Accent and Dialect
Giles' matched guise technique;
explored the feelings and judgements people had towards
others based on accent and discovered that the most respected accent in the UK was Received Pronunciation as it was viewed as the accent of an intellectual individual.
M.A.K. Halliday, A. McIntosh and P. Strevens;
discovered that more rural accents are viewed as more friendly and approachable than urban accents which are viewed in a more negative light. They also concluded that no dialect is linguistically 'better' than another and that judgements on both accents and dialects are decided upon socially.
Martha's Vineyard study by Labov;
explaining the Convergence and Divergence theory describes how a group of locals thickened their accents to seem different to the tourists who would visit to seem more distant from them
Dialect leveling;
The amount a person travels in their life is a key part in how they pronounce phrases, If someone travels a lot to places with strong accents they may pick up that accent and incorporate it into their own this is known as dialect leveling. This has been enhanced in recent years due to the ability to travel farther and much more easily around the world.
New York department store rhotic R research;
Labov studied people in department stores in New York it showed that speech patterns were something of a highly systematic structure of social/stylistic stratification. Labov studied how the letter 'r' is pronounced with a word and where it was placed in the word.The letter 'r' had only been reintroduced into the new york accent in 1960. He studied the language of employees in 3 different stores which were all different class. This was because he found that the pronunciation of 'r' occurred and its "frequent of use depended on the speakers’ membership to particular socioeconomic status" Findings: New York was found to be stratified in class, pronounciaion of the 'r' depended on their social status within the employees. People pronounced their 'r's more frequently if they were higher within their social class.
Gender & Power
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