sounds or regional dialect words. Instead, other research might look at grammatical features (like the use of negative concord, popularly known as a double negative, in phrases like ‘I didn’t do nothing’).

Each of the distinct regional terms we came up with for ‘bread rolls’ (e.g. barm cakes or baps) is what is called a variant. Variants are all the different ways that a variable can be produced. Compare this to the example of the ‘a’ sound in words like ‘grass’. Each of the different vowel sounds that could be produced by speakers in that word is a variant.

But what do researchers do with these variants? We can study variants to see how different social factors influence people’s speech. For instance, if we wanted to look at the differences between male and female speakers, we could select linguistic variables that we thought would be different between the speakers in these groups. Then, we could see which variants each of these groups produced. This approach would tell us something about the relationship between language variation and social factors such as gender. Looking at how and when different variants are used by different speakers (and why!) is very much at the heart of sociolinguistic research.

0:03Skip to 0 minutes and 3 secondsBefore we examine some data ourselves, let’s take a look at an example of a linguistic factor. In English, speakers use a sound called a glottal stop. You can hear this sound in words like ‘water’ or ‘butter’. Crucially for native English speakers, this ‘uh’ sound cannot occur anywhere in a word – for example, it cannot be found at the beginning of a word in English like it can in dialects of Arabic. However, in English, this glottal stop sound can be found either in the middle of words (like ‘butter’ versus ‘butter’), or at the end of words (like ‘cat’ versus ‘cat’). 0:35Skip to 0 minutes and 35 secondsCrucially, English speakers can use either the glottal stop or ‘t’ in these words and the meaning of the word does not change. What can change, however, is how these pronunciations are perceived by listeners. It is often seen as ‘lazy’ or ‘uneducated’ to produce glottal stops in place of ‘t’. What is even more interesting, is that for many listeners, the glottal stop sound is more noticeable – or salient – when it is made in the middle of words, compared to when the same sound is made at the end of words. 1:04Skip to 1 minute and 4 secondsThis means that while people might have a strong dislike of glottal stop pronunciations in words like ‘matter’ – the same glottal stop, ‘uh’ sound found at the end of words is often not associated with any particular attitude or stereotype. What this tells us is that attitudes to particular sounds can be inconsistent, without listeners ever truly being aware of this inconsistency. Looking at an example of a linguistic factor

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In this video, Dr Sarah Kelly describes an example of a linguistic factor: the effect of position in the word on how different variants of the ‘t’ sound in English words are perceived. Sociolinguists have to take account of linguistic factors - as well as social factors - when collecting and analysing data.

Is there anything from the video that you weren’t aware of before?

Share your thoughts with your fellow learners in the usual fashion. Things to consider when collecting sociolinguistic data 221 comments

Let’s begin this activity by looking at some of the main considerations sociolinguists must face when they want to conduct their own research.

Ethics

No matter who is being studied, or what data is being collected, it is crucial to consider how our research might affect whoever is involved. When conducting interviews (or using other sociolinguistic data collection methods), there is always the chance that people might give you personal information. The process of being involved in research might also draw out negative emotions or memories. This is a particular risk when we’re asking people to talk freely about their own identity or experiences. There may also be a risk to researchers during data collection too. For example, he or she might travel to dangerous places or be interacting with vulnerable people.

For these reasons, in sociolinguistic research, you must get permission to do the research from your university or institution. Also, it is good practice to allow participants to learn about your study before they consent to taking part. Usually, consent is gained by providing participants with an information sheet along with a consent form to sign if they feel able to take part in the research.

One potential risk of giving participants lots of information about your research is that they will then go on to change their speech from what is ‘normal’ to them. This effect can be lessened by a researcher providing less specific detail to the participants before the data collection begins. For example, you might want to collect data on how people pronounce the ‘a’ vowel in words like ‘grass’ or ‘giraffe’. You might tell your participants that you want to analyse their speech, but withhold the fact that you’re only really interested in how they produce ‘a’ vowels. Then, at the end of the data collection, the researcher can disclose more information about the exact purpose of the research.

Sample size If sociolinguists want to study language variation, how many people do they need to study to be able to make robust claims? There is really no right answer to this one. How many people are involved in your research will depend on many factors. For instance, maybe there aren’t many people available to you who belong to the group you’re interested in. There’s also the task of analysing all of the data that you’re collecting. If a linguist is working by themselves on a project, it makes sense that more data would take longer (or be more difficult) to analyse.

Ideally, though, researchers should aim to collect roughly equivalent quality and quantity of data for each social group being studied. If you wanted to compare male and female speakers of Middlesbrough English, for example, it would be ideal to have even numbers of male and female speakers. It would also be useful if these male and female participants produced roughly the same amount of speech data.

Sampling

‘Sampling’ refers to how researchers go about selecting their participants. One method is to randomly choose people who might want to take part in your research. For example, you might select people from a telephone directory. Another more commonly-used approach to sampling would be to select participants that you think would be most suitable for your research. Let’s say for instance, that you’re interested in researching the speech of your own Punjabi-speaking community. You could then make use of your own social network to find people who would be suitable candidates. This approach would also likely help participants to feel that they could trust you with their data.

Identifying social factors

One of the key things that sociolinguists look for in their research is evidence of language variation. This variation would tie in with some sort of social factor relevant for the people being studied, like their national identity or how they would define their gender. Identifying these social factors might be done externally - this is where a researcher decides who to study based on what he or she believes. For example, if a researcher wanted to explore how speech is affected by social class, he or she might look for participants in areas they think are more or less economically well- off. On the other hand, other sociolinguists would allow their participants to identify their own social factors. This approach is particularly beneficial when trying to study a community that the researcher is less familiar with. The idea here is that a member of a group or community would be able to make finer distinctions between the members of their own community. Implicit vs. explicit attitudes

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In this video, Dr Sam Hellmuth explains the differences between explicit and implicit attitudes, and the problems faced when trying to measure them.

0:05Skip to 0 minutes and 5 secondsWhen we think about measuring language attitudes, we can think of these attitudes as being implicit or explicit. Put simply, implicit attitudes are a person’s instinctive, immediate reaction to seeing or hearing language. These attitudes come from that person’s own life experiences, and the stereotypes and cognitive connections associated with those experiences. For example, if someone had a negative experience with a speaker of a particular accent, they might form a stereotype about all speakers of that accent - perhaps that all people with that accent are rude or annoying. Because these views are so ingrained in people’s minds, it can be difficult to explore implicit attitudes about language in a direct way - such as surveys or interviews. 0:52Skip to 0 minutes and 52 secondsInstead, we can try using more indirect approaches. An example of one such approach, is the Implicit Association Test often used in psychological research. This is where people are asked to pair a particular group to a positive or negative trait - for example, through categorising speakers of Glaswegian English as being polite or impolite. Later on the course, we’ll discuss how this test has been adapted for sociolinguistic research. As well as these implicit attitudes, people also have what we call explicit attitudes toward language. These attitudes are those which someone is more aware of having. In other words, these are the attitudes that people have about language that are consciously-held. These attitudes are comparatively easier to collect in sociolinguistic research. 1:40Skip to 1 minute and 40 secondsThis is because the methods that we can use to tap into these more overt views are fairly straightforward. There are plenty of ways to conduct a questionnaire or poll where people can report what they think about a particular accent. It’s important to note that both implicit and explicit attitudes about language can be held at the same time as one another. So people can have attitudes about an accent that they are conscious of and able to express - as well as attitudes which are more ingrained. As we’ll see in Week 3, there are theories which use this idea of explicit and implicit attitudes to explain how we construct and maintain our position in social groups. 2:18Skip to 2 minutes and 18 secondsFor the time being, we’ll take a look at some of the methods which have been used to examine both implicit and explicit attitudes.

Perceptual dialectology

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Perceptual dialectology is used to explore how non-linguists see regional language variation. This topic ties into what is known as ‘folk linguistics,’ or the beliefs that non-linguists have about language. These beliefs include everything from what makes different accents sound differently to one another, where exactly these accents are spoken, and even why non- linguists think there is so much (or so little!) accent variation.

