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LELA 10082

Describing accents IV

Case study: Liverpool

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Liverpool accent Spoken in quite

restricted area around city, though influences accents (due to migration!) as “far” away as Southport, Warrington, Chester/North Wales

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Liverpool accent• Northern accent with no /~/ distinction, and typical /a~/

distribution• But quite unlike other local accents (rural Lancs, Cheshire)

in other respects: close /i/ in city, diphthongs for /ei,ou/• Said to derive from C19 migration of Manx, Scots, Welsh

and above all Irish – certainly there are Gaelic features in the accent

• Amazingly, ignored in 1950-61 Survey of English Dialects• Actually (like most accents) there are numerous varieties,

in particular “hard, gritty” vs “soft, lyrical”• Distinctive intonation range (though more marked in

recent years)

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Most distinctive feature

• “Lenition” of stop consonants• Realisation as fricatives or affricates of /t/

and /k/ especially, and to an extent /p/• General “lax” articulation of voiced stop

consonants /b,d,g/

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Endocentric analysis of /t/ phoneme(strongest accent)

• If realised as [s], forms homophone pairs– sin/tin, lesser/letter, pass/pat, sri/tree, sop/stop, rice/rights,

chance/chant• Word-finally may be realised as [h]

– but [bh], what [wh]– But this is allophonic free variation, as [bs] and [ws] are also possible– And existence of /h/ phoneme is in doubt

• Similar situation with medial: – Got a letter may be [əə], [ələ– This may be incidental variation, ie using /r/ phoneme

• Similar situation with lateral and nasal release: – button, bottle more likely to be heard with [] or [s]– Glottal stop otherwise not particularly common feature

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Arguments against• Many accents do make a distinction, even if /t/ is heavily

affricated• Native intuition would recognize difference

– Though this is influenced by familiarity with RP and other accents– And reinforced by the writing system– In fact, may not even agree that eg but/bus are homophones

• Distribution of allophones can be described with reference to “t in the spelling”:– final [h] in but, what (but never in bus)– medial ‘r’ sound in got to, lot of, better (but never in passer,

guesser)– Glottal stop in bottle (but never in castle)

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Word list

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Narrative text

• Speaker – Female– “middle-aged”– has lived in Liverpool all her life

• You can also hear one or two other speakers– At least one of these is also Liverpudlian

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Things to listen out for• Affricated stops:

– [x] in America, weeks (0:00), like (0:09), Walker (0:12), can’t drink, can’t smoke (0:18), walking (0:18), working (0:38), work (0:47), back (0:59) etc

– [s] in great (0:16), monitor (0:28), straight [] (0:38), extra [] (1:18)

• Realisation of /r/: – flap medially America (0:00); for her (0:37), for him

(0:59), where it (1:08); – tap or roll in great (0:16), drink (0:18), straight (0:38)

• Medial /t/ realised as tap: what if (0:33), lot of (1:08), got a job (1:15), tara (1:38) (= ta-ta)

• /h/ usually dropped: her (0:16), he’s (0:28), him (0:59)

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Accents: Summary

• When comparing English accents, it is usual (and easiest) to compare with RP

• Often there are a few very striking features which we tend to focus on, but in reality there are probably lots of others, sometimes quite subtle

• Notice we have tried to use phonetic terminology, and avoid subjective comments about attractiveness or otherwise of accents

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Regional accents in general:Key points of variation

• Realisation of // vowel• /a/ ~ // distribution• Distribution of /r/ (“rhotic” accents)• /u/ ~ // distinction• /h/ phoneme (“H dropping”)• Use of glottal stop• Status of velar nasal //• Use of /j/ in consonant clusters• “Long mid diphthonging”

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• Distribution and phoneme status of velar nasal //– Pronunciation of words ending in -ing– [] as an allophone of /n/

• “Long mid diphthonging”– Variety in quality of diphthongs /ei/ and /ou/– More southern accents have wider diphthongs– Some accents have (historically older) monophthongs

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Accent groups of the British Isles

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CL: Central LancsCN: Central northESW: Eastern southwestH: HumbersideM: MerseysideNE: North-eastSM: South MidlandsWM: West MidlandsWSW: Western southwest

Source: A. Hughes, P. Trudgill and D. Watt. English Accents and Dialects: An introduction to social and regional varieties of English in the British Isles. (4th edition) London (2005) Hodder Arnold