Masarykova univerzita Filozofická fakulta Katedra anglistiky a amerikanistiky Bakalářská diplomová práce 2019 Roman Šťáva Masaryk University Faculty of Arts Department of English and American Studies English Language and Literature Roman Šťáva Birmingham Accent in Peaky Blinders Bachelor’s Diploma Thesis Supervisor: PhDr. Kateřina Tomková, Ph.D. 2019 I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography. …………………………………………….. Author’s signature Acknowledgement I would sincerely want to thank my supervisor PhDr. Kateřina Tomková, Ph.D., for her incredible patience with my person during the process of writing of this thesis, for all of her advice about the topic that I have chosen and also for all the encouragement that has allowed me to finish this work. I would also like to thank my family for always supporting me in any of my endeavours. Table of Contents List of Figures .............................................................................................................. 1 List of Tables................................................................................................................ 2 1. Introduction ........................................................................................................ 4 1.1 Peaky Blinders’ Plot Summary ...................................................................... 5 2. The Accent Theory ............................................................................................. 7 2.1 What is an Accent ........................................................................................... 7 2.2 Received Pronunciation (RP) ......................................................................... 8 2.2.1 Some features of RP: ............................................................................. 12 2.3 Birmingham Accent (Brummie) .................................................................. 13 2.3.1 Prosodic features: .................................................................................. 14 2.3.2 Vowels of Brummie: ............................................................................. 14 2.3.3 Historical background of the Birmingham accent ................................ 16 2.3.4 The Accent Coaches of the Actors of Peaky Blinders .......................... 18 2.3.5 Brummie popularity over the course of the series ................................ 19 2.4 Accent Intonation and its Effects ................................................................. 24 2.5 Discussion ..................................................................................................... 28 3. Accent in the series and its performance by the actors .................................... 30 3.1 Cillian Murphy as Thomas “Tommy” Shelby .............................................. 30 3.1.1 Speech Examples .................................................................................. 32 3.2 Helen McCrory as Aunt Polly (Elizabeth Gray) .......................................... 37 3.2.1 Speech examples: .................................................................................. 39 3.3 Harry Kirton as Finn Shelby ......................................................................... 43 3.3.1 Speech examples: .................................................................................. 44 3.4 Accent as an expression of villainy .............................................................. 49 3.5 Discussion ..................................................................................................... 50 4 Conclusion ........................................................................................................... 51 Bibliography ............................................................................................................... 52 Sources ................................................................................................................... 52 References .............................................................................................................. 55 Summary in English ................................................................................................... 56 Summary in Czech ..................................................................................................... 57 Appendix A – CD with related audio recordings from the series .............................. 59 List of Figures Figure 1 – Brummie vowel system ................................................................................. 13 Figure 2 – Google Trends 2013 ...................................................................................... 22 Figure 3 – Google Trends 2014 ...................................................................................... 22 Figure 4 – Google Trends 2016 ...................................................................................... 23 Figure 5 - Google Trends 2017 ....................................................................................... 23 1 List of Tables Table 1 – RP and trad-RP vowels ................................................................................... 10 Table 2 – RP consonants ................................................................................................. 12 Table 3 - Brummie Study ................................................................................................ 24 Table 4 - Brummie Malarski study 1 .............................................................................. 27 Table 5 - Brummie Malarski study 2 .............................................................................. 28 Table 6 - C. Murphy S1E3 - base ................................................................................... 32 Table 7 - C. Murphy S1E3 - RP...................................................................................... 33 Table 8 - C. Murphy S1E3 - Brummie ........................................................................... 33 Table 9 - C. Murphy S4E4 - base ................................................................................... 34 Table 10 - C. Murphy S4E4 - RP.................................................................................... 35 Table 11 - C. Murphy S4E4 - Brummie ......................................................................... 36 Table 12 - H. McCrory - S1E2 - base ............................................................................. 39 Table 13 - H. McCrory - S1E2 - RP ............................................................................... 40 Table 14 - H. McCrory - S1E2 - Brummie ..................................................................... 40 Table 15 - H. McCrory - S4E5 - base ............................................................................. 41 Table 16 - H. McCrory - S4E5 - RP ............................................................................... 41 Table 17 - H. McCrory - S4E5 - Brummie ..................................................................... 41 Table 18 - H. McCrory - S4E6 - base ............................................................................. 42 Table 19 - H. McCrory - S4E6 - RP ............................................................................... 42 Table 20 - H. McCrory - S4E6 - Brummie ..................................................................... 42 Table 21 - H. Kirton S4E3 - base .................................................................................... 44 Table 22 - H. Kirton S4E3 - RP ...................................................................................... 45 Table 23 - H. Kirton S4E3 - Brummie ............................................................................ 45 Table 24 - H. Kirton S4E3 scene 2 - base ....................................................................... 46 2 Table 25 - H. Kirton S4E3 scene 2 - RP ......................................................................... 47 Table 26 - H. Kirton S4E3 scene 2 - Brummie ............................................................... 48 3 1. Introduction In this day and age, there are many television series being produced and often they are following a tried and true framework to guarantee that the viewers will stay with the show and that the sales generated by the production will be satisfying. Regrettably, shows that employ such limiting resources can never truly shine. If a show is made in a way that it does not try to excel in some respect it ultimately loses some of its potential charm. Television works, not having the usual constraints of reality, can achieve so much and yet many shows simply decide to follow something that has been done many times before, merely copying them and staying in the pre-determined tracks. In this respect, the series Peaky Blinders is different and that is why I have decided to look into the work behind this series in more detail. First I am going to introduce the accents that I will be working with – Received Pronunciation and Brummie – and present some of their linguistic features. In the following chapter the historical background of Brummie will be discussed briefly to get acquainted with the accent on a deeper level and to explain some possible irregularities related to the name. Next the voice coaches of the series are shortly discussed before moving to how the show itself has affected the popularity of the Brummie accent. The following chapter deals with the intonation of an accent, in this case, Brummie. The