This method of data collection also tells us something about how non-linguists feel about people who speak with these accents. In other words, perceptual dialectology is not only used to collect data on attitudes about language, but it also looks at how non-linguists view the people who speak with these accents.

To explore these insights into language and social attitudes, perceptual dialectology researchers use a map task. You can see an example of a completed map task in the image at the top of this page, which is also available in full using this link.

Here, a participant has drawn labels and boundaries on a blank map of the United Kingdom to show where they think different accent groups can be found geographically. We can see which sounds and words are salient to the participant, as well as how the participant distinguishes between one accent from other, geographically-close accents. The map also reveals how the participant feels toward particular accent groups and their speakers. For example, this participant appears to associate speakers from Liverpool with being ‘cheeky’ and ‘feisty’. Notice as well that this participant has far fewer boundaries and labels for Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales than they do for England. This lack of detail might suggest that the participant is more familiar with English accents, forming views about speakers from other parts of the United Kingdom which are more heavily based on stereotypes. Another participant might hold completely different opinions about people from the same region.

To explore the robustness of these attitudes, therefore, a researcher might want to collect many completed maps. Doing so would form an overall map of language attitudes from a particular community or group. If a large number of maps were combined into a single ‘master’ map, any unique or rare opinions would be less influential on the labels and boundaries drawn. Having these maps (whether in isolation or combined) allows us to look at the differences between how linguists and non-linguists understand accent boundaries.

For example, the United Kingdom is known to have a large amount of regional variation right across the country. However, individual participants tend to draw maps which don’t come close to describing the real amount of accent variation that is present. Of course, there are many possible reasons for this apparent ‘gap’ in knowledge. These might include not being exposed to speakers of different accents or that non-linguists are using different criteria to differentiate between accents.

One benefit of this data collection approach is that the participants have a lot of control over their responses. This control comes from the maps being blank to start with. As such, researchers can gain real insight into a participant’s perception of accent boundaries and their language attitudes. It is also possible that many participants would find this task less intimidating than being interviewed directly.

Later on in this week of the course, we’ll discuss both the positive and negative aspects of a range of sociolinguistic data collection methods.

Above is a picture of a blank map of the UK taken from the d- maps.com website here: https://d- maps.com/carte.php?num_car=11723&lang=en. Try out the method yourself and draw labels and boundaries on this blank map to show where YOU think different accent groups can be found geographically. For ease, you can also find the picture as a PDF download at the bottom of the page. While working on this, think back to Step 2.5 where you learned about ethics and how research might affect whoever is involved.

We have designed a Padlet where you can then upload and share your maps with your fellow learners. The Geographical Association Test (GAT)

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‘The Use and Utility of Localised Speech Forms in Determining Identity (TUULS): Forensic and Sociophonetic Perspectives’ project is being carried out by University of York staff and investigates similarities and differences in accents across North East England.

The focus here is on speech used in three different urban centres: Newcastle, Sunderland, and Middlesbrough. One of the aims of the project is to identify the specific pronunciations that distinguish these accents from each other. The Geographical Association Test (GAT) is one of the perception tasks used as part of the sociophonetic strand of TUULS. Sociophonetics uses phonetic data and methods to answer sociolinguistic questions. The GAT focuses on some of the differences in pronunciations and investigates listener sensitivity to localised accent features in the North East of England.

This strand of the research project is interested in how listeners perceive pronunciation variants and people’s knowledge of what makes the accents distinct from one another. As part of a series of tests in the TUULS project, the GAT required participants to indicate on a map of North East England which place they most closely associated with a certain pronunciation of a word. Participants were all living in one of the three fieldwork sites in the North East: Newcastle, Sunderland, or Middlesbrough. They listened to short recordings containing the target features of special interest. These speech features were specifically chosen as the researchers predict these are especially important features that differentiate the varieties in the North East. Examples include recordings of ‘DIVVENT’, ‘FILM’ and ‘NURSE’. The pronunciation variation of NURSE is of special interest to sociolinguists, as English speakers exhibit a great variety of different pronunciation patterns. Additionally, the vowel in NURSE is also used when saying words such as ‘bird’, ‘person’, or ‘work’, depending on a speaker’s accent. The word ‘DIVVENT’ is what is called a lexical feature rather than a pronunciation feature and is only used in certain areas of the country. Participants heard each recording of a single word which contained one of the variables of interest three times. They were then shown the map of North East England, with the larger towns and cities marked on it. At this point, they were asked to click somewhere on the map to say where they thought the speaker in the recording was most likely to be from based on the sound clip of the word they heard.

Participants mostly chose places that were labelled, and seemed to prefer to choose the bigger towns or cities. However, some of the areas marked by the participants were towards the edges of the map, and it wasn’t clear why. Perhaps they wanted to suggest that the form was used outside the North East rather than within it. While the reason behind these latter choices, which were few in number, is more or less unclear, the association of the different recordings with bigger labelled cities on the map does yield interesting results.

Let’s look at an example and focus on the results for the pronunciation of words with the ‘NURSE’ vowel. This vowel can be pronounced in different ways according to where the speaker is from. Although earlier research on North East varieties has found structured variation within localities in the use of variants of this vowel, the aim of the GAT was to determine what place associations local people made with the particular pronunciations. The three different localised forms here were [ɜː], [ɔː], and [ɛ̈ ː], which you can listen to. The figure below shows the results of the GAT for the variable ‘NURSE’.

In the figure, north and south refer to the top and bottom of the map that participants were working with. Therefore, the figure reflects where on the map of the North East participants placed the sound files they listened to. The figure shows that listeners do indeed seem to associate specific pronunciations with geographical location within the region, in more or less the way that researchers had expected. Participants from Newcastle and Sunderland rated [ɜː] (in red) as a form more typical of their own, northern part of the region, while the participants from Middlesbrough did not show such an agreement and attributed this form of pronunciation to a larger area on the map. Regarding the pronunciation of ‘NURSE’ as with the [ɔː] vowel (in green), there was very strong consensus among the Newcastle participants that this form is one local to their area, while listeners from Sunderland chose a wider variety of locations on the map. Listeners from Middlesbrough seemed to agree overall with the perception that this form is mostly heard in the area of Newcastle. The same phenomenon of a strong consensus regarding the association of a form with the listener’s own place of origin can be observed in the results for the vowel [ɛ̈ ː] (in yellow). Here, participants from Middlesbrough were in close agreement that this form is used in Middlesbrough, while both the listeners from Newcastle and those from Sunderland did not show any consensus. They chose a wider range of areas where this variant is used, which included their own places of origin. The vowel in question is indeed also used in Newcastle, but not in Sunderland. It is also noteworthy that the median line for the answers given here falls further north for the listeners from Newcastle. This means that even though participants from Newcastle and Sunderland pointed to locations on the map which cover an area from the south to the north, that overall the participants from Newcastle still leaned more towards the north here than those from Sunderland.

The results of the GAT pose the question of whether there is a connection between listeners’ productions and perceptions. In order to answer questions like this, researchers can statistically analyse their data. This helps them to see if they can identify any correlations in their data or if their findings are statistically significant, which shows them that their results are not just due to chance. In this case, the researchers working on the GAT ran statistical test on the data to establish whether there is a connection between listeners’ productions and perceptions in their data.

The researchers ran correlation tests and found that yes, there seems to be a connection, but only for the participants from Newcastle in this particular case of variants of the ‘NURSE’ vowel. The color-coded table below shows the results in detail. Fields in green show that here, the distance between the speaker’s origin (the one in the recording) and the point the listener marked on the map was small. Red fields indicate that the listeners here do not associate this specific pronunciation of ‘NURSE’ with the locality of the speaker. This can be seen among the participants from Middlesbrough in the table in the middle.

The results presented in the table support the results shown in the previous figure. There, we saw a strong consensus among the Newcastle participants that the [ɔː] vowel is one local to their area, while the vowels [ɛ̈ ː] and [ɜː] were associated with a bigger geographical area. Remembering this, you can see how the researchers came to the conclusion that there seems to be a connection between the listeners’ productions and perceptions for the Newcastle participants group.

