TRABAJO FIN DE GRADO
Título
Varieties of English: a study of some vocalic systems
Autor/es
Andrea Monasterio León
Director/es
Roberto Torre Alonso
Facultad
Facultad de Letras y de la Educación
Titulación
Grado en Estudios Ingleses
Departamento
Curso Académico
2012-2013
Varieties of English: a study of some vocalic systems, trabajo fin de grado
de Andrea Monasterio León, dirigido por Roberto Torre Alonso (publicado por la
Universidad de La Rioja), se difunde bajo una Licencia
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©
El autor
Universidad de La Rioja, Servicio de Publicaciones, 2013
publicaciones.unirioja.es
E-mail: [email protected]
Trabajo de Fin de Grado
Varieties of English: a study of
some vocalic systems
Autor:
ANDREA MONASTERIO LEÓN
Tutor/es:
Fdo.ROBERTO TORRE ALONSO
Titulación:
Grado en Estudios Ingleses [601G]
Facultad de Letras y de la Educación AÑO ACADÉMICO: 2012/2013
Table of contents
Abstract
iii
Resumen
iv
1.Introduction
1
1.1. Relevance of the topic
1
1.2. Objectives
2
2. Methodology
5
2.1. Research Methodology
5
2.2. Describing sounds
6
2.3. Standard English: Received Pronunciation
8
2.3.1. Varieties of RP
9
2.3.2. Variability in Received Pronunciation
10
2.3.3. The vowel system in RP
11
2.3.4. Some cases of phonemic variability in RP
13
3. English accents and dialects
3.1. England
3.1.1. Northern England
15
15
15
3.1.1.1. Establishing the boundaries
15
3.1.1.2. Features of Northern English
17
3.1.2. Cockney
20
3.1.2.1. Geographical limits
20
3.1.2.2. Features of the Cockney accent
21
3.2. Irish English
24
3.2.1. The origins of Irish English
24
3.2.2. Features of Irish English
25
3.2.2.1. Dublin
26
3.2.2.2. Galway
27
3.2.2.3. Belfast
28
3.3. American English
29
3.3.1. US English
29
3.3.1.1. Diversity and homogenisation
29
3.3.1.2. Features of General American
30
3.3.2. Canadian English
3.3.2.1. History, settlement and influences
32
32
i
3.3.2.2. Features of Canadian English
3.4. Oceania
3.4.1. Australia
33
35
35
3.4.1.1. The origins of Australian English
35
3.4.1.2. Features of Australian English
36
3.4.2. New Zealand
38
3.4.2.1. The colonisation of New Zealand
38
3.4.2.2. Features of New Zealand English
38
3.5. Final remarks
4. Conclusions and lines of future research
40
41
4.1. Conclusions
41
4.2. Lines of future research
43
References
45
Appendix 1: The International Phonetic Alphabet
49
ii
VARIETIES OF ENGLISH: A STUDY OF SOME VOCALIC SYSTEMS
Abstract:
English is the most widely spoken language in the world. The expansion of the British
Empire during the 16th and 17th centuries made English settle in all the continents
around the world. The settlers took their own language with them, along with regional
particularities and variations. The distance with the mother country and the passing of
time, along with the interaction with the local languages contributed to the setting down
of grammatical, lexical and phonological differences and to the development of the
different varieties of English we know nowadays. This has been largely studied, both
from a general (Gimson 1994; Schneider et al. 2008) and a more restricted perspective
focused on particular areas (Joyce 1910; Franklyn 1953).
This piece of research intends to be a review of the changes that have taken
place on the vowel systems of some of the most relevant English varieties. Thus, the
dialects of Northern England, Cockney, Irish English, American and Canadian English,
Australian and New Zealand English are studied. In the present study, diphthongs and
consonants have been left out, for the limitations of time and space imposed by the type
of work.
The most relevant data obtained from the analysed varieties are that not only
linguistic but also historical facts contribute to the differentiation of English. Hence, the
American and North of England or even Irish varieties show similar characteristics
(happy-tensing, pronunciation of the /r/, etc..), because many of the settlers that arrived
in America came from these areas. However, though similar in origin, further
developments are taking diverting roads (allophonic variations). The separation from
England ended in the growth of nationalistic and independence claims. These linguistic
differences were used as a powerful argument and led to the development of
endonormative stabilisation (Schneider 2010).
iii
Resumen:
El inglés es una de las lenguas más habladas en el mundo. La expansión del Imperio
Británico durante los siglos XVI y XVII hizo que este idioma se instalara en todos los
continentes del mundo. Los colonizadores llevaron consigo su propia lengua, además de
las particularidades y variedades regionales. La distancia con respecto a su tierra natal y
el paso del tiempo, junto a la interacción con las lenguas locales, contribuyeron al
establecimiento de las diferencias gramaticales, léxicas y fonológicas, y al desarrollo de
las diferentes variedades de inglés que hoy en día conocemos. Esto ha sido ampliamente
estudiado, tanto desde una perspectiva general (Gimson 1994; Schneider et al. 2008)
como desde una perspectiva más centrada en áreas particulares (Joyce 1910; Franklyn
1953).
En este trabajo de investigación se pretende llevar a cabo un análisis de los
cambios que han tenido lugar en los sistemas vocálicos de algunas de las variedades
más importantes del inglés. De este modo, se estudiará el inglés perteneciente al norte
de Inglaterra, el Cockney, el inglés irlandés, el americano, el canadiense, el australiano y
por último, el neocelandés. En el presente estudio, los diptongos y consonantes han sido
excluidos debido a las limitaciones de tiempo y espacio impuestas para este tipo de
trabajo.
Los datos más importantes obtenidos del análisis de estas variedades indican que
no sólo factores lingüísticos, sino que también los hechos históricos contribuyeron al
surgimiento de distintas variedades del inglés. Por lo tanto, la variedad norteamericana
y la del norte de Inglaterra o incluso, la de Irlanda, muestran características similares
(happy-tensing, la pronunciación de la /r/, etc.) debido a que muchos de los
colonizadores que llegaron a América provenían de estas zonas. Sin embargo, a pesar de
ser similares en origen, nuevos desarrollos han ido tomando caminos diferentes
(variedades alofónicas). La separación de estos países con respecto a Inglaterra
contribuyó al surgimiento de declaraciones nacionalistas e independentistas. Estas
diferencias lingüísticas se utilizaron como un arma poderosa para mostrar este
nacionalismo, lo que llevó al desarrollo de una estabilización endonormativa (Schneider
2010).
iv
1. Introduction
1.1. Relevance of the topic
Much concern has been expressed about World Englishes. Billions of people all around
the world speak English. Nevertheless, it is not the same variety of English they speak.
The language has been localised and indigenised to various degrees and there are subtle
and not so subtle differences at grammatical, lexical and phonological levels, to the
point that we speak of world englishes instead of World English. We observe phonetic
and phonological variation in words such as tomato both pronounced /t@ˈmAːt@U/ and
/t@ˈmeIt@U/ in British and American English respectively; grammatical variation is
shown in sentences such as I will see you, I will see y'all, or I will see youse uttered in
England, the States and Ireland, and finally, lexical variation in words like lorry versus
truck.
This concern has mainly centred on metropolitan standards and most studies
were based on British and American English rather than on colonial standards that
would account for other varieties such as Australian, New Zealand English or Creole
Englishes like Jamaican Patwa. Recently, there has been a growing interest in all the
existing varieties and even more in those that have become standard varieties as is the
case of Australian English. The International Corpus of English (ICE), which started in
1990 with the primary aim of collecting material for comparative studies of English
worldwide, has many written and spoken texts of a large number of varieties such as
Canada, East Africa, Jamaica or Singapore. The main reason why this issue is growing
importance is because English is spoken by 2,000 million people and it is the most
important and influential language all over the entire world. English is everyday used as
a lingua franca between speakers of different languages. Even in countries such as
Nigeria, English has been used to communicate because of its ethnic neutrality in order
to treat all ethnic groups equally.
On the phonological-phonetic level various authors have paid attention to the
variation among englishes. I cannot but mention Gimson's pronunciation of English
(1994), a general guide to the study of worldwide English phonetics and Schneider et
al’s (2008) A handbook of Varieties of English (vol. 1), which is a compilation of
studies on phonological variation in the englishes spoken all around the world. Both
1
books cover a large number of general and regional dialects and their main phonetic
features having a look at vowels, diphthongs, triphthongs, and consonants.
Having studied a subject on English phonetics and phonology which is strongly
focused on the Received Pronunciation (RP) phonetic system, I am interested in
plunging into other phonetic varieties and the way they contrast with the standard
pronunciation that is used for academic purposes.
Throughout this paper I will review some relevant dialects of English, including
the englishes of the British Isles (Northern England, Cockney, Ireland), those of
America (the US and Canada), and those of Oceania (Australia and New Zealand). As
will be explained later I will pay attention to the differences in the vocalic system and
the allophonic realisations as compared to the standard RP English.
1.2. Objectives
The main purpose of the present paper is to provide a bibliographical review and
research of the literature on some of the most relevant English varieties that currently
exist all around the world.
For so doing, I will compare the vocalic systems and phonemic realisations of
several world englishes with the so-called Received Ponunciation, considered as the
standard variety by many authors such as Gimson (1994) or Trudgill (1999).
This dissertation aims at reflecting how sociolinguistic circumstances and
political issues have influenced the language spoken in each territory leading the
establishment of great differences in far away regions.
The work also intends to identify similarities between dialects and find out if
they can be explained throughout historical, cultural or other reasons.
Finally, with this piece of research I try to increase both the general and specific
knowledge acquired throughout the degree. By dealing not only with phonetics and
phonology, but also with historical, cultural and sociolinguistic studies, the realisation
of this dissertation directly relates to a number of subjects studied in the degree as
English Phonetics and Phonology, Diachrony and Typology of the English Language,
North American Literature, and finally, Other literatures in the English Language.
To attain these goals, this paper is distributed as follows: Section 2 presents the
methodological lines that guide this research (2.1); a definition of the features that
2
define the vowel phonemes and the symbols of the International Phonetic Alphabet1
(IPA) (2.2), and a description of RP and its vocalic system (2.3). Section 3 introduces a
description of the varieties of English studied, namely England (3.1), Ireland (3.2),
American English (3.3) and Oceania English (3.4) and is closed with some final
remarks (3.5). Finally, Section 4 offers some relevant conclusions (4.1) and depicts
some of the lines of future research this work has opened (4.2).
1
For a complete description of the IPA alphabet, see Appendix 1
3
2. Methodology
2.1. Research Methodology
The core of this work is a bibliographical review on English phonetics across dialectal
variety. This means that the works on which I draw are either focused on phonology and
phonetics from a more purely theoretical perspective, or on sociolinguistics and, thus,
focus on dialectal variation, which might not be exclusively phonetic.
In the first group, I must include the reference books we were provided with
during our degree, as Roach (2000) or Gimson (1989, 1994). The second group can be
divided between those books that provide general information about several dialects and
those books that deal with a specific variety in a very exhaustive way.
Within the first group I would like emphasize Schneider et al’s (2008) A
handbook of Varieties of English and Kortmann and Burridge’s (2008) Varieties of
English. Both compile similar information. However, they are organized in a different
way. The first is divided into two volumes: phonology and grammar whereas the second
one is divided into three books according to different areas in the world: The British
Isles, The Americas and the Caribbean, and The Pacific and Australasia. Another book
that is important not only with respect to RP but also to many others varieties is
Gimson’s pronunciation of English (1994). Schneider’s (2010) English around the
World provides information about a large number of varieties. Lastly, Trudgill and
Hanna’s (2008) International English: a guide to the varieties of Standard English
provides information about many Englishes such as Australian, New Zealand and Irish
English. However, from my point of view, Schneider’s (2010) English Around the
World is much more complete.
In the second group, among those books that only investigate a single or at the
most two varieties, I necesarily have to remark Franklyn’s (1953) The Cockney: A
survey of London Life and Language, Ó Muirithe’s (1997) English language in Ireland
and Turner’s (1966) The English Language in Australia and New Zealand. They all
provide a historical background and phonetic information about the variety/ies.
However, this study is not only descriptive, but also contrastive. Accordingly, I
need to make use of a widely accepted variety against which I can contrast all these
varieties. As I previously mentioned, this variety will be RP English, as it is the one
scholars usually describe as the standard variety of English, and the one which is used
5
for theoretical studies on English phonology. Moreover it is the variety I have been
taught during my degree. Therefore, I found it natural to use this variety as the central
one to describe the phonetic features of the English vowels and to use it as the
counterbalance to the different information found in the bibliography.2
In the following sections, I will carry out an exhaustive description of the sound
properties and the vocalic systems of different varieties of the English Language. I will
start with England, covering the North and an interesting variety called Cockney,
usually spoken by working-class Londoners. The next subsection will include Ireland.
Once Europe has been mostly explained, I will embrace the main features of the United
States and Canada. Finally, I will focus my attention on Australia and New Zealand.
I am conscious that there are several important varieties left as those of Africa,
India, the Caribbean or even the South of England which I have overlooked in favor of
London’s Cockney accent. It would have been interesting to cover them because despite
of the fact that they have not been so widely studied by phoneticians, they are as
important as any other studied throughout this dissertation. Moreover, as they have not
been so broadly investigated, they would have provided innovativeness to this study.
Nonetheless, the length and the time available for this dissertation are not enough. That
is why the selected varieties are most common, except for Cockney. Many people
disregard and do not respect this variety, however it compiles features of RP, London
and especially, those features belonging to the working class, being one of the most
fascinating English accents or varieties.
Before explaining the phonetic properties each variety possesses, I think it is
necessary to explain the parameters we usually use to define vowel sounds. Thus the
following subsection will get deep into the theoretical description of the vocalic
phonemes and the features that are taken into account to indicate phonemic contrasts
and the classification of these sounds.
2.2. Describing sounds
The features or parameters that allow us to classify, distinguish and define vowel
sounds are the following:
2
Following traditional notation, forward slashes (//) represent phonemes, square brackets ([]) represent
allophones and angle brackets (<>)represent spellings.
6
1. Degree of openness: It makes reference to the position of the jaws. A vowel
sound can be open, half-closed, half-open and closed. On some occasions the
terms open and close are synonyms for low and high when we describe vowels.
2. Tongue-root position: Vowels can be front or back and it depends on whether
the tongue position during the articulation of the vowel is relative to the back of
the mouth or to the front.
3. Length: It refers to the duration of the vowel. A vowel sound can be long or
short. In the case of English, length is not a discriminative factor in itself, as
there are not two sounds which are only differentiated by length. Couples of
short-long sounds present differences of quality apart from the difference in
length.
4. Lip position: It refers whether the lips are rounded or not. A vowel can be
rounded, also called labialized, or unrounded or non-labilized.
5. Tenseness: This property makes reference to the amount of energy expended
in producing the vowel. A vowel can be tense or lax. Tense vowels usually have
greater tongue involvement in the production of the sound whereas lax vowels
have less tongue involvement. E.g. the vowel in /sʊt/ is lax and its tense
counterpart is the vowel in /su:t/.
With this features, the International Phonetic Association has developed the following
chart which represents the points of articulation of all possible vocalic sounds.
Figure 1: IPA vowel quadrilateral (updated 2005)
7
2.3. Standard English: Received Pronunciation
The accent which is most widely accepted throughout England is termed Received
Pronunciation (henceforth RP). Phoneticians such as Gimson (1994) or Wells (1982)
used an old-fashioned meaning of received ‘generally accepted’ because it perfectly
described this accent. RP is also known as Standard English or BBC English. The latter
is due to the BBC’s custom to hire announcers who speak with this accent.
RP is commonly associated with people who do not really have a well-defined
accent. This means that no one can say where these people come from. Therefore, it is
settled in England, but not in any specific area.
This accent was socially considered to be that of the upper and upper middle
classes. Standard English was largely related to certain occupations such as barristers,
stockbrokers or diplomats. These people may have descended from literate parents who
spoke RP to them since they were born. Therefore, they acquired RP from the beginning
of their lives. Apart from that, they may have attended public schools, expensive elite
schools in England.
As I have previously commented, this superiority is due to a social judgement
rather than an official explanation and fixation of what is correct and what is wrong. RP
or BBC English became so popular because of the radio and the television. It is
important to say that until the 1970s, the BBC only hired presenters and newsreaders
that only spoke this variety because as Gimson (1994: 78) explains, “it was the type
which was most widely understood and which excited least prejudice of a regional
kind”.
It is very interesting to remark the fact that there are varieties that change some
of their characteristics according to RP. This does not imply that other regional accents
are disappearing but that RP is more available for English speakers, so it influences
other varieties. On the contrary, RP is rejected by some members of the community who
do not want to have anything in common with the authority.
Trudgill and Hanna (2008: 16) list several advantages and disadvantages of
speaking and learning this specific accent.
On the one side, they explain that RP is a regionless accent. They consider the
lack of association with a particular area within the United Kingdom as something
positive. Secondly, Standard English learners have the possibility of listening to many
TV programs in which RP is spoken.
8
Regarding drawbacks, only a ten per cent of the English population can be defined as
RP speakers of whom, only 3-5 per cent use this accent natively. Therefore, learners of
this variety may have problems in understanding the rest 95-97 per cent of the
population.
Secondly, just as mentioned above, RP is largely associated to the upper class
so, in certain kinds of situations, it can be regarded as an impolite way of showing
superiority.
Finally, Trudgill and Hanna (2008) explain that RP has a considerable number of
diphthongs and sometimes the relationship between pronunciation and spelling is
actually arbitrary. This may be the reason why RP could be more difficult to learn than
other accents such as Scottish English.
2.3.1. Varieties of RP
There are several theories about variation within RP. However, we are going to focus
our attention on the varieties listed by Gimson (1994) in his book Gimson’s
pronunciation of English. Gimson (1994: 80) distinguishes three kinds of RP: General
RP, Refined RP and Regional RP.
General RP is the one spoken by the BBC announcers and the one that shows no
social class or regional characteristics.
Refined RP is the variety which is associated with upper middle families and
professions largely occupied by those families. Two of the most relevant characteristics
of Refined RP are the pronunciation of [əәʊ] as [ɛʊ] and also a very open schwa /əә/ when
it occurs in final position. The vowel [ɜ:] is pronounced quite open in all positions and
finally, the vowel [æ] is usually diphthongised as [ɛæ].
Regional RP shows no social distinction but regional. Gimson (1994) explains
that some phoneticians find this variety contradictory because RP should not show any
regional characteristic. However, he thinks this label is very useful because it describes
a variety which is almost RP but shows some regional characteristics that may be
unnoticed by other RP speakers, including the fact that dark /l/ ([ɫ]) is pronounced as [ʊ]
in certain contexts, especially before consonants in word-final position, as in milk
/miʊk/ or the use of /æ/ instead of /ɑ:/ before voiceless fricatives such as in after.
9
2.3.2. Variability in Received Pronunciation
Although RP is regarded as a single accent, variability within it does exist. Hughes,
Trudgill and Watt (2005: 40-42) point out several forms of variability and the factors
that account for it.
In their work English Accents and Dialects: An Introduction to Social and
Regional Varieties of English in the British Isles, Hughes, Trudgill and Watt (2005)
identify three forms of variability in RP: systemic, realisational and lexical.
Systemic or inventory variability occurs when “different speakers have different
sets (or systems) of phonemes” Hughes, Trudgill and Watt (2005: 40). Some old
speakers of RP maintain a phonemic distinction between /ɔəә/ and /ɔ:/ which allow them
to distinguish the words pore and paw, pronouncing them as /pɔəә/ and /pɔ:/ respectively.
However, this difference is no longer perceived nor maintained by younger speakers,
who have merged both phonemes into the single vowel /ɔ:/.
Unlike systemic variability, realisational variability applies when a single
phoneme has different phonetic realisations. For instance, whereas all RP speakers
nowadays pronounce boat as /bəәʊt/, there are still some older speakers that may
pronounce this diphthong as /oʊ/. However, this pronunciation is now regarded as oldfashioned.
Finally, lexical variability makes reference to the use of different sets of
phonemes for the same word. A clear example of this variability is the pronunciation of
off. This word can be both pronounced as /ɒf/, the most common pronunciation,
and /ɔ:f/, associated with upper-class speakers.
These sorts of variability happen in words in isolation. If we have a look at
continuous speech, other minor differences can be observed. It depends on the degree of
formality, the speed and differences between people and they have an unnoticeable
relevance.
As for the reasons causing variability to occur, Hughes, Trudgill and Watt
(2005) identify the following major factors: the age of the speakers, their social class
and finally, the age at which the speakers acquire the RP accent. These authors state that
there are other minor factors for variability caused by other personal differences like
education, attitude towards other accents, speaker’s occupation, etc.
10
2.3.3. The vowel system in RP
The vowel system in RP is a topic of debate with which many authors have dealt. The
vocalic system of English includes monophthongs, diphthongs and triphthongs, but as
explained in the introduction to this piece of research, I will only focus on the
monophthongal system. I will engage in the articulatory description and the
contexts/spellings which correspond to each particular sound.
There are twelve monophthongs in RP, also called pure vowels because their
articulation is relatively fixed from the beginning to the end. In other words, while
pronouncing them, we do not change either our tongue or lip position. Typical RP
vowels are shown in figure 2 below.3 A description of each item follows.
Figure 2: The RP vowels (from Roach 2002)
1. /i:/, as in tree
This is a peripheral, front, almost fully close, tense, long, unrounded vowel,
produced with spread lips.
Spellings: <ee>, <e>, <ea>, <ie>, <ei>, <ey>, <i>, <eo>, <oe>.
2. /ɪ/, as in bit
This is a centralised, front, almost half-close, lax, short, unrounded vowel with
loosely spread lips.
Spellings: <i>, <y>, <e>, <ie>, <a>, <ui>, <u>, <o>, <ai>.
3. /e/, as in bet
3
In order to show the contrast, Roach’s (2000) symbols will be used to refer to RP whereas the IPA
symbols will be used when needed to refer to the particular realisations of the phonemes in other varieties
of English.
11
This is a peripheral, front, between half-open an half-close, lax, short, unrounded
vowel with loosely spread lips.
Spellings: <e>, <ea>, <a>, <ai>, <ay>.
4. /æ/, as in bat
This is a peripheral, front, between half-open and open, short, unrounded vowel
with neutrally open lips.
Spellings: <a> (and exceptionally <ai> in plait or plaid).
5. /A:/, as in bard
This is a peripheral, almost fully back, open, tense, long unrounded vowel with
neutrally open lips.
Spellings: <a>, <ar>, <al>, <au>, <ear>, <er>, <oir>.
6. /ɒ/, as in pot
This is a peripheral, back, almost fully open, lax, short, slightly rounded vowel.
Spellings: <o>, <wa>, <ou>, <ow>, <au>, <aw>, and exceptionally <a> (in
yatch).
7. /ɔ:/, as in board
This is a peripheral, back, between half-open and half-close, tense, long, fully
rounded vowel.
Spellings: <or>, <aw>, <ou>, <au>, <a>, <ore>, <oor>, <oar>, <our>, <oa>,
<ure>, <ea>.
8. /ʊ/, as in book
This is a centralised, back, between close and half-close, lax, short, fully
rounded vowel.
Spellings: <u>, <o>, <oo>, <ou>, <or>
9. /u:/ as in food
This is a peripheral, back, almost fully close, tense, long, fully rounded vowel.
Spellings: <oo>, <o>, <ou>, <u>, <eu>, <ew>, <ue>, <ui>, <oe>, <eau>
10. /ʌ/, as in nut
This is a centralised (between front and central), between open and half-open,
short, unrounded vowel with neutrally open lips.
Spellings: <u>, <o>, <ou>, <oo>, <oe>.
11. /ɜː/ as in bird
This is a mid-central, between half-open and half-close, long, unrounded vowel
with neutrally spread lips.
12
Spellings: <ir>, <yr>, <er>, <err>, <ear>, <ur>, <urr>, <wor>, <our>, <ol> (in
colonel /k3:nl/), <eur> (in French borrowings as liqueur /lIk3:/
12. /əә/ as in brother
Mid-central, between half-open and half-close, lax, short, unrounded vowel with
neutral lips. It is always unstressed.
Spellings: Any vowel grapheme.
With these definitions in mind, figure 3 shows the position of the RP vowels following
Roach model along with two diagrams representing the root-tongue position and the lip
position for each sound.
Figure 3: The articulation of RP vowels. (Materials from English Phonetics and Phonology).
2.3.4. Some cases of phonemic variability in RP
Some special features in the pronunciation of several RP vowels require to be
mentioned here. The distinction between /I/ and /i:/ is vanishing in some contexts.
Hughes, Trudgill and Watt (2005) explain that nowadays, there is a tendency to
pronounce words such as city like /ˈsiti/ instead of /ˈsitɪ/, the older pronunciation. This
tendency is called happy-tensing (Wells 1982; Fabricius 2002). It is not a complete
substitution of the phoneme, but rather a slight change in the tenseness of the vowel,
sufficient enough to be perceived as a different sound. In the following section, we will
see that this tensing has been taken to the extreme in some dialects, where /i:/ has
completely replaced /I/ in this context.
13
In other contexts, the vowel /I/ is currently being replaced by younger speakers with
schwa in some unstressed syllables while upper-class speakers usually say /ɪ/.
As regards /O:/ many RP speakers produce this vowel where /ɔəә/ was
pronounced before. Thus, there is not difference, between these words: pour, pore and
paw /pɔ:/.
This /O:/ vowel is also used in words that were pronounced with [ʊəә] like poor
and sure. Hughes, Trudgill and Watt (2005: 50) suggest that it is not a case of systemic
variability because “/ʊəә/ has lost its phonemic status. On the contrary, the phoneme [ʊəә]
has not completely disappeared. It is used in words such as dour and lure. The reason
why the way these two words are pronounced did not change may be the frequency with
which RP speakers use them.”
The following section will be devoted to the description of the geographical,
historical and phonetic features of some of the most relevant English accents and
dialects all over the world, and how they compare to the RP system I have taken as
basis for this study.
14
3. English accents and dialects
This section will engage in the description of some of the most well-known dialects and
accents of English. As explained above, this work is a review of dialectal variation all
over the world, so I will deal with dialects form England (section 3.1), Ireland (section
3.2), America (section 3.4) and Oceania (section 3.5). Finally some final remark will be
given (section 3.6).
3.1. England
Although there is a great dialectal differentiation in England I will focus on two major
areas for this study. The North of England, which will include some features of Scottish
English, and the South, which will be represented by the Cockney accent, proper of the
city of London.
3.1.1. Northern England
3.1.1.1. Establishing the boundaries
The boundaries that define the North of England have been explained in many different
ways by historians, tourist guides, linguists and even ordinary people. The idea of what
Northern England is depends on what we take into account to establish these
boundaries. Whereas some people take into consideration the political boundaries that
existed in former times, others prefer to rely on dialectology and divide the country
depending on the existing phonetic divergences.
Joan Beal, in his contribution in A handbook of varieties of English: Volume 1
(2008: 115), said that considering the history of England, we should define the North of
England as the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria that can be observed on the map
below.
15
Figure 4: Anglo-Saxon Britain (from Bourcier 1981)
Linguists have distinguished the North from the South of England according to
linguistic parameters. For the purpose of this work I will draw on Trudgill who, in his
work Dialects of England (1999), splits England into three areas or regions: North,
Central and South. The range of linguistic criteria he used includes the pronunciation of
long as /l&N/ vs. /lQN/, night as /ni:t/ vs. /nait/, blind as /blInd/ vs. /blaInd/, land as
/lQnd/ vs. /l&nd/, arm as /A:rm/ vs. /A:m/, hill as /hIl/ vs. /Il/ seven as /zev@n/ vs. /sev@n/
and bat as /b̆at/ vs. /b&t/. Not all these dichotomies work in the same areas. Some
words allow us to dintinguish between North and South areas (/l&N/vs. /lQN/), others
between the South-East and the rest of the island (/zev@n/ vs. /sev@n/), but in general
they provide a suitable distinction between Northern and Southern England.
As regards the North of England, this author also provides a further subdivision
of the Northern dialects. He distinguishes between ‘Northumberland’ and ‘Lower
North’ dialects. The Northumberland dialect is the only one in England preserving the
Old English distinction between words such as which and witch. The difference between
these two words is that in the case of which, Northumberland speakers produce a sort of
aspiration and the actual pronunciation becomes /hwItS/. Elsewhere in England, pairs of
words like Wales and whales are homophones. This distinction also exists in areas such
as Scotland, the United States or New Zealand.
16
In order to understand the reasons why the pronunciation of this area is so different
from other places, such as London, it is necessary to provide the reader with a brief
historical review.
By the middle of the 5th Century, Britain had been a province of the Roman
Empire for more than four hundred years. Latin was the official language and British, a
Celtic language, was the native language. The language we know as English was not
born until the arrival of the Germanic tribes at the end of the 5th Century. However, the
political division between the North and South had already been established. As Wales
(2006: 47) explains, by the time the Germanic peoples settled in Britain, the island had
already been divided into Britania Superior (the South of the Mersey-wash line),
Britania inferior (between the Mersey-wash line and Hadrian’s wall) and Britania
Barbara (North of Hadrian’s Wall). Therefore, England was divided into North, South
and Far North even before the English language existed.
The origins of the English language come from the first Germanic tribes that
settled in Britain. These Germanic tribes, the Angles, the Saxons, and Jutes, brought
with them the West Germanic languages they spoke. They settled and spread along the
island in such a violent and quick manner that they gave away with the majority of the
inhabitants of the island and with their native Celtic language. We must bear in mind,
however, that the newcomers did not bring with them a unified political system nor a
unified language, and the fact that they settled in different areas along the East coast of
England led to a dialectal diversity that still exists nowadays.
From the 8th Century onwards, Scandinavian settlers rioted the coasts of England
looting and plundering, and in the end, they settled down in the island. Their arrival had
a great impact, not only socially and politically speaking, but also from a linguistic
perspective. The interaction between the Old English language of the Anglo-Saxons and
the Scandinavian language of the new comers, especially in the area of the Danelaw,
accounts for many of the divergences between Northern and Southern dialects in
Middle English.
