English accents

8. Historical change (iii)

British prestige Innovations resisted in some parts of Britain

marking criteria

D: Average awareness of issues and knowledge, without any creative development. The student has worked less than he/she should have, but their work is not of such a standard deserving to fail. This is the minimum standard required to build in the subject.

C: Good awareness of, and adequate engagement with, issues; demonstrates satisfactory broad knowledge, with viable if somewhat sketchy methodology. Some shortcomings but in general average work with viable conclusions. The structure and style should be generally clear, concise and coherent.

B: Good, highly competent work, demonstrating thorough knowledge of the subject; good critical awareness with hints of potential for independent thought; solid research, viable methodology and good application of it. The structure and style should be clear, concise and coherent.

A: Evidence of independent thought; critical awareness; wide knowledge based on thorough research; clearly articulated, solid and viable methodology; perhaps some originality or application of method, coupled with viable conclusions. The structure and style should be clear, concise and coherent. In short, a pleasure to read.

Posy essay: desiderata

Consistently distinguish writing from speech, using appropriate notation: underlining or ‘quotes’ for orthography, /slashes/ or [brackets] for transcribed speech.

Make clear the difference between special spellings that imply a particular non-standard pronunciation and those that do not (‘eye-dialect’: wot, bitta, actcherly, jus’, dunno).

Correctly identify and describe the phonetic processes depicted, including the constraints on them. Properly distinguish elision (deletion) / assimilation / fronting / stopping / glottalling.

Correctly identify the orthographic devices used by the cartoonist, including the use of hyphens and apostrophes. Show awareness of the principles of English spelling.

Recent changes in RP: (i) early twentieth century

1  // in CLOTH words cloth, cough, cross, lost, off, often…

FORCE merger: loss of // ( //) floor = flaw, four = for, source = sauce

GOAT fronting: [] goat, over the road, oh no

loss of [] obey, November, biological, microphone

opening of // that bad man

replacement of [] by [] very sorry for any errors

Recent changes in RP: (ii) mid twentieth century

loss of // (//) poor, sure, cure, your(s), you’re

drift from weak // to // possible, visible, sanity, carelessness

plosive epenthesis fence, instance, conscience, emphasis

yod coalescence before weak V actual, perceptual, gradual

glottalling of /t/ _C, _#C football, witness, atlas, network, quite C

glottal /t/

button [ ˈbʌtn,, ˈbʌʔn,]

footprint [ ˈfʊtʰprɪntʰ, ˈfʊt 2prɪnt 2, ˈfʊʔprɪnʔ ]

Recent changes in RP: (iii) late twentieth century

weak final [] [] (“//”) happy, coffee; various, radiate

backing of // before [] told, cold, goal, whole

• unrounding, fronting of // spoon, you, good

• glottalling of /t/ in envs. _#V, _ quite easy, not only, right.

• vocalization of /l/ ([]) milk, shelf, feel, table, middle

• yod coalescence before strong V Tuesday, tune, reduce, duke

• monophthonging of // [] fair and square, Mary

• “uptalk” (HR on statement) My name’s Mary /Smith.

• s-affricate assimilation () _: strong _: student

The symbol i

green — grin

sleep — slip

feeling — filling

happy

coffee

valley

glorious

tell me

i

Wells, 2000:Longman

PronunciationDictionary

uptalk

(old) \Hi. | 'I’m 'Cathy \Pomeroy. | I’m a 'customer \service agent.

(new) \Hi. | 'I’m 'Cathy /Pomeroy. | I’m a 'customer /service agent.

There was this /girl | who lived like 'three doors /down from me.

We’re 'working \/people, | but our 'pay doesn’t re/flect that.

s → ʃ / _ tr, tʃ

s-affricate assimilation

[s] changes to [ʃ] before an affricate

strongʃtrɒŋ

studentˈʃtʃuːdnBt