To sum up, we can say that the GAT is a useful addition to a researcher’s toolkit should they want to investigate sociolinguistic patterns or dialects. The GAT especially grants the opportunity to gain insight into the perception and identification of different pronunciations and how these are associated consciously with localities or areas. The variation in such a small geographical area as that investigated by the TUULS project demonstrates how fine- grained such knowledge can be.

The project is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). The ESRC Grant Number is ES/M010783/1. The Social Category Association Test (SCAT)

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In this video, Dr Sam Hellmuth describes the Social Category Association Test (SCAT) and how it works in sociolinguistic research.

0:05Skip to 0 minutes and 5 secondsEarlier on this week of the course, we briefly touched on a method for collecting language attitudes called the Implicit Association Test. If you recall, that method tests for automatic, or instinctive, associations between a category (such as accent group) and positive or negative traits (such as being friendly or rude). Another more recent method used to investigate attitudes of this kind is known as the Social Category Association Test, or the SCAT. The SCAT is an adaptation of the Implicit Association Test, which looks at the degree to which members of a speech community share an association between a particular pronunciation (such as pronouncing the ‘r sound in the word ‘car’) and a social category (such as ‘Scotland’). 0:51Skip to 0 minutes and 51 secondsIt also tests the speed with which the association is made by the person taking the test. If there is a high level of community agreement on the association of a pronunciation with the social category of interest, we can be confident that the particular pronunciation does carry that social meaning. Fast response times also tell us about the strength of the association. We can look at a variety of pronunciation features in this way and build a picture of which features are more or less salient to the members of the speech community in terms of the social meaning they carry. 1:26Skip to 1 minute and 26 secondsLater in Week 3, we’ll take a closer look at a research project based at the University of York called the Accent and Identity on the Scottish/English Border project, or AISEB. Here the SCAT was developed and used to see whether people living in areas along the Scottish/English border associated certain sounds with Scotland or England. For example, Scottish is often associated with what we call ‘rhoticity’ - the /r/ sound found at the end of words like ‘car’ or ‘farm’, as opposed to more ‘English’ pronunciations like ‘car’ or ‘farm’. What we found was that there was more agreement among participants on the association of not pronouncing ‘r’ with being English than of pronouncing ‘r’ with being Scottish. 2:10Skip to 2 minutes and 10 secondsSo what does this finding tell us? Well, it seems to back up the previous research in this area. But what we can now say is not only are there differences in how stable or not rhoticity is in different speech communities along the Scottish/English border, but also that the perception of an association with the sound and the social category of ‘Scotland’ is different too and mirrors the patterns in speech. By using the SCAT, it was possible to see the levels of community agreement on this association which we can then tie to what people actually produce in speech.

Verbal and matched guise tests, and sense-relation networks

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Now let’s look in more detail at the sort of data collection methods that are used in sociolinguistic research. In particular, these methods focus on collecting data about language attitudes.

Verbal guise test and matched guise test Firstly, there is what is called a verbal guise test. This term (although it looks scary!) describes a pretty straightforward experiment design. In a verbal guise test, participants listen to different speakers reading out the same text. Most commonly, the recording(s) that participants listen to involve speakers with different regional accents reading aloud the same list of words. The participants’ job is to assess various qualities related to the voices that they hear.

In some cases, the participants might be asked to evaluate how friendly or intelligent a voice sounds. The idea here is to tap in to which pronunciations are linked with these somewhat abstract qualities. Participants might also be tasked with trying to identify the geographical region where they think the speaker is from. It might be of interest to the researcher to look at whether people who are more familiar with an accent have stronger views toward it.

One potential issue with this verbal guise approach is that different speakers with the same accent might produce speech that is slightly different - even if they are reading the same words out loud. As such, listeners might be assessing voices based on an individual speaker’s way of pronouncing words, rather than evaluating the accent more generally. To get around this issue with the verbal guise test, another type of tool was developed known as the matched guise test.

Instead of using different speakers, the matched guise test uses speech from the same speaker throughout the experiment and the speaker changes what accent they use. One way of collecting this sort of speech data would be to hire a voice actor who can portray different accents. By using this method, we can have better control over the more individualistic properties of people’s voices. Each listener’s assessment of the voices they hear is more likely to be based on the accent being portrayed. It is crucial in this method not to tell participants that they are only listening to one speaker throughout the experiment! Participants must believe that each voice is coming from a different speaker to conceal the experiment design.

