The purpose of this unit is to consider which aspects of language can vary, and what non-linguistic factors might explain such variation.
Language can exhibit variation in its:
A way of pronunciation shared by a group of people is known as their accent by linguists. Don't confuse accent with dialect: dialect is a much broader term, which includes lexis, morphology and syntax as well as pronunciation.
People often associate the ideas of accent and dialect with differences in people's geographical origins. This is one factor which may account for variation.
ACTIVITY 1 Look at the following transcription of a recording by Hughes and Trudgill, taken from their book English Accents and Dialects. The speaker is a middle-aged barmaid who has lived all her life in Liverpool. Mark all the instances you can find where her lexis, syntax, morphology or semantics differs from Standard English. NB1: The interviewer's turns have been omitted. NB2: Annie Walker was a strict and snobbish bar manager in "Coronation Street". Turn to Comments on Activities |
"yeh, she's gone to America for three weeks, so we all go sad again next week ... she comes over ... I'll go polishing everything next week ... she's a good manager, like, isn't she? but er ... she's a real Annie Walker, you know, everything's got to be so ... she's ... once you get to know her, she's great but you can't drink and you can't have a smoke ... we're all walking round with four lighted cigarettes in our hand and having a drink off everyone that gives us one ... yeh, we're in charge, yeh ... well he's ... he's er in charge of them all and I'm the monitor ... I'm er ... when he's not there I'm in charge ... but er it's ... I tell you what, if she left I wouldn't go out there ... cos, you know, I do really like working for her. She's straight ... and she trusts you and that's imp-... that's the main thing, like, isn't it, you know ... she is ... she's great ... I don't think she's ever laughed till I went there ...
Course as I say, when you do your work you don't need erm a boss, do you? that's what I say ... this ... this manager's made up ... he said erm ... he's never co- ... he'll give us the tills, then he comes back about four o'clock, and we've all locked up and gone ... everything for him ... he says, one thing about it, he says, I haven't got to stand over yous ... only the night time, you know ... course, where it is, of a night they have a lot of er, you know, some that'll come a couple of nights, all these part-time students ... and some of them ... er ... got a job ... going to Spain and then want a few bob extra and then they just leave it. I don't know whether they tap her till or what they do, but ... he has to be there for them of a night time ... yeh, but it is, it's er ... and it's a pub that you wouldn't be frightened to bring anybody into, isn't it? ... you know, it's beautiful ... er yeh ... true yeh ... oh yeh, you say ... I say bye-bye in there, I say tarrah up here ...
Mind you, she'll be round there drunk now if you went into the Winifred for a drink ... but I've never seen barmaids like them. They go round well away shouting and everything and ... and the boss and the manageress is standing watching them ... but they must be all right, kind of thing, or otherwise they wouldn't put up with it, would they, like ... true, yeh ... well, this is it ... mind you, there's been three man- ... three managers er sacked from there for bad takings ... so they can't be er all that good ... and two of them is two that's been through each ... one that's, you know, er been sacked ... yeh, that was [name erased] ... but then, after that there was erm a stout one named Jean ... and John ... she was er an Australian, I think yeh, and she was here that long waiting for a place that I took her in for three weeks ... him and her ... and they were ... she was a great person ... I was made up because I didn't take no rent off her, Stan, cos ... I was ... every halfpenny she had had gone ... paying for storage of furniture and she had dogs and ... all er so I just let her live here, like, but she used to have a catering there as well, like Mrs. Crighton. When I come home I'd have a three course dinner, and I couldn't leave a handkerchief down it was washed and ironed. I was made up because I didn't have to do nothing to help her ... but, anyhow, it ... he finished up erm ... er ... a night watchman on Runcorn bridge ... that's the only place she could get a house was Runcorn ... but it was a shame, though, with the money she had and she was in ... born in New Zealand and ... everything and her staff pulled her right down ... it is ... she said to me, she said, Bridie, she said, they didn't take it in handfuls, they took it in fistfuls ... and she was a real good manager t- ... to them, you know, you know especially Christmas, she wouldn't buy them er a box of handkerchiefs, something like that, it'd be a suit ... or a dress ... and buy all their children, but yet they done all that on her like, you know, yeh ... wouldn't be Mrs. Crighton ... she'd only l- ... find her once and that would be your lot, you'd be through the door."
As well as geographical region, factors which can account for language variation are age, gender, ethnic group and social class.
