Masaryk University Faculty of Arts Department of English and American Studies English Language and Literature Anna Havránková The Role of Stereotypes in Phonaesthetic Perception: Celtic Accents of English Bachelor's Diploma Thesis Supervisor: PhDr. Kateřina Tomková, Ph.D. 2017 5 I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography. …................................................ Author’s signature 6 Acknowledgements: First, and most of all, I would like to thank my supervisor PhDr. Kateřina Tomková, Ph.D. for offering her expertise and valuable insight, aiding greatly throughout the whole process. I would also like to thank everyone who took their time to participate in the research, as well as those who helped to spread the word amongst other potential respondents, for without them the research would not have been successful. 7 Table of Contents List of figures ..................................................................................................... 10 List of tables ....................................................................................................... 11 Introduction ....................................................................................................... 12 1. Phonology of Celtic accents .......................................................................... 15 1.1 Accent versus dialect ......................................................................... 15 1.2 Received pronunciation (RP) ............................................................ 16 1.2.1 Vowels ................................................................................ 17 1.2.2 Consonants ......................................................................... 18 1.2.3 Prosodic features ................................................................ 20 1.3 Standard Scottish English (SScE) ..................................................... 21 1.3.1 Vowels ................................................................................ 21 1.3.2 Consonants ......................................................................... 24 1.3.3 Prosodic features ................................................................ 25 1.4.Irish English (IrE)............................................................................. 25 1.4.1 Vowels ................................................................................ 26 1.4.2 Consonants ......................................................................... 28 1.4.3. Prosodic features ............................................................... 29 1.5 Phonaestethics ................................................................................... 30 2. Sociolinguistics and accent ........................................................................... 31 8 2.1 Accent and prestige ....................................................................................... 32 2.2 Media stereotypes ......................................................................................... 35 3. Practical section ........................................................................................................ 38 3.1 Research methods and goals ......................................................................... 38 3.2 Preliminary expectations ............................................................................... 40 3.3 Results from group A – “watchers “ ............................................................. 40 3.3.1 SScE ............................................................................................... 41 3.3.2 IrE ................................................................................................... 45 3.4. Results from group B – “non-watchers” ...................................................... 48 3.4.1 SScE ............................................................................................... 48 3.4.2 IrE ................................................................................................... 51 4. Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 54 Bibliography .................................................................................................................. 56 Primary sources ................................................................................................... 56 Secondary sources ............................................................................................... 56 Summaries ..................................................................................................................... 60 English ................................................................................................................ 60 Czech ................................................................................................................... 61 Appendices ..................................................................................................................... 63 Group A questionnaire ........................................................................................ 63 Group B questionnaire ........................................................................................ 66 9 List of figures Fig. 1: RP Vowels (Roach 2004, p. 242) ........................................................................ 17 Fig. 2: RP consonants (Roach 2004, p. 242) .................................................................. 18 Fig. 3: Basilect/hyperlect continuum (Honey1998, p. 96) .............................................. 34 Fig. 4: Group A SScE evaluation .................................................................................... 41 Fig. 5: Group A SScE preference graph ......................................................................... 42 Fig. 6: Group A IrE evaluation ....................................................................................... 45 Fig. 7: Group A IrE preference graph ............................................................................. 46 Fig. 8: Group B SScE evaluation .................................................................................... 48 Fig. 9: Group B SScE preference graph ......................................................................... 50 Fig. 10: Group B IrE evaluation ..................................................................................... 51 Fig. 11: Group B IrE preference graph ........................................................................... 52 10 List of tables Tab. 1: Wells’ RP lexical sets ......................................................................................... 18 Tab. 2: Wells’ SScE lexical sets ..................................................................................... 22 Tab. 3: Wells’ IrE lexical sets ......................................................................................... 27 Tab. 4: Hickey’s IrE consonantal lexical sets ................................................................. 29 11 Introduction Accents of English that are considered non-standard have always been subject to stereotyping. People are often presented with these stereotypes through media and pop culture, which may shape their judgements and possibly even their phonaesthetic perceptions. In films and TV series, people are most likely to associate Australian varieties of English with surfers and explorers, just as they may expect an American farmer to have a strong Southern accent without having more information about their actual geographical and cultural backgrounds; even though in reality these accents might just as well belong to an average white-collar worker. For this reason, when it comes to native speakers, it is nearly impossible to measure how they perceive these accents from purely phonaesthetic point of view, since they cannot distinguish their preference of certain sounds from these stereotypes that have become a part of their culture. However, this thesis takes two lay groups of Czech and Slovak speakers – hence speakers sharing similar language backgrounds – and compares how the judgements of those who regularly come into contact with English media differ from the judgements of those who are not interested in the language or the culture surrounding it. In the current modern era where English functions as a lingua franca, it is of course impossible to assume that any layperson would be utterly unfamiliar with the English language. For this reason, the thesis does not claim to contrast the perceptions of those who are familiar with the sounds of English and of those who are not. It rather presupposes that while respondents from one group will have their perceptions based purely on their knowledge of the preferred standard variety of the language, the others will show a shift in their perceptions due to their exposure to media. 12 This thesis focuses on Scottish and Irish accents, since they have very distinctive features and it therefore makes them the easy to distinguish from RP which is used as a basis for any comparisons. They also often occur in both British and American media and there are many cultural stereotypes connected to them. The Welsh accent is omitted, since it is rarely present in the media and there are no major stereotypes tied to it. The thesis is divided into three chapters. The first one focuses on the phonetic description of the two accents, how they differ from RP and the way these features