Sense relation networks Another recent method used for speech data collection in sociolinguistic research is called sense relation networks. The idea here is to give participants a few keywords. Then, the participants are asked to come up with words which mean the same thing as the keywords. Going back to our earlier bread rolls example, we know that participants will have different names for the same thing. In this data collection approach, participants are usually given time to complete this task independently, from a few days up to a week. This time allows each participant to think of a lot of words. The picture below is an example of a sense relation network.

After completing the word list task, participants are then audio recorded in an interview about what they have written. Participants might be asked to talk about how they feel about specific words on their list, or what sort of factors influence their speech. Because the participant was given a while to complete the word list task, they have also had a chance to think about their own language use. This opportunity for self-reflection might also help the participant to feel more relaxed or better ‘prepared’ ahead of their interview.

Now you’ve been introduced to three new ways of collecting sociolinguistic data, take a moment to write down anything you feel is good or bad about these methods. If it helps, you could try thinking about what is good or bad about these methods for both the researcher and the participant. You’ll have an opportunity to discuss your thoughts in the next step. What are the strengths or weaknesses of these sociolinguistic methods?

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We’ve now had a chance to learn about a range of data collection tools available to sociolinguists. None of these methods is truly ‘better’ or ‘worse’ than one another; they all have different benefits and disadvantages.

Write down one sentence summaries for each data collection tool. You could approach this by thinking how you would explain these methods to somebody who is new to sociolinguistics. Sociolinguistic analysis of our speech data

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Before you listen to the audio file, learn from Dr Sarah Kelly what you’ll need to focus on for the upcoming analysis task of our very own sociolinguistic data.

For this task, you’ll want to keep a few items handy:

• Pen and paper

• Earphones/headphones

This recording is of Abbie and Catherine, the same speakers we heard back in Step 1.7. Here, they’re talking about their so-called ‘phone voices’ (or the voice they ‘put on’ when speaking on the phone at work).

A big part of sociolinguistic research is looking for evidence of language variation. What we’re going to focus on for our group study, is how Abbie and Catherine pronounce the ‘t’ sound in the middle and end of words. If you recall in Step 2.4, we heard some examples of [t] (like the sound you hear at the beginning of words like ‘table’ or ‘tank’). We also listened to some examples of the glottal stop sound [ʔ] (the ‘uh’ sound you can sometimes hear in words like ‘water’ or ‘what’).

The main question we’re going to explore together is do these speakers consistently produce [t] when they speak or do they consistently pronounce ‘t’ as a glottal stop [ʔ]?

There are many sensible ways you could go about this task, but here is a checklist to get you started:

• Listen to the recording (you can find it in the following step). Feel free to listen to it as many times as you like. • Write down any words where you would expect to hear a [t] sound. For example, if you expect to find [t] in the word ‘cat’ then add it to your list.

• Listen again to how the speaker pronounces that ‘t’ sound and make a note of it on your list. If you like, you could draw a table with two columns: one to list the words you’ve selected from the recording, and another column for whether you hear a [t] or a glottal stop sound. Your table might look something like this:

Word Pronunciation

cat [t]

attic [t]

water [ʔ]

Again, there is no single right or wrong way of approaching this task - try whatever comes naturally to you! If you do get stuck, or if you’re not sure about your analysis, don’t panic! We’ll be discussing how we found this task a little later on. There will also be an article to read later on which summarises what types of ‘t’ are present in the recording. That way, you can compare your results to what a sociolinguistic researcher found.

When you’re ready, listen to the recording of Abbie and Catherine. Try to make a note of how these speakers pronounce words with a ‘t’ sound. We’ve provided a transcript of the conversation below, but try to listen out for all the words that contain a ‘t’ sound first, if you can. Remember also that English spelling and pronunciation don’t match up completely, so not all of the letter ‘t’s in the transcription will be pronounced as a ‘t’ sound!

You can also think about the speakers’ attitudes towards their accents and their own language use.

Time now to share the results of your analysis in the comments!