3.1.1.2. Features of Northern English
According to Schneider (2010: 73-75), the English spoken in the North is very
conservative. He explains that some long vowel phonemes maintain the Middle English
pronunciation, while they where diphthongised in the rest of the country when the Great
17
Vowel Shift developed. Thus, words like mouse /mu:s/ and time /ti:m/ rhyme with the
modern pronunciation of shoes /Su:z/ and team /ti:m/, whereas in other parts of the
country the original Middle English long vowels have diphthongised giving way to the
pronunciation of /maUs/ and /taIm/.
HALF-OPEN
FRONT-CENTRAL-BACK
i:
u:
|
| \
|
| \
e:
o: ou
|
|
|
|
E:
O:
OPEN
a:
CLOSE
/
/
HALF-CLOSE
eI
Figure 5: The Great Vowel Shift.
The lack of influence of the Great Vowel Shift in the northern parts of Britain is what
explains the strong presence of monophthongisation in this dialect. Monophthongisation
of /@U/, /eI/, /aI/ is fairly common. We hear the long vowel /O:/ in go and groan; /3:/ in
came and face; and /i:/ in frightening.
Trudgill, (1999: 37-38) identifies another piece of conservatism in the North in
the pronunciation of the letter <o> as /A:/ in words like stone, bone and home, instead of
the RP diphthong /@U/. These words were spelt with <a> in Old English, and the
spelling has been kept in the word hamlet and in many toponyms ending in the suffix ham such as Nottingham, Buckingham, Grantham, etc. By the end of the Old English
period, this vowel changed to /o:/. The Great Vowel Shift explains its later development
into a diphthong, and hence, the modern pronunciation of home. However, this change
did not happen North of the Humber, hence, in Scotland, people usually say /sta:n/ for
stone (which is even spelt stane), /hA:m/ for home (hame) or /nA:m/ for name.
There are many texts that show the conservative spelling and pronunciation of
long vowels in the north of England. Let’s take into consideration here the words in
bold in the poem ‘The Lincolnshire Poacher’:
But I’d rayther be doon wheare th’fire
An’ brimstun foriver bo’ns,
An’ just goa roond wi’ a bucket
18
An’ give fook drink by to’ns –
Then sit i’ yon stright made heaven,
Wheare saints an’ aangels sing,
An’ niver hear a pheasant craw,
Nor, th’skirr o’ a partridge wing;
Wheare ther’ isn’t a bank nor a plantin’-side
Wheare rabbits cum oot an’ plaay,
An’ stamp wi’ ther’ feet o’ a moonleet neet,
Wheare it’s warm o’ th’ coudest day.
The way the author wrote down, round, out, and moonlight night exemplifies Trugill’s
(1999) and Schneider’s (2010) explanations of the monophthongisation of the /aI/ and
the /@U/ diphthong.
Gimson (1989) identifies another case of monophthongisation in the
pronunciation of /eəә/ as /ɜ:/ in some parts of Northern England, especially in the area
around Liverpool. In Scouse, the accent spoken in Liverpool, fare, pronounced /feəә/ in
RP, is pronounced as /f3:/ thus becoming a homophone of fur.
Apart from the extended use of monophthongisation, the opposite process, that
of turning a long vowel into a diphthong can also be found, though in a much more
restricted distribution. Shneider (2010: 73) states that, unlike RP, lean is pronounced as
/lI@n/ and feet as /fɪəәt/.
Another typical northern pronunciation is the use of /ʊ/ instead of /ʌ/ in words
such as cut /kUt/, shut /SUt/, come /kUm/ or somebody /sUmb@dI/ This feature has also
been preserved from the Middle English period. The fact that this pronunciation is
perceived as something local and even negative makes many northern speakers try to
adapt the pronunciation of the words containing <u> from the dialectal /U/ to the
standard /V/. However, as Gimson (1994: 86) points out, they are not always successful
in so doing and they hypercorrect. Hypercorretion is a phenomenon in which speakers
attempt to imitate RP pronunciation but they get it wrong. Accordingly, those speakers
may say /ʃʌgəә/ for sugar or /pʌt/ for put.
We have seen that RP is characterised by the lenghthening of /æ/ into /A:/ when
a vowel <a> is followed by /s, f, n/. Gimson (1989: 86) points out that in the North,
however, it is common to observe a short open front open vowel /æ/ while in the rest of
19
England, /A:/ is heard in words such as passed /p&st/ vs /pA:st/ or fast /f&st/ vs. /fA:st/;
laugh /l&f/ vs. /lA:f/ or ant /&nt/ vs. /A:nt/
To round off this section, I would like to talk about the final vowel in words like
happy (RP /h&pi/). In areas such as Nottingham, this vowel is pronounced almost as an
open-mid central unrounded vowel /ɜ:/ whereas in Birmingham, Liverpool, Newcastle
or Scunthorpe, the peripheral north, we hear a closer vowel /i:/ (Wells, 1984: 362).
Regarding this vowel, there is still more variation. As Joan Beal (2008: 126) explains,
young middle-class women from Sheffield use a “more tense variant or a compromise
diphthong [eɪ], perhaps in order to avoid the stigmatised Yorkshire [ɜ:]”.
3.1.2. Cockney
3.1.2.1. Geographical limits
The term ‘Cockney’ refers to a person who was born and spent his or her entire life in
London. According to tradition, a genuine Cockney must have been born within the
sound of Bow Bells which refers to St Mary-le-bow’s bells. It is very intricate to
determine a specific area from which typical Londoners or Cockneys come, but some of
the most common neighbourhoods are the following: Shoreditch, East Stepney, Bethnal
Green, Hackney, Whitechapel, Islington, Wapping, Bermondsey, Lambeth, Millwall or
Tottenham.
The term Cockney derives from a word that existed in Middle English, between
the 12th and the 15th Century: cokeney which means ‘cock’s egg’. It first made reference
to a small or misshapen egg and probably to anything weird. Wright (1981:11) explains
that it became a word that referred to someone effeminate and silly. He says that it
could be first used by people living around the British capital to describe the Londoners
they met. In the same negative vein, Chaucer used the word cokeney connecting it with
daffe ‘a fool’ in his prologue to the Reeve’s Tale.
There are many references to Cockney in literature, which lead us to think that it
referred to something negative during many centuries. For instance, Pierce Egan, in Life
in London (Egan 1821: 42), says that every person known as Cockney was an
“uneducated native of London […] yet truly ignorant”. However, Cockney is not used
this way anymore. It is now used to refer to the speech spoken in the London area.
20
Nonetheless, it is very difficult to exactly determine the area in which Cockney is
spoken. It is commonly referred to the lower-class speech of the working class.
Julian Franklyn distinguished in his book The Cockney (1953) two different
kinds of Cockney: Light Cockney spoken by clerks whose speech was to some extent
softened through education and Deep Cockney, spoken by coasters.
3.1.2.2. Features of the Cockney accent
To describe the main features of the cockney accent I will focus on three works on
dialectal English: Peter Wright’s (1981) Cockney Dialect and Slang, Arthur Hughes,
Peter Trudgill and Dominic Watt’s (2005) English Accents and Dialects: An
Introduction to Social and Regional Varieties of English in the British Isles and
Gimson’s (1994) Pronunciation of English.
Although this work is focused on vowels, I cannot but mention some of the
consonantal variations which contribute to identify Cockney as an independent accent
on its own right. One of the most salient characteristics of Cockney is the so-called
‘glottal stop’ [ʔ]. This sound is a plosive sound that is articulated by means of a sudden
closure of the vocal folds. It is not a sound associated to a particular consonant. Rather,
it is used instead of the voiceless set of plosives /p, t, k/, whenever they appear in
medial and final position. Consider the realisations of the words bottle /bQtl/ vs. /bQʔl/
and map /m&p/ vs. /m&ʔ/, where the first transcription represents the standard
realisation and the second one the Cockney variation.
We can also find other features such as ‘th-fronting’ which consists on the
substitution of dental fricatives for labio-dental fricatives. So that words such as thin
/DIn/ or both /b@UD/ are pronounced /fɪn/ and /bəәʊf/ respectively.
As aforementioned, this piece of research aims at providing a contrast between
the different vocalic sets of some English accents. Therefore, I will not go into further
detail trying to explain the consonantal properties of the cockney accent.
As regards vowels, Gimson (1994: 85) states that Cockney has been very
influential in the development of RP. He explains that there are hardly any differences
between the inventory of vowel phonemes between Cockney and RP. Nonetheless, there
are many differences in their realisation.
In general, Cockney speakers pronounce vowels slightly closer than RP
speakers. It is not a matter of change in the quality of the vowel, and thus it is not
21
reflected in a phonemic transcription, but it is noticed by speakers of other dialects who
may misperceive set for sat or sit for set.
One particular change is the degree of openness which carries out a change in
the quality of a vowel is the realisation of /æ/ as /E/. Wright (1981) explains in his book
that in Cockney, the Middle English sound /æ/ was raised to a sound similar to /e/. He
states that this sound is not usual in the languages of the world and that has been
compared to the noise made by sheep which can be found tedious by people from other
areas in England. This phonemic system had a reflection on the spelling and there are
many examples in which authors from previous centuries misspelled certain words
because of the pronunciation of this vowel. As Wright (1981: 129) explains, Machyn,
an author from the 16th Century, consistently wrote mess for mass and then for than.
Wright (1981: 129) refers to the description made by H. C. Wyld of how this sound
developed into /E/. He states that this development started in Essex during the 15th
Century. It arrived in London and it was used by the working-class or the middle-class.
During the sixteenth century, it started to be used by the upper classes and even by the
Court. The reason why the latter started to use this sound was because they might have
thought that it sounded more refined than /æ/.
As well as in RP, Cockney has got /A:/ instead of /æ/ before the sounds /s, f, n/.
Therefore, path is pronounced as /ˈpA:f/ (mind the th-fronting) and aunt as /ˈA:nt/.
/Q/ before f or s is pronounced as /aU/. So words such as ‘dish-cloth’ are
pronounced as /ˈdIʃ ˈklaUT/.
Since Middle English, English has the short vowel phoneme /U/. However, as
was the case with RP, many different words containing the letter <u> in the spelling,
such as nut or shut are pronounced with what Wright (1981: 131) defines as “a type of
[u] verging on [a]”, namely the phoneme /V/. Due to the irregularity in the spellingpronouncing relation of English this phoneme applies to spellings other than <u>, such
as <ou> or <oo> in words like tough /ˈtVf/ or flood /ˈflVd/.
In unstressed syllables, especially in final position, Cockney has a preference for
/I/ instead of the more typical /@/ sound in words like ‘haddock’ as /ˈ&dIk/ (mind the hdropping which is also found in RP). The tendency for the use of the weak vowel /I/ is
so strong that it is also used where a diphthong (by no means a weak phoneme) should
be expected. Thus, the word Billingsgate pronounced as /ˈbIlINgzgIt/ instead of the
standard /ˈbIlINzgeIt/.
22
Regarding unstressed vowels, there is a phenomenon that is worth commenting on. As
Wright explains, there are some unstressed vowels that burst forth or appear at the
middle of a word. So that, words such as ‘films’ can be pronounced as /ˈfɪl@mz/.
The so-called happy-tensing or neutralisation proper of RP is taking a step
forward in Cockney. According to Hughes et al. (2005) final RP /I/ develops into a full
tense vowel /i:/ in this dialect. Thus the word city /ˈsIti/ or /sItI/ in RP (depending on the
presence or absence of happy-tensing) becomes /ˈsIti:/ in Cockney.
As regards long vowels, they are usually diphthongised. These diphthongs are
formed by a short and a neutralised vowel, in such a way that /i:/ is pronounced [Ii], /u:/
is pronounced [Uu] and /O:/ becomes [O@]. Thus, bead is pronounced [ˈbɪid], boot
[ˈbʊut], and shores [ˈSO@z]. The case of /O:/ has its own special development as is
commented independently below.
Hughes et al. (2005) put forward a difference between Cockney and RP which
involves distinguishing between allophonic realisations of /O:/ which, provided the
appropriate context, end up creating a distinction between a single vowel phoneme and
a diphthong. According to these authors, Cockney speakers carry out different
realisations of the phoneme /O:/ if it is in medial or in final position. When final, the
sound is kept in its purer form [O:], but when it is non-final, the back of the tongue is
slightly raised, so the vowel becomes [o:], thus there is a difference in the pronunciation
of bore [ˈbɔ:] and board [ˈbo:d]. As a result of this distinction, made on the bases of
morphemic boundaries, the word final [O:] develops into the diphthong [O@] (nonexistent in RP) when an inflectional morpheme (-ed, -s, -’s) applies after a lexeme
ending in [ɔ:]. Following with the previous example, the [O:] in the word bore [ˈbɔ:]
becomes [O@] in bored [ˈbɔəәd].
A final characteristic of the vocalic system of the Cockney accent is the
vocalisation of the approximant phoneme /l/. In all variants of English, except for Irish
English, /l/ in pre-consonant or final position is realised with a velarisation caused by
the raising of the back of the tongue towards the soft palate, thus turning out the socalled velar or dark /l/- [L]. Both the clear and the dark /l/’s are articulated with the tip of
the tongue being in contact with the alveolar ridge. However, this contact is lost in
Cockney when producing a [L], which cause this sound to become a pure vowel /U/.
Hughes et al. (2005) go a step forward and remark that this vowel can, given the
adequate context, vary and become [o:]. They also remark that when the previous vowel
23
is /ɔ:/, /l/ can be completely lost. Accordingly, the phrase Paul’s can be pronounced
/ˈpO:z/ and become a homophone of pause.
3.2. Irish English
3.2.1. The origins of Irish English
English in Ireland, also known as Gaelic, Irish Gaelic and Erse (J. C. Wells 1984: 447),
is characterised by its uniformity. Of course, dialectal differences can be observed and if
one carefully listens to someone’s accent they can determine where this person comes
from. However, there are not so many dialects as in England.
Irish English lies apart from all other dialectal forms of English and as Bliss
(1997: 19) states “it accurately reflects the social history of his country”.
As previously done, I will briefly explain some historical issues before dealing
with the most salient phonetic features of the English spoken in this territory.
English was brought to Ireland through the Anglo-Norman invasion from West
Wales in the twelfth century. These settlers spoke Norman French. However, the ones
who followed them were English-speaking. These two languages, French and English,
did not succeed except in the towns and in two rural areas. The first one formed two
Wexford baronies: Forth and Bargy, whose accent survived until the 19th century; and
the second territory, an area in the north of Dublin, named Fingal, whose accent
disappeared about 1800. Sir William Petty observed that these two dialects resemble to
a large extent.
However, in the 16th Century, the decline of the English language took place. At
the time of the Reformation, Irish became the official language and what is more, Irish
Catholics refused to speak English to English officials who visited England.
Until the 17th century, a form of Old English survived in towns. Nonetheless,
little information on this issue can be found. An interesting source is an Elizabethan
play, Captain Thomas Stukeley, of which two versions can be found. The first one is
written in English verse, and the second one in Old English prose. The latter represents
the linguistic situation in Irish towns about 1600.
It is important to say that during the reign of James I, Presbyterians from
Scotland settled in Ulster, the north of Ireland (Joyce 1910: 6). They brought with them
their Scottish accent, and influences from these settlers can still be observed. A clear
24
instance could be the distinction between pairs of words such as ‘which’ and ‘witch’
aforementioned.
Bliss (1997) explains that regarding pronunciation, unfamiliar or difficult
English sounds were substituted by Irish ones and these sounds still occur in present
Irish English.
Before the Act of Union of 1800, which united the Kingdom of Great Britain
and the Kingdom of Ireland, people did not travel a lot from one place to the other. As
time passed by, the influence of Irish was greater. At the beginning, this influence was
selective and preservative, English expressions and words were preferred. However,
later, the influence became more obvious. An introduction of Irish idioms that did not
exist in English whatsoever took place.
An important issue related to the development of the English language in Ireland
is that Irishman that wanted to learn English could not learn it from speakers of a
standard variation of it. After the Act of Union, more English schools were built and as
a result, more Irish children attended these schools. The problem was that the English
that teachers spoke was different from Standard English and therefore, in each
generation, the English in Ireland was more and more influenced by Irish.
This can explain one of the main features of Irish English. Sometimes, AngloIrish word stress differs from the Standard English one. The reason why words such as
discipline (pronounced /dIˈsIplIn/) are stressed in a different way could be a
misinterpretation by those teachers whose English was not standard.
Throughout the social history of Ireland, many cultures and settlers have
influenced this special dialect. However, the ones that have left a recognisable trace in
current Anglo-Irish are the Irish language, Old English and the dialect of Scotland.
3.2.2. Features of Irish English
There are many similarities between the English spoken in the north and in the south of
Ireland. A relevant example is that /l/ is clear in all positions all around Ireland.
However, there are also many differences. Ireland is politically divided into two major
areas: the North and the South. Accordingly, this country is also linguistically divided.
For instance, the Dublin and the Belfast speech differ to a large extent. The reason is
that Dublin English was not influenced by Scottish whereas Ulster, where Belfast is,
was.
25
In previous sections I have made generalisations about the phonetic features of a
specific area. However, I consider it more practical to divide the features of Irish
English into three major groups: Dublin, Galway and Belfast. The reason is that each
area shows influences from different sources and therefore, different developments can
be observed.
Figure 6: The major dialectal areas in Ireland (from Hickey 2005)
3.2.2.1. Dublin
With regard to Dublin, it is interesting to notice that despite RP is the most prestigious
variety in England, in Ireland, it is not. Dublin English is the most prestigious variety in
Ireland and the one many Irishman aspire to acquire.
Some of its most salient phonetic features are:
The mid-back vowels /ɒ/ and /ɔ:/ are open into /ɑ/ and /ɑ:/ respectively, thus
giving way to the pronunciation of lot as /ˈlɑt/ and shore as /ˈSA:ɹ/.
The diphthongs /eI/ and /@U/ are commonly pronounced as monophthongs /E/
and /O/ and sometimes as narrow diphthongs, with a closer version of the first element.
Thus train and game become /ˈtrEn/ and /ˈgEm/, whereas go and foe become /ˈgO/ and
/ˈfO/ respectively.
26
As happens in Northern English, it is fairly common that /U/ and /ʌ/ are not
distinguished. For instance, government is pronounced /'gʊvəәnməәnt/. However, /ʌ/ is
more common amongst educated speakers. Again the conservative pronunciation of <u>
as /ʊ/ is considered negative.
/ɜː/ does not exist in the so-called lower-status accents. /ɪɹ/, /ɛɹ/ or /ʊɹ/ where
traces of a rhotic /r/ are found, are used instead. Thus, firm is /ˈfɪɹm/; Germans is
/ˈgERm@nz/; and work is /ˈwURk/.
Another feature that is quite spread in the area of Dublin is the opening of /e/
into /a/ in words like any (/ˈanI/) or anyone (/ˈanIwVn/).
Finally Raymond Hickey (2008) Varieties of English: The British Isles puts
forward another relevant feature of this area, that being the breaking of long high
vowels. Thus, the /i:/ proper of the RP pronunciation of clean /ˈkli:n/ is turned into a
complex vocalic cluster which includes the semivowel /j/ and a /@/. Following with the
previous example, the Dublin pronunciation of the word clean is /ˈklIj@n/.
3.2.2.2. Galway
Galway English shares many features with the English spoken in Dublin. However, it
shows more Gaelic or Irish influence than Dublin English, which is more affected by
British English. The vowel sounds that characterise the Galway speech are the
following:
The fully open and fully front /a/ typical of Dublin Irish is usually pronounced
with a closer vowel /æ/ which very much resembles that of RP. Hence bad, flax or hat
are pronounced /ˈbæd/, /ˈflæks/ and /ˈhæt/ respectively.
The long vowel /ɔː/ just before <r> becomes /a/. The process of change is
double. On the one side, the sound is more open and fully front rather than back.
Besides, as the language is rhothic, the pronunciation of the /R/ eliminates the context
which makes the vowel long in RP, giving way to the short form in Galway Irish.
Hence, words such as horse are pronounced /ˈhaɹz/.
The diphthongs /eɪ/ and /əәʊ/ are commonly monophthongised in /3:/ and /O:/. An
example would be race pronounced as /ˈr3:s/ in Galway English.
As well as in Dublin and due to the influence of Scottish and Northern English,
pairs of words like put and putt are homophones (/ˈpUt/) as there is not distinction
between /U/ and /V/.
27
A final feature proper of this area of Ireland is the opening of /I/ into /e/ when followed
by a nasal, as put forward by Hickey (2008:79). So a word like pinnacle would be
pronounced as /ˈpen@kl/.
3.2.2.3. Belfast
Located in the North of Ireland, Belfast shares many features with the English spoken in
Scotland because many Scots settled in Ulster.
It is interesting to notice the existence of a language known as Ulster Scots
which was brought by Scottish people who settled in Ireland in the 17th Century, and
which is still spoken in this territory.
One of the most salient features of English in Belfast is that vowels that occur
just before /p, t, k, tʃ/ are usually shortened, and enlarged before other consonants or
when occur in word-final position.
Generally, vowels in the Belfast accent vary depending on the consonant that
follows them. For instance, the vowel in daft is pronounced as /a/ whereas in bag it may
be pronounced as /e/. However, the vowel in ‘beg’ is also /e/. Therefore, these two
words are not always distinguished.
To finish off this section, I will focus on some modifications that imply changes
of length or the use of sounds which are not found in RP.
The centralised close vowels /ɪ/ and /U/ become fully close and central, being
commonly realised as /ɪ/ and /u/ respectively. The tendency towards centralisation is so
relevant, that words like fir, fur, fern and fair, that may originally have different vowels,
tend to be pronounced as /ˈfɪɹ/
As regards changes in length, some noticeable features are:
The diphthongisation of /e/ into /eəә/ and /iəә/.
The monophthongisation of the diphthong /aɪ/ into /3ː/ as in bay and say
pronounced /ˈb3ː/ and /ˈs3ː/.
The suppression of the contrast between /O:/ and /ɒ/ as the latter is only found
before /p, t, k/, as a result of the pre-fortis plosive clipping. Anywhere else /O:/ is used.
Finally, whereas we find /U/ in RP in words such as good, in Belfast speech
people may use /ʌ/. So that, wood may be pronounced both /ˈwUd/ and /ˈwVd/. The
hypercorrection proper of the north of England seems to have become a general rule in
the area of Belfast.
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3.3. American English
This section engages in the description of the vocalic systems of the North American
continent. The territory being so vast, it would account for a large study on dialectal
variation and regional developments. However, I will only refer here to the standard
varieties of US English and Canadian English.
3.3.1. US English
3.3.1.1. Diversity and homogenisation
Before the arrival of European settlers, Native Americans lived in all parts of the
American continent. However, after the discovery of America by Columbus, and after
the colonial expansion, the indigenous population were repressed and decimated by
European settlers. The main reason why European settlers went there was because they
saw an opportunity of religious freedom and economic prosperity.
In the early 17th century, the English settled in North America in a permanent
way. It is rather interesting to highlight that the first people who settled in North
America were religious dissenters coming from the southern area of England.
Subsequently, the parts of North America where those people lived, namely the east
coast, inherited features of Southern English.
With the passing of time, settlers arrived from different parts of England. In fact,
the settlers who migrated from areas near Pennsylvania to the North, the Mid-West and
the Upper South in order to find new places to live spoke a variety of English derived
from Northern English, Scottish or Irish and therefore, made the previous southern
features disappear. This had a significant impact on the development of American
English and this is the reason why we find features such as rhoticity, only present in
Northern and Irish dialects.
Travelling was quite difficult during the 17th century, and so the contact between
the different colonies was scarce. Little by little, cultural and linguistic differences
arose. Kretzschmar (2008) explains that the people living in these colonies came from
many different parts of England. Therefore, many dialects were spoken around the
American territory and a mixture of all the available dialects developed. The English
spoken in each colony did not resemble British English due to the mixture of settlers.
However, these American forms of English were similar to each other.
29
Several historical issues, such as the independence of the thirteen colonies in 1776 or
the construction of the transcontinental railway, contributed to the homogenisation of
the language in the new-born United States of America. Schneider (2008) makes
reference to koinèization which is a process in which extreme dialectal features are lost.
Speakers of the colonies omitted bizarre and communicatively unsuccessful forms and
substituted them for successful ones and a middle-of-the-road dialect emerged. A clear
instance of this process is the regularisation of verb forms. Whereas in British English
(henceforth BrE) the past of learn is learnt, in American English (henceforth AmE), it
is learned.
This homogenisation, which was able to traverse political, territorial, and
cultural boundaries, was not able, however, to overcome a social boundary. For many
centuries African slaves were brought to the American continent. The emancipation
after the Civil war in 1865, gave these slaves freedom, but did not avoid social
segregation, which resulted in the appearance of an interesting linguistic variety:
African American Vernacular English (AVVE).
Gimson (1994: 84) explains that the United States have been linguistically
divided into: Eastern (New England and New York City), Southern (from Virginia to
Texas) and General American.
General American (henceforth GA) can be compared to RP because it is not
associated to any particular area nor does it show any regional characteristics. GA is
also referred to as Standard American (StAmE) and it is the variety taught in countries
such as China or Mexico. Schneider (2008: 257) points out that there is not a perfect
Standard American English because “StAmE pronunciation differs from region to
region, even from person to person, because speakers from different circumstances and
in different parts of the United States commonly employ regional and social features to
some extent”
3.3.1.2. Features of General American
During the 18th century, there raised in America a standard variety of English which was
associated with social class. Thus, this standard variety was the one spoken by
cultivated people. The growth of public schools which were more and more common
contributed to the development of this standard variety. Nowadays, GA pronunciation is
30
characterised by the fact that its speakers try to avoid any feature that shows regional or
social features.
Differences in phonemic realisations, that is, allophonic variations, are very
common between two varieties of any given language. In the rest of the subsection, I
will only focus on the most salient features of GA and how they compare to the sounds
of RP.
GA is a rhotic variety while RP is not. The lack of /r/ in RP leads to a
phenomenon known as compensatory lengthening by which a vowel becomes either
long or diphthongised because of the dropping of the postvocalic /r/. As the /r/ is
pronounced in GA, we do not find the diphthongs /I@, e@, U@/ which we find in RP.
Rather, what we find is a short vowel followed by the retroflex approximant /r/ (/Ir, er,
Ur/) Thus, words like beard /ˈbI@d/; fare /ˈfe@/ and dour /ˈdU@/ in RP become /ˈbIrd/,
/ˈfer/ and /ˈdUr/.
The sound /Q/ is not found in GA. Instead we find /A:/ in words such as cod
/ˈkA:d/, bottle /ˈbA:tl/, or pocket /ˈpA:k@t/ in which a plosive follows. However, if the
vowel sound is followed by any other consonant, the /Q/ is turned into the long closer
/ɔ:/. Take across /@ˈkrO:s/, gone /ˈgO:n/ or cough /ˈkO:f/ as examples. Gimson (1994)
points out that not only do RP /ɑ:/ and /ɒ/ fall into the same group but /ɔ:/ also does.
This phonetician states that for an increasing number of GA speakers, the words cod,
calm and cause, pronounced with /Q/, /A:/ and /O:/ in RP may have the same vowel /O:/
in GA.
Another characteristic of GA put forward by Gimson (1994) is a lexical
occurrence which refers to those words that have the long vowel /ɑ:/ in RP but which
are pronounced in GA with /æ/. This change of vowels usually occurs before a voiceless
fricative or before a nasal plus another consonant. Some instances are past, pronounced
/ˈpA:st/ in RP and /ˈp&st/ in GA; after /ˈɑ:ft@/ in RP and /ˈæftəәr/, etc. This feature is also
present in the dialects of Northern England, which suggests that it was taken to the US
during the migratory period of the 17th and 18th centuries. However, some educated
speakers refuse to use this modified forms and pronounce words like bath /bA:T/ in the
same way RP speakers do.
Lavob (1991) has made reference to a phenomenon named Nothern Cities Shift.
The vowel sound that is mainly affected by this shift is /æ/ which is closed or
diphthongised to /E/ or /E@/, or even to /e/ or /e@/. This shift affects both those words that
31
have /æ/ in RP such as sad and those words that have /A:/ in RP but correspond to /æ/ in
GA such as after.
As regards diphthongs, the sounds /eI/ and // are commonly monophthongised as
/3:/ and /O:/. Thus, mate is /m3:t/ and load is /lO:d/.
In American English, the high back vowel in roof and root but not in foot is not
/u/ as in RP, but it varies between /U/ and /u/. The former is more common in the North
whereas /u/ is more common in the South.
It is interesting to have a look at the word ‘route’ which also shows alternation.
This word can be both pronounced with /u/ or /aU/. This sort of alternation does not
happen in all /ʊ/ words and it seems that in the past, there were more words that showed
this alternation.
Another interesting characteristic is the merging together of the phonemes /ɛ/, /e/
and /æ/. Thus, for many speakers of GA the pronunciation of merry, marry and Mary is
identical. In fact, in the North and North Midland regions these words are pronounced
with [ɛ]. However, in areas such as New York, there are literate people who still make a
difference among them.
Finally, the final vowel in words such as happy which has been subject of
comment in other dialects also requires a word in GA. Kretzschmar (2008) explains that
this vowel is now pronounced as /i/ resulting from happy-tensing, but older educated
Southern speakers may say /ɪ/, as it was in the old days.
3.3.2. Canadian English
3.3.2.1. History, settlement and influences
Newfoundland, which was founded in 1583, is the oldest English-speaking colony in
Canada. However, the first European Settlers that colonised what is now Canada were
the French.
During the 17th century, French colonies were located in the East and during this
period, English speakers were almost inexistent.
In the 18th century, a struggle between England and France resulted in the
English possession and control of the American territory. By the Treaty of Paris of
1763, all those French territories became part of the British Empire. Accordingly, the
Canadian territory became bilingual and by the 19th century, there were already more
English-speakers than French.
32
The importance of English in Canada has been increasing since then. Nowadays, there
are 30 million people living in Canada and less than a quarter speaks French. These
French-speaking people usually live in Quebec. However, in spite of the fact that
Canada was British until 1867 and despite maintaining relationships with Great Britain
much time after this (though an independent country, the Queen of England is still the
Queen of Canada), Canadian English is seen as a North American variety.
The history of the settlement of Canada’s which mainly consists of three stages
accounts for this fact. According to Avis (1973: 44-49) in the first stage, the first
English-speaking settlers to arrive in Canada came from the British colonies in the
United States and not directly from Britain. These first settlers came from New England
around 1760 and took up Nova Scotia. Secondly, many ‘United Empire Loyalists’ from
the States who supported the British monarchy during the American Revolution went to
Nova Scotia and joined the New Englanders. Finally, in the early 20th century,
Americans settled in the west of the Canadian territory. As a result, there was an
absolute American predominance in the population and obviously, an influence in the
language.
Bloomfield (1948: 62) and Avis (1954: 14) support the idea that these issues
clearly explain the influence of American English in Canada despite the immigration
from Britain. The American speech was in Canada before the British settlement.
These ideas are not undisputed. Scargill (1957: 611- 612) explains that the
Loyalist theory proposed by Bloomfield is wrong in two aspects: the first one is that it
does not pay attention to the fact that the British were more than the Americans. This
author thinks that it was impossible for all British settlers to adapt their speech to the
American’s. Secondly, he says that comparisons between Canadian English and
Southern BrE should not be done due to the fact that the most part of British settlers
came from the North or the West of England. So that, features that seem to have an
American influence may in fact have come from Northern English.
The next sub-section will discuss what those features are.
3.3.2.2. Features of Canadian English
Not much had been written about Canadian English before 1948 (Bloomfield 1948: 59).
Even less if we take into account the wide research that has been carried out on
American or British English. The project Linguistic Atlas of the United States and
33
Canada intended to be study on dialect variation. However, Canada was not studied
except for a few informants in New Brunswick, Ontario and Manitoba (Boberg, 2008:
351).
Mentioning the fact that Canadian English is not divided into different varieties
of English is of special importance. Unlike AmE or BrE, all the Canadian population
shares the same variety. There exists regional variation, but it is minor. Canadians from
different parts of the country cannot guess where other people come from according to
their accent. Newfoundland, Cape Breton, and the Ottawa Valley of Eastern Ontario are
the only exceptions; the people who live there speak with an accent. A huge British
influence can be observed and this is because during the 19th century, homogeneous
groups of immigrants coming from Britain arrived to these places.
As mentioned above, Canadian English has influences from both British and
American English. Spelling usually follows British standards such as in colour and
centre instead of the most typical color or center in the US (Boberg 2008:335). On the
contrary, regarding phonetics and phonology, we can say that it is more influenced by
American English. There is a vocalisation of /r/; the split that occurred in Middle
English in the /a/ vowel (trap /ˈtræp/ vs. bath /ˈbA:T/ in RP) was not kept Canadian
English; young speakers produce a flap of intervocalic /t/ and/or delete the /j/ sound in
words like student or news which is called ‘yod-dropping’. (De Wolf 1992; Gregg 1957:
25-26)
As well as in American English the merger between /ɒ/ and /ɔ:/ can be found in
Canadian English. A merger is a process in which two previously different sounds
become identical. Thus, for native speakers of Canadian English, pairs of words such as
cot and caught, sod and sawed, stock and stalk are homophones.
Canadian English is also characterised by the merger of /e/, /ɛ/ and /æ/ before
intervocalic /r/ at something similar to [ɛ]. This feature was first noticed by Gregg
(1957:82). As well as in American English, merry, marry and Mary sound alike in
Canada.
Another salient feature of Canadian English is the so-called Canadian Shift. This
shift affects three vowels: /ɪ/ which is lowered towards /E/; /E/ that is lowered towards
/æ/; and /æ/ which is retracted to [a].
Across Canada, it is also common to hear a raising of the /ɑ:/ vowel before /r/
ranging from [3R] to [Vɹ].
34
A last change affecting single vowels and which is becoming more common is the
fronting of the /u:/ vowel in words like goose or food. This vowel shifts from a highback position /u:/ to a high-central /u/ or even high-front position, just behind /i:/.
3.4. Oceania
Australia and New Zealand are two territories in which a great part of the British
population was relocated and these people established a permanent residence in these
foreign lands. Those that moved to Australia and New Zealand were usually criminals
sentenced to deportation, religious dissenters or just families in search of new
opportunities.
As a result the linguistic varieties that developed in these lands were strongly
influenced by BrE. However, after World War II, the ties with Britain started to break
and the idea of linguistic nationalism arose. Nonetheless, it has been reported that in
many countries such as Australia or New Zealand many traces of AmE can be heard,
especially amongst the young.
Along the following two subsections I will plunge into the historical and
linguistic evolution of these two former British colonies
3.4.1. Australia
3.4.1.1. The origins of Australian English
The Dutch started to explore the Australian coast between 1642 and 1644. They moved
to the Australian territory in order to find trade and treasure. However, they did not find
all those pearls, opals or gold hidden in the new land. Therefore, they were not
interested in Australia anymore.
Before Australia was colonised by the English, BrE had already incorporated a few
Australianisms in general and scientific vocabulary. The oldest instance may be
gumtree (Turner 1966: 1-2).
The English language was brought to Australia in 1788 with the arrival of
European settlers (Horvath 2008: 87). Nevertheless, the first allusion to Australian
English came from the hand of Watkin Tench in a journal published in 1793. He noticed
the presence of aboriginal borrowings into English but he had trouble with the English
of the colony. In his own words “in the courts of law, an interpreter was frequently
35
necessary to translate the deposition of the witness, and the defence of the prisoner”
(Tench 1793: 207).
According to Turner (1966), an act in 1778 for the setting up of penitentiary
houses written by a committee formed by Sir William Blackstone, Mr Eden and John
Howard led to the settlement of Sydney Cove on 21st January 1788. The aim of the act
was to reform those offenders rather than just to punish them. Howard was looking for
healthy prisons with a good supply of water. As a result, 1,500 people, half of them civil
and military officers and half convicts, were sent to Australia, giving rise to the
settlement of the territory.
Those convicts and immigrants that followed them seem to come from urban
areas, especially from the South of England. During the 18th century, there were many
criminals in England. Notwithstanding, the worst of these criminals were not
transported to Australia because they were usually hanged. Hence, all those criminals
and convicts were not murders or traitors but some were men who had forged or
members of the Army that had offended someone.
As I said before, settlers mainly came from Southern England. Therefore, the
bases of Australian English were southern varieties of English which were strengthened
by Standard English, the variety preferred by many lawmen. In fact, other varieties of
English, such as Irish English were seen as separate languages side by side with German
or Italian.
Before World War II, the English spoken in Australia showed a strong
orientation towards BrE, a phenomenon that Schneider (2010) called exonormative
stabilisation. However, after the war, Australians looked for linguistic nationalism,
nativitation or endonormative stabilisation. Consequently, Australian English started to
develop on its own.
3.4.1.2. Features of Australian English
As expected in such a vast territory, we do find a lot of linguistic variation in Australia.
This variation is of two kinds: dialectal and of register. As regards dialectal variation
there are two varieties currently spoken in Australia: Kriol and Torres Strait Creole.
When dealing with pronunciation, Australian English (henceforth AusE) is
distinguished between Broad, General and Cultivated.
36
In the remaining of the subsection I will discuss those features that belong to General
Australian English, which is the variety most widely spoken by native speakers. Turner
(1972), in his book The English language in Australia and New Zealand, pointed out
the main differences between RP and Australian and New Zealand English, those being
the following:
The long vowel /i:/ is commonly diphthongised in AusE as /əәɪ/ so, words such as
peat are pronounced as /pəәɪt/. Turner (1972: 96) provides a set of allophonic variations
in the realisation of these phonemes, namely [ij, əәɪ, iəә, ɪi, eɪi, eɪij]. The last allophone
occurs only when speaking in a drawled way and [iəә] occurs before /l/.
On the contrary, /i:/ only appears in AusE in a place where it would not occur in
RP, as in city /ˈsIti:/, taxis /ˈt&ksi:z/ or candied /ˈk&ndi:d/, just as happens in Cockney.
We observe another diphthongisation in /u:/ which in AusE is realised as /@U/.
Therefore, words such as too are not pronounced as /tu:/ but /t@U/.
Australian /ɑ:/ in part for instance, is usually fronted and shortened and replaced
with /æ/ before nasals as in dance, advance, chance and sample.
The /ɔ:/ sound in AusE is slightly closer than in RP, and maybe a little more fronted and
rounded. It is often substituted for /ɒ/ before liquids as in floral, oral or alter.
According to Clark (1989: 209-212), it can also be diphthongised as /O@/.
Finally, the phoneme /ɜ:/ is slightly higher and rounded than in RP.
As regards short vowels, whenever /ɪ/ occurs in unstressed position in RP, in
AusE, it is centralised and lowered to /əә/. It is interesting to highlight that, usually, when
there is no <i> in the spelling, for instance in plurals or superlatives, speakers prefer [əә].
Take aches /ˈa:tʃəәs/ or biggest /ˈbɪgəәst/ as examples. When <i> is in the spelling, the
pronunciation is usually /ɪ/ as in typing /ˈtaIpIN/. However, this is not a fixed rule and
both realisations are possible, disregarding spelling issues. Thus, pairs of words like
effect and affect, illusion and allusion or except and accept are sometimes not
distinguished.
Except for the centralisation of /I/ into /@/, the general tendency in AusE is to
close the degree of openness of the vowels. Thus, the vowel sound in words like pet is
closer in AusE than in RP. It is common for Australian children to say something
similar to /I/ though it disappears as they get older.
The same holds true for the vowel in the pat set. The RP /æ/ becomes something
similar to [E]. Some speakers take this process a step forward and Turner (1972) notices
that RP /æ/ is sometimes glided as /&@/ or /E@/ when it is pronounced slowly whereas
37
Clark (1989: 209-212) points out that on some occasions there is a lengthening of this
vowel and /æ:/ is produced.