ACTIVITY 2 Here (p.4) is another speech sample collected by Hughes and Trudgill. This time the speaker is a caretaker from Walsall with "a very distinctive West Midlands accent". After saying something about his evening habits, he goes on to talk about his footballing days and then about the problems of Walsall Football Club. As before, mark all the features which differ from Standard English. Which of the features you found can be attributed solely to the speaker's geographical origin? Which ones could be due to his age, gender, social class or outlook on life? Which ones seem likely to be idiosyncratic, his own personal mannerisms? Turn to Comments on Activities |
"Something" in line 4 is actually pronounced "summat" according to Hughes and Trudgill. It is hard to capture aspects of pronunciation in a transcription which uses standard orthography rather than phonological symbols. Do you think they should have attempted to represent the pronunciation of this word? How far should a linguist go in trying to "spell" non-standard pronunciations? This is a very tricky question because there is no such thing as a neutral transcription, and any transcription we do use reflects our prejudices about the variety of language being represented. Speakers of varieties of English other than the standard one may take pride in the "otherness" of their language and object to it being written down as if it were Standard English. On the other hand, if a speaker pronounces house as _____ and singing as _______, should we represent these as 'ouse and singin' respectively? To do so encourages the folk-linguistic description of such accents in terms of "dropping one's 'h's" or "dropping one's 'g's" - which is, of course, both nonsense (does anyone seriously expect any variety of English to be pronounced as it is spelt?) and prejudiced (do we describe speakers of R.P. as "dropping their 'h's" because they pronounce which as _______?).
Perhaps the only safe strategy is either to stick to conventional, standard English spelling throughout, while acknowledging that it does not reflect anyone's accent accurately; or to use phonological transcription symbols throughout. This is probably the view taken by Hughes and Trudgill: it would explain why a word pronounced as "summat" is transcribed as "something" here.
"I don't go out much, not in the week, you know. I go out one night a week, and if the wife isn't bothered, I won't, you know, I don't bother. Well, the wife and the daughter generally go out together and I stop in, you know, with the lad ... but er as g- ... the wife and the daughter they've booked up a show what the women have got up or something, eight fifty to see that man who works ... impersonates a woman ... what's his name him who impersonates the women on the television ...
The other night I couldn't get in- ... interested in it about ho- ... homosexuals, you know, and I said to my wife, I says, er, are you coming to bed? Her says, no, I'm going to see the finish of this. I says, all right then, goodnight, and I went up to bed. I mean ... I'm not, you know, like that ...
I used to be keen. I used to be a good footballer myself ... yeh ... Goodyears and all those, you know, they was high class teams, I mean you played for the honour then, I mean, you didn't get nothing out of it ...
No, no, well, er me and the captain of Guest Keens, we had a trial for Walsall and er we came up the one week and they says, come the next week and play again, see, well in the meantime we've got an important match for the works team, cup final, and the captain says, are you going to Walsall? I said no, the works team's more important to me, see. Course we didn't go, and we had a nasty post card off Walsall FC about it, cos we didn't turn up ...
Well I won the one cup for them really in ... erm ... 1948 ... er we was er winning one-none half-time, and the second half I got three goals, and we won four ... a ... an theys ... and they made me go and have the cup, cos, they said, you've won this cup and you're going to have it, and I ... I... present ... presented with it, you know.
I could have done, yes, if I'd have stuck to it, you know, but ... er ... well .. when, you know ... no, no ... but, I mean, you didn't get a lot then if you played professional, I mean, it was a poor wage then, years ago ... but it ... it was an honour to play, they didn't play for the money like they do today ... well, they've got to make it while they're fit, cos you never know what's going to happen ...
Well Dave Mackay was on the wireless this morning before I come out, you know, and they was interviewing him, the reporter, and he said he ... he couldn't understand it why they couldn't score at home ... I mean, but win away, you know ...
... played for Derby, half-back didn't he? Yes, I do. I always like to see them win, and that, but er ... something ... lacking there, definitely ...
Well Walsall can if they dish the football up. Course they couldn't keep me away years ago. I used to go to every ... well, I think it's been about six or eight years, when they played Sunderland down here in the cup, and Liverpool ... I paid a man to do my job, here of a Saturday afternoon to go and see the two matches. And when I come back ... I was away, say, two hours ... I'd still got the same work to do ... nothing had been done.
Well er they never spent no money but they got local talent ... they got a lot of local talent what come up ... you know, like ... out of the amateur sides. That's where they go wrong, they don't go to the proper matches ... er ... like Shrewsbury, now, Chick Bates, they had him from Stourbridge for about two hundred and fifty pound fee ... and he's scoring two or three goals a match now... I mean, Walsall could've done with a man like him."
