Varieties Of English Accents Tyneside English English Language Essay

Varieties Of slope Accents Tyneside English English Language EssayTyneside English, otherwise known as Geordie, is one and only(a) of the most distinctive and unique accents of the United Kingdom. This essay foc customs on the phonology, lexis and grammar of this particular accent, and the historical, social and geographical factors which nurture influenced its distinctive consumes. Phonologically, the features analysed are TH-fronting, glottalisation and centring diphthongs, grammatically I have looked at second person pronouns and double modals and the final feature I have analysed is a lexical feature, the depot netty. Several academic artificial lakes have been utilise in this essay and and then a brief evaluation of the reliability of them have been discussed.Firstly, looking at the phonology of Tyneside English, a striking feature is TH-fronting, which historically, is a merger that occurs in several dialects, including Cockney and Liberian English. The labiodental fr icatives /f/ and /v/ are merged with the Early Modern English dental fricatives // and //, for represent the adjective three is pronounced as the adjective free. A geographical factor which may have influenced TH-fronting in Newcastle is a pattern of wave or contagion diffusion (Beal 201081). TH-fronting is an established feature of London speech and the feature is circularizeing westwards and northwards from London and thus is nevertheless just rootage to be adopted in Newcastle. As Kerswill claims, TH-fronting is adopted later the further North you go (Beal 201081).A social factor which may have influenced the spread of TH-fronting to areas like Newcastle from London is the popularity of the media, which have made people less oblivious than previous generations of a large range of accent features. Current evidence suggests individuals and communities re-create people when they meet them and thus adopt new forms of pronunciation, which appear to be extremely stigmatised featur es (BBC Voices). In addition, prejudice and stereotyping may be another social factor, as labiodental variants have traditionally been socially stigmatised and therefore tend to be avoided by middle-class speakers (Schneider 2004192).Another phonological feature of Tyneside English is that of glottalisation, for instance the voiced alveolar plosive /p/ is accompanied by a glottal stop // in among vowels. An example of this is /hpi/, as opposed to the precedent English /hpi/. Beal (2010) states a geographical factor which may have influenced this the diffusion of Estuary English from London to urban areas much further North, such(prenominal) as Newcastle. However, an alternative view concerning the origin of glottalisation is that it was first ob caused in the west of Scotland as early as 1860 and didnt occur in London until the pedigree of the twentieth century (Prez-Guerra 200739).A social factor which may have influenced the distribution of glottalisation is the fact that Estu ary English has been described as an accent of prestige (Anonymous 20062) as it is associated with Standard English. The imposed norm hypothesis states the standard variety has come to be regarded as superior due to social pressures (Long 200214), therefore arguably Estuary English has spread because it is perceived as desirable. Historically, the feature seems to have diffused to urban centres outside the south-east within the last 30-40 years (Kerswill 200311). In addition, Beal suggests another geographical factor which may have affected the distribution of glottalisation diffusion of the urban hierarchal type whereby the variant starts in larger cities and then spreads out into the smaller towns (Beal 201080).In terms such as gate, which is categorised as a face vowel in John Wells Lexical Sets (1982), speakers of the Geordie accent use the centring diphthongs /I/ or /e/, rather than the Standard English /eI/. Watt and Milroy (1999) discovered only older, running(a) class male s used the diphthong /I/, whereas younger Tynesiders used the monophthong /e/ (Watson 200656). Watt and Milroy suggest a social factor which may have influenced this younger Tynesiders are signalling that they dont wish to identify with their old-fashioned fathers, but lock away wish to be identified as Northerners (Beal 201019). A historical factor which may have affected this is the influence of Middle English. The diphthongs and were a result of syllable lengthening, as the monophthong /i/, derived from the Middle English //, was lengthened.A morphosyntactic feature of Tyneside English is the distinction between the singular and plural second person pronouns. In Standard English, no distinction is made, as you can refer to one person or a group of people. On the contrary, speakers of Tyneside English use you in the singular sift and youse in the plural tense. This is often perceived as bad grammar by speakers of Standard English. However Katie Wales (2006), suggests a social factor which influences the distinction is numerous dialect speakers have felt the loss of a singular-plural distinction in Standard English to be a disadvantage and so have initiated more plurals (Wales 199619). This is a valid argument, as the loss of the distinction does appear to be more problematic (Beal 201040), as no distinction can sometimes be troublesome, as it is not always clear to whom one is referring to. A historical factor which influenced the distinction is possibly the influence from the large influx of Irish people to Tyneside between 1850-1900. Geographically, Kortmann (2008) describes the term youse as Northern (Beal 201040).According to Standard English, only one modal verb can appear in each verb phrase as they lack an infinitive and therefore the phrase he might could do it is ungrammatical. However, in Tyneside English, this does not apply, as long as the second modal verb is can or could and thus the previous construction is perfectly acceptable. Forms su ch as he might could do it are not only quite roughhewn, but also serve specific pragmatic purposes (Fisiak 19971514). Montgomery and Nagle (1993) suggest a historical factor which may have influenced double modals could be the American and British varieties developing in tandem from some incipient grammatical structure in seventeenth century Scots, as the earliest recorded instances of todays double modals are in Scotland and grey American English. (Fisiak 19971514). Sometimes, the meaning of double modals is different in Tyneside English than in Standard English. For example, the Standard English phrase The lift cant be working can also mean The lift mustnt be working in Tyneside English, meaning misunderstandings are almost guaranteed (Keuchler 200719).Moving on to lexical features, a common term used in Tyneside lexis is netty, meaning an outside toilet (British Library). A historical factor which may have influenced this is the influence of loanwords, although this is uncerta in. It is highly probable that the term comes from a Modern Romanic Italian form of the word gabinetti, meaning toilet. However, John Trotter Brockett (1829), connects the Geordie word netty to the Modern English adjective needy. On the BBC Voices website, Yaron Matras points out that many local dialects in Northumbria have incorporated words of Romani origin into the local slang. Similarly, the British Library website suggests a geographical factor which influences the distribution of the term, claiming in that respect has been a Roma presence for centuries in the Borders area and so it is not surprising this has influenced speech in the North East.Whilst producing this essay, the most helpful and reliable source available was the British Library Sounds Familiar? website. With several audio clips provided to investigate the Geordie Dialect and a case-study specifically on Geordie, the website gives an in-depth study on Tyneside English. Not only does the website allow the user to listen to voice recordings, it also gives the Standard English equivalent and a detailed explanation of the feature. On the contrary, a website which was less useful, was the BBC Voices website. Although the reason of the website is the BBC which is an academic institution, the website used anecdotal evidence to support its claims. Furthermore, the information on the Geordie accent was limited and specialist terminology isnt used.Another website looked at was the Sounds Comparisons website. On one hand, this was a reliable source, as it had a whole section dedicated to Tyneside English and allows the user to listen to every vowel and consonant in the Geordie dialect. In contrast, there was no linguistic explanation to compliment the sound recordings, which meant it wasnt helpful when analysing the historical, geographical and social aspects of the variables. Finally, another source included in my research was the British Library Archival Sound Recordings website, which was the leas t reliable of the four. Despite the fact it allows the user to listen to local people speaking the Geordie dialect, the only explanation assumption is the topic of conversation, rather than a linguistic analysis. Overall, with the exception of the British Library Sounds Familiar? website, academic books were more informative and reliable, in particular Joan Beals An Introduction to regional Englishes (2010).In conclusion, the Geordie accent has been described as a proud badge of cultural identity, as invasions of the North-East meant Newcastle was linguistically isolated from other developments in Northumbria. Moreover, the River duster is a significant Northern barrier against the influence of the Scots, meaning Newcastle has resisted centralising tendencies (British Library Sounds Familiar?) of Edinburgh. Tyneside English appears to have resisted dialect levelling which leads to a loss of specialness in dialects (Beal 20102) as there are significant differences (British Library Sounds Familiar?) between Geordie and other local dialects such as Pitmatic.