VARIETIES OF ENGLISH
Claes Lindskog
University of Gothenburg
2017
Please transcribe
• body
• cheerful
• New York
Please transcribe
• body
• cheerful
• New York
RP
/ˈbɒdɪ/
/ˈtʃɪəfʊl/
/nju: ˈjɔ:k/
GA
/bɑ:dɪ/
/ˈtʃɪrfʊl/
/nu: ˈjɔ:rk/
Variants
• Accent vs. dialect
• Historical (Old English, Middle English, Early Modern English)
• Regional (RP, GA)
• Social (Working class, Upper class)
• Gender (Valleyspeak)
Some accents of English
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
RP
GA
Cockney
Estuary English
Northern English
Australian
South African
Indian
Scots
Southern Irish
Canadian
American accents
Jamaican
RP
• Received pronunciation
• “the Queen’s English”
• “Oxford English”
• “BBC English”
RP
• Not regional
• But close to Southern English accents
• ≈ Standard British English
• Prestigious
• 3-5% of the population in Britain
• Understood all over the world
“I wanted to move him away from RP for the first time because we
shouldn’t make a correlation between intellect and accent”
Christopher Eccleston on Dr Who, 2015
Phonological characteristics of RP
• Non-rhotic since the late 19th century
• Clear /l/ used before vowels
• /ɒ/ in hot and pot
• Centralising diphthongs
• “clipped”, i.e. many vowel reductions and elisions
• Linking /r/ and intrusive /r/
General American
• Midwestern and Western United States
• Understood all over the world
General American (phonemic differences)
• Rhotic (with retroflex)
• Yod-dropping: /u:/ instead of /ju:/ in New York
• /æ/ instead of /ɑ:/ before /θ/, /f/, /s/, /nt/, /ns/, /nd/: dance, chance,
fast, but not in father, car
• /ɑ:/ instead of /ɒ/ or /ɔ:/ in hot, coffee, law, bomb, caught
• /oʊ/ instead of /əʊ/ in no, boat, coat
• /з:/ instead of/⋀/ before /r/: worry, courage
GA statistics
Source: Wells, Longman Pronunciation Dictionary
• Yod-dropping in new: 86%
• gone, coffee: 57% /ɔ:/; 43% /ɑ:/
• Lawyer: 77% /ɔ/; 24% /ɑ:/
• Law: only /ɑ:/
• /u:/ in coupon: 52% AmE; 94% BrE
GA (allophonic differences)
• Flap [ɾ] instead of /t/ in letter
• Dark /l/ in all positions
GA compared to RP
• Earlier primary stress in
ˈ address, ˈmigrate, ˈdonate, ˈlaboratory, ˈ moustache, ˈresearch
• Later primary stress in aˈdult, balˈlet, caˈfé, gaˈrage
• Full vowels in the suffixes –ary, -ery, -ory, -mony: ceremony
• Reduced vowels in the suffix –ile: hostile
• Narrower pitch range
• Lacks intonation ladders; all words before the nucleus are
pronounced low
GA / RP, individual words
• Advertisement
• Asia
• Ate
• Clerk
• Either / neither
• Herb
• Leisure
• Schedule
• Thorough
• Tomato
• Vase
•Z
Historical variants
Whan that aprill with his shoures soote
The droghte of march hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, Prologue (late 14th C)
Historical developments
• Modern English spelling is based on that of the 15th century
• The Great Vowel Shift (in stages between ca 1350-1600)
• Final /e/ lost, e.g. in home (ca 1400)
• /k/ lost in knight, knee, /x/ lost in daughter and /ç/ lost in night (ca
1600)
• Non-rhoticity develops in some variants (ca 1750-2000)
https://books.google.se/books?id=Hrc0AlvgowQC&pg=PA207&lpg=PA2
07&dq=%22some+major+changes+in+pronunciation+since+Late+middl
e+english%22&source=bl&ots=bAqSYcpeOd&sig=iZhNi_Uyax0DuWtykk
v1rL5CbCw&hl=sv&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj_xobG197MAhWoA5oKHUY5B
E8Q6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&q=%22some%20major%20changes%20in%
20pronunciation%20since%20Late%20middle%20english%22&f=false
Phonological Features
Rhoticity
• Rhotic accents pronounce /r/ in all positions
• Non-rhotic accents only pronounce /r/ before vowels
• Rhoticity gradually lost in some accents during 18th and 19th centuries
• Rhotic: GA, Canadian, Irish, and Scottish English, some accents in the
west of England,
• Non-rhotic: RP, Welsh English, Australian, New Zealand, South African
• Varying: New York, New England, AAVE, Jamaican
Rhotic areas of England (late 20th century)
source: Wikipedia, based on Peter Trudgill, The Dialects of England
Rhoticity in different social groups, in Reading and in New York City
(Romaine 1984)
Chart Title
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
1
2
3
Reading
NYC
4
Allophones of /r/
• [ɹ]̠ Postalevolar approximant in most accents, including RP and GA
• [ɻ] retroflex approximant in SW England, Ireland, some American
accents
• [ʋ] labiodental approximant in SE England, London (close to /w/)
• [r] alveolar trill in Scottish English (old-fashioned)
• [ɾ] Alveolar flap in Scottish English
• [ʁ] voiced uvular fricative in Northumberland (very old-fashioned)
• [ʍ] and [w] in which and witch
• “usual in Scottish and Irish English, and decreasingly so in AmE …
Learners of EFL are recommended to use plain w” (Wells 883).
Clear and dark /l/
• Clear before vowels, dark after: RP
• Always clear: South Wales, Ireland, Caribbean
• Always dark: GA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Scotland, North
wales
Cot-caught merger (as /ɔ/)
• Homophones:
cot – caught
• Rhymes:
shock – talk
Found in:
Scotland, Ireland, New England, New York, Canada, Singapore
High Rising Terminals
• Northern Ireland
• Australia and New Zealand
• Valleyspeak
Accents
Cockney
• London working class
• Non-rhotic
• Glottal stop [Ɂ] in letter, milk
• Th-fronting: think as [fɪŋk]
• H-dropping and h-adding: In ‘Artford, ‘Ereford, and ‘Ampshire,
‘urricanes 'ardly hever 'appen.
• /aɪ/ instead of /eɪ/: The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plains.
Estuary English
• Cockney spreading into the middle class
• Spreading from London (the Thames estuary)
• Non-rhotic
• Intrusive /r/ in drawing
• Replaces /l/ with /w/ at the end of syllables: milk, feel
• Auxiliaries and prepositions often stressed: for years, four years
Northern English accents
• Generally non-rhotic
• /æ/ instead of /ɑ:/ before /θ/, /f/, /s/, /nt/, /ns/, /nd/:
dance, chance, fast, but father, car
• /ʊ/ instead of /⋀/ in but, cut
Australian
• Non-rhotic
• /ɑ:/ very open: father
• Final / ə/ very open: father, hear
• /aʊ/ close to /eʊ/: mouth
South African
• Non-rhotic
• Unaspirated /k/, /p/, /t/, /t∫/
• [ɛ] instead of /æ/ in bad
• /ə/ instead of /ɪ/ in bid
Indian
• Non-rhotic
• Alveolar consonants replaced by retroflexes
• Even stress without vowel reduction
Scots
•
•
•
•
Rhotic (with flap)
Preserved distinction between [ʍ] and [w] in which and witch
[x] in loch, dreich
Short pre-Great Vowel Shift vowels, so these have the same vowel sound:
bee
beer
[i:]
bay
bear
[e]
bid
bird
[ɪ]
hut
hurt
[⋀]
moo
moor
[u:]
row
roar
[ɔ]
Irish (Southern)
• Rhotic (with retroflex)
• Preserved distinction between [ʍ] and [w] in which and witch
• [ɔ:] instead of /ɒ/ in dog, cross, lost, wrong
• [u:] instead of /ʊ/ in book, cook
• [eɪ] instead of /i:/ in tea
Canadian
• Rhotic
• Very similar to GA
• Canadian raising:
/əʊ/ instead of /aʊ/ in out loud, about
/əɪ/ instead of /aɪ/ in night time
NYC accent
• Non-rhotic
• [ɔ:] instead of /ɒ/ or /ɑ:/ in law, coffee, caught, or talk
• [ɔɪ] instead of /з:/ in bird
Southern US accents
• Non-rhotic until WWII
• Pin-pen merger: [pɪn]
• Monopthongisation of /aɪ/ to /ɑ:/: mighty fine
• Diphthongisation of/ɪ/ to [iə]: him
• Unstressed final /ŋ/ becomes [n]: fishing
African-American Vernacular English
• Often non-rhotic
• Pin-pen merger: [pɪn]
• Monopthongisation of /aɪ/ to /ɑ:/: mighty fine
• Monophthongisation of /ɔɪ/: boil and ball are homophones
• Th-fronting: think as [fɪŋk]
• this pronounced /dɪs/ instead of /ðɪs/
• Unstressed final /ŋ/ becomes [n]: fishing
• Final cluster reduction: child [t∫aɪl]
Jamaican mesolects
• Reduction of final consonant clusters: child [t∫aɪl]
• No schwa: wonderful [wandaful]
• The diphthong /eɪ/ pronounced /ɪe/: [jamɪeka]