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 / 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 H 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 lAIrish 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 (Honeyl998, 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 might be perceived from the phonaesthetic point of view. In this area, the works of J. C. Wells (1982), Peter Roach (1991), Clive Upton (2004), Jane Stuart-Smith (2004) and Raymond Hickey (2013) have proven to be valuable sources. In the second part, the focus is shifted from phonetics to sociolinguistics. A brief overview of accent in the context of the field is introduced, as well as cultural stereotypes in media that may influence perceptions of the accents. This part then includes instances of Irish and Scottish accents being used to communicate certain character traits to viewers in contemporary films and TV series that the respondents are likely familiar with. This chapter is greatly influenced by publications from John Honey (1998), J.K. Chambers (2009), and mostly by works of William Labov. However, the first two chapters only provide a necessary background for the last, third chapter of the thesis, which deals with the methods and results of the research. The goal of this section is to describe the research methods as well as preliminary expectations of the results, evaluate the results of both groups and conclude whether the research conclusively proved that people who are familiar with cultural stereotypes tied to Scottish and Irish accents find them more phonaesthetically pleasing than those who 13 are perceiving them without prior knowledge of these stereotypes, solely based on their recognition of RP as the more acceptable variety. 14 1. Phonology of Celtic accents1 Before delving into the stereotypes surrounding Celtic accents, it is necessary to understand what an accent is, as well as how the instances differ from each other. Therefore, this chapter will be examining phonology of the accents in questions, especially those features that a typical layperson may recognise. 1.1 Accent versus dialect First step to fully grasp the differences in phonaesthetic perceptions when it comes to different accents is to fully establish the phonological differences between the accents in question and the Received Pronunciation, which I will consider a basis for the subsequent comparisons. However, before further exploring the accents' phonology, it is necessary to fully define the difference between an accent and a dialect, as this is an issue that English linguistics approaches differently from many other countries; especially when it comes to Scotland. As Hughes, Trudgill and Watt (2012) state, a dialect is traditionally considered as variation of not only pronunciation, but also grammar. It shows the speaker's cultural background. For instance, Cockney is therefore considered a dialect, as well as Scots in Scotland. An accent, on the other hand, is distinct in pronunciation, but does not inherently reflect the same level of cultural background (p. 1-9). While this problematic is definitely much more complex than suggested by this simple overview and some authors use these terms interchangeably, this thesis will adhere to this distinction and will be dealing primarily with the accents, the reason being the 1 To illustrate certain points in this chapter, symbols from the international phonetic alphabet will be used. The symbols for RP are provided in the first section, any additional symbols from the Celtic accents are then explained in context of the table used for RP. 15 dichotomy between Scottish Accent of English and Scots that will be touched upon later. That said, the following subsections will deal with the respective differences in pronunciation of Scottish and Irish accents of English2, briefly examining their phonological structure and highlighting the features that are the most different from the chosen standard - the RP. That said, consonant and vowel system 3of each accent will be introduced to help with the explanations. 1.2 Received pronunciation (RP) Before describing the examined accents themselves, it is necessary to introduce the standard they are judged upon - the Received Pronunciation. Even though RP is a concept familiar to most, if not all, English speakers, it is fair to say that its definition might not be as obvious as one might think. As Wells (1982) states: No accent is a homogenous invariant monolith - certainly not RP. So we must. consider the variability found within it. In doing so, we might be impressionistic: although RP is by far the most thoroughly described accent of English, there has been very little in the way of objective quantified investigation of its variability, (p. 279) 2 Further only SScE and IrE 3The features will be introduced in relation to the standard for each accent, rather than in correlation to the dialect or idiolects of each speaker - partly because of the decision to focus on accents rather than dialects, but also because the recordings do not provide enough material to conduct a thorough background analysis of the exact variety the speakers possess.