3.4.2. New Zealand
3.4.2.1. The colonisation of New Zealand
Polynesian explorers were the first to discover the New Zealander territory around AD
925, and they were completely settled by 1150. As previously said, the Dutch went to
Australia, and after that, they also went to New Zealand. Bauer and Warren (2008: 39)
state that the first English influence upon New Zealand dates back to 1869 when
Captain Cook claimed New Zealand for the British Crown.
Before the Europeans settled there, Maori was the only language that existed in
the island, as it was the language spoken by Polynesian settlers. European settlers did
not only come from Europe but also from Australia with which the links were constant
through trade unions, church administration, and mail and cable services. In fact, until
1841, New Zealand was dependent of New South Wales, Australia (Gordon et al. 2004:
62).
By the 19th century, English was not yet spread among the Maori inhabitants.
Nonetheless, different facts influenced the development of New Zealand English. The
first one was the planned settlement developed by organisations such as the New
Company which brought many Londoners and British people from the south-east of
England to Wellington and Nelson. Another wave of settlers arrived after the discovery
of gold mines around 1860 in Otago and the West Coast of the South Island, where
many Australians went.
New-Zealand-born Europeans outnumbered new settlers by 1890. It may be one
of the reasons why New Zealand English started to develop by itself and overbalance
the influence of British and Australian English.
3.4.2.2. Features of New Zealand English
According to Trudgill and Hanna (2008) there are several factors that affected the
English spoken during the early colonisation. One of the most important of these factors
was education. Not everyone could afford to attend school and therefore, the ones that
could pay for education spoke a higher variety of English. Another factor was transport.
38
It was easy to go from any part of Australia to Auckland and the gold mines of
Westland, Otego, and Southland which led to a large amount of shared lexicon,
grammar and phonetic features.
Another issue that surely affected New Zealand English was the admiration that
the New Zealanders had for the British Crown. It is interesting to note that in the 1920s,
a phonographic record of King George V and Queen Mary was distributed through New
Zealand schools. The English spoken by the British royal family was regarded as “an
excellent model of standard English pronunciation” (Gordon et al. 2004: 69).
The consequence of this appreciation of BrE is that the English variety spoken in
New Zeland is notably uniform. Other influences are those of AusE and Maori. On its
part, the phonology of Maori is much simpler than the English one. It has got five
vowels /i, E, a, O, u/ and ten consonants /p, t, k, m, n, ŋ, f, h, r, w/. Both languages
have an effect on each other, as typical of contact areas. For instance, voiceless stops
were not aspirated in Maori, but now, they are.
As we will see, most part of the New Zealand particularities also occur in AusE.
As well as in Australian English and Cockney, the long /i:/ vowel is often
diphthongised as /@I/. Turner (1972) explains that this sound can easily be heard
amongst children in emphatic position. For instance, the sentence give it to me is
pronounced /gəәvəәttəәˈməәi/.
In New Zealand English (henceforth NZE), the difference between the long
vowel /i:/ and the dipthongs /I@, e@/ in words such as fleece and near are usually
neutralised before /l/ and /r/, so words such as reel and real or caring and keyring may
be homophones (Bauer and Warren 2004).
As in AusE, there is a centralised pronunciation of /ɪ/. In NZE, this process takes
place also in stressed position and not only in unstressed syllables, as was the case with
AusE. The consequence is that the resulting phoneme is not a /@/ but a kind of /e/.
Consider the word interesting /ˈentˌrIstIN/.
The pronunciation of the word yes as /jiəәs/ is very distinctive in NZE. A New
Zealander can be easily recognised in other countries such as England just by the way
they pronounce this single word.
RP /ʌ/ in words such as strut is pronounced with a slightly closer degree, thus
becoming /ɐ/ in New Zealand. This vowel can occur in final-word position substituting
the typical RP /@/ in expressions such as See ya! or in words such as colour /ˈkɐlɐ/,
koala /ˈkUA:l/ or structure /sˈtrɐktSɐ/.
39
The long vowel /ɑ:/ in New Zealand is similar to that in Australia. However, the
substitution of RP /ɑ:/ for /æ/ before nasals does not happen in NZE. As Bauer and
Warren (2004) explain, this vowel sound is very similar to the vowel in strut. They state
that Modern New Zealanders use the vowel /A:/ in words like dance and example.
Nonetheless, there are conservative New Zealanders that use the vowel in trap /æ/ in
this environment. These two sounds are usually relevant to distinguish between New
Zealand and Australian English.
To finish off, the long vowel /u:/ in goose acts as a shibboleth in distinguishing
Australian or New Zealand English. In NZE this vowel is very front /u/ and when it is
followed by /l/ this consonant disappears and the vowel shifts to back position.
Accordingly, the vowels in spoon [ˈspun] and spool [ˈspu:] are completely different. In
final position this vowel can also be diphthongised as something like /@U/. It can now be
heard in expressions such as thank you. However, not long ago, this particular
pronunciation was proper of child language.
3.5. Final remarks
Throughout this section, some of the most relevant English speaking areas in the world
have been reviewed, and their vocalic systems and allophonic evolutions have been
contrasted to those of the RP variety, considered by most authors as the academic
variety of English and that upon which most phonetic studies have been developed.
In the remaining of this work, I will summarise the most relevant conclusions
and will put forward some of the research lines this work has opened.
40
4. Conclusions and lines of future research
4.1. Conclusions
The expansion of English around the world since the 16th and 17th centuries, have made
this language the most widely spread and influential language in the world. This
expansion meant the incorporation of new lands to the empire and the mixing up of
English with the different local languages of the different colonised territories. As a
result, the English spoken by the settlers and their particularities were affected by
linguistic contact and developed in different ways in each of the territories. Some
features of the motherland language were preserved in some colonies while lost in
others and viceversa.
This study has proved that the result of those influences between languages and
cultures can still be observed. This holds true not only for the englishes of colonies, but
for the English spoken in England, where the Northern dialect is highly affected by the
Scandinavian language of the Danes that settled in England around the 8th Century.
As aforementioned, World englishes, except for BrE, are characterised by
dialectal homogeneity. Taking America as an example, minimum is the dialectal
variation found if we compare it to the UK. This can be easily explained through
Schneider’s (2010) theory about koinèization. The British settlers moved to these new
territories bringing with them bizarre forms of the language. In order to avoid
communicational barriers, all these highly marked forms were substituted for easier
ones. In the case of North American English, during the colonial period, a great number
of dialects formed a relative homogeneous mixture of English in each colony. The
similar sociolinguistic situation of the colonies caused that all the American English
varieties became more similar to each other than to the English brought from England.
Something different took place in Ireland where Irish was spoken, which greatly
influenced the English spoken in Ireland. In this case, difficult or uncommunicative
forms were not substituted for simpler forms but for Irish forms.
The results of this bibliographical review show the similarities and differences
that exist between some of the English varieties all around the globe. In the first place,
Northern English has a great influence over almost all the varieties covered by the
present work.
41
Northern English features can be seen in Irish English including its rhoticity, the
monophthongisation of /@U/ and /eI/ as /ɛ/ and /ɔ/ respectively, and the different use of
/U/ and /ʌ/. American English is also characterised by its rhoticity and by the
monophthongisation of /əәʊ/ and /eɪ/. Another feature that can be observed in both
Northern England and the States is the substitution of the long vowel /ɑ:/ for /æ/. This
last phonetic realisation also occurs in Australian and New Zealand English. There was
a lively debate on the influences on AusE and NZE because it is quite difficult to
determine whether it was Northern English or American English that influenced these
two territories. Avis (1973: 44-49) supports the idea that when the Americans arrived to
Australia, all the British settlers modified their speech according to American
pronunciation. Nonetheless, Scargill (1957: 611-612) suggests that many Australian
features that seem to have a strong influence from American English, may have been
brought to these countries by Northern Englanders.
Whatever the major influence came from, it is interesting to notice that the
Cockney also played a role here as proved by the tendency to change the RP /ɪ/ vowel
into a full tense vowel /i:/.
Finally, it is worth mentioning the relationships between in the first place,
American and Canadian English, and secondly, Australian and New Zealand English.
Starting with the first group, these two accents are very similar to each other due to the
proximity and the worldwide power and influence that America has upon other
countries. A salient instance of these similarities is that both dialects do not distinguish
between Mary, merry and marry (which are pronounced with /E/). Regarding the second
group, Australia and New Zealand are usually considered as a similar accent although
local inhabitants can easily determine whether someone comes from Australia or New
Zealand. Both accents share the peculiarity of centralising and lowering the RP /I/ to /@/.
Moreover, it is common for Australian and New Zealanders to diphthongise the long
vowel /i:/ as /@I/.
It is widely known that the North and the South of England differ in many
different ways and that American and Canadian English, and New Zealand English are
very similar to a large extent. However, this investigation has also put forward the fact
that, although the first settlers tried to maintain the language and culture of their
homeland, avoiding the modifications and changes the language underwent in the
colonies, the dreams of independence and the rise nationalistic movements made the
42
following generations of settlers feel proud of the differences, whether linguistic or of
any other type, that made them depart from Britain.
Therefore, this paper shows that the distance from the mother country along with
the intercommunication with the native languages and other English accents leads
English to develop in completely different, revolutionary and original ways despite they
also keep features that belong to the mother territory, England.
4.2. Lines of future research
This piece of review intended to investigate the vowel system of several English
accents. However some important varieties such as African, Indian or Jamaican English
have been left out. In a future research I would like to review what the literature says
about them.
A second shortage of this work is that consonants and diphthongs were left out.
Therefore a review is to be done which covers the whole phonetic system of these
varieties.
As that would be a massive task a study could be addressed upon one single
variety. This study will provide sociolinguistic, historical and political information. It
will also describe the main phonetic and phonological properties of this accent. These
features will be organised according to social variability such as age, sex, education,
social status, etc. because as we have seen, there are many differences between
speakers. For instance, young people are generally more innovative than older speakers,
usually very conservative. Finally, suprasegmental features as rhythm and intonation
should be observed because accents do not only differ from each other according to
single sounds but also from the way that speakers alter their utterance.
43
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Appendix 1: The International Phonetic Alphabet
49