Did the speakers always produce /t/ in the middle or end of words? Did you hear any variation in how ‘t’ sounds were pronounced by these speakers?

Transcript: Sociolinguistic analysis of our speech data

Abbie: I do you have this thing where do you have the phone voice

Catherine: Oh God yeah

Abbie: Oh it’s awful like if I get

Catherine: Oh I get complimented on my phone voice

Abbie: Oh

Catherine: Oh your phone voice sounds so friendly it’s just like yeah just because most of the time I’m pretending that I’m talking to a five year old

Abbie: You see the awful thing is that like I know that my accent is very much along of the same ilk of may I speak with the manager please and so when I’m on the phone and particularly if thing needs dealing with

Catherine: Yeah

Abbie: Let’s just put it that way then it’s like I can hear it coming in and it’s really awful

Catherine: What your accent or your

Abbie: I can hear I can hear myself becoming a lot more posh and a lot more

Catherine: Yeah

Abbie: Frustrated

Summary of results and discussion of your findings

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In approaching this type of data analysis, you have to find a way of noting the variable you’re interested in and how it was produced, so that you have a record of just how much (or how little) variation there is in the production of your linguistic variable.

In the audio recording we listened to in Step 2.12, both Abbie and Catherine vary in how they pronounce words where a ‘t’ sound is found in the middle or end of words. Sometimes, they produce /t/ (which linguists call a ‘voiceless alveolar stop’), but they also use the glottal stop. The table below lists some examples of words that occur in the audio recording where we would expect to find a ‘t’ sound. In the middle column, you’ll find the approximate time in the recording where you can find these words. Over in the far right- hand column, you can see whether the ‘t’ sound in these words was pronounced as a voiceless alveolar stop (/t/) or as a glottal stop:

Time in Step 2.12 Word Pronunciation recording (seconds)

complimented 8 [ʔ]

time 12 [t] Time in Step 2.12 Word Pronunciation recording (seconds)

pretending 13 [t]

talking 14 [t]

accent 19 [ʔ]

particularly 28 [t]

it 37 [ʔ]

accent 38 [ʔ]

lot 41 [t] Time in Step 2.12 Word Pronunciation recording (seconds)

frustrated 43 [t]

So what do these data tell us? Mainly that, for both speakers, there is variation in how they say ‘t’. This variation only occurs in the middle and end of words. There are no examples of ‘t’ being pronounced as a glottal stop [ʔ], or ‘uh’ sound, at the beginning of a word. These speakers also both vary in their pronunciation of this linguistic variable. This variation occurs even when these speakers have personal differences between them. For example, Abbie is older than Catherine and speaks with a standard English accent. Catherine has a more complex regional background, having been born and raised in Birmingham, before moving to Yorkshire.

Despite these differences in background, both speakers vary their pronunciation of ‘t’ sounds word medially and finally. As we saw in Step 2.4, making a glottal stop sound for ‘t’ is typical for English speakers. This pronunciation is also expected to be restricted to particular places in a word. Now we have some data which backs up this claim!

In the comments, share your thoughts on how easy/difficult you found this data analysis task! You could even suggest alternative ways of approaching it.

To what extent did your findings align with the ones mentioned by Sarah? What was different? Recap of Week 2

111 comments Just like in Week 1, we take the time to recap on this week’s content and to provide you with a list of terms you have learned about this week.

This week’s focus was on methods in sociolinguistic research and we started out learning about linguistic variables and how you can have different ways of saying the same thing. We learned about linguistic factors by looking at the glottal stop and talked about the differentiation between explicit and implicit attitudes.

We also learned about different approaches to collecting data about language attitudes, such as SCAT or matched guise tests, and were able to reflect critically on them. We then ended the week with an analysis of our own speech data and discussed the results. Additional resources for Week 2

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Below are some additional sources to read and explore.

The following two books could be of interest to you after this week’s content:

Beal, J. C. (2010). An Introduction to Regional Englishes: Dialect Variation in England. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Setter, J. (2019). Your Voice Speaks Volumes: It’s Not What You Say, But How You Say It. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Check out the official TUULS webpage, a project we talked about this week.

Read more about the Social Category Association Test case study on the English Language Toolkit website.