dialect

Question 1

manchester dialect

Answer 1

chewing gum - chuddy
owt - anything
scran - food

Question 2

Paul Kerswill’s Dialect Levelling

Answer 2

• observed that regional varieties of english are dying out (called this dialect levelling)
• local variations of speech are becoming more like standard english
• this is due to increased social mobility which means tight-knit groups are breaking down, meaning there is less pressure to speak in a regional form
• norm-enforcements are disappearing due to closed social networks

Question 3

the surrey dialect

Answer 3

• on the london commuter belt
• lexis: bannick (to beat or thrash) timmersome (timid)
• grammar: non standard copular ‘be’,
  non-standard past tense of strong verbs ‘knowd’

Question 4

social network theory

Answer 4

• observed the effect that the size and diversity of your social group has on your language
• an individuals’ social network falls somewhere between ‘open’ and ‘closed’
• a closed, multiplex social network acts as a strong norm enforcer

Question 5

forest of dean

Answer 5

• sparsely populated and rural area
• ‘ship’ (sheep) meaning someone who wanders aimlessly around the village

Question 6

Milroy and Milroy

Answer 6

• argues that britain is an increasingly socially mobile society with people moving more both geographically and in terms of status

Question 7

Reading Boys

Answer 7

She created social networks for each member of the group and gave them a network strength scores, determining whether they were a primary member, secondary member or non-member of the group
She discovered there was a positive correlation between between social network and 6/11 features
She then created the vernacular culture index which determined status, including things such as style of dress and carrying knives
She discovered that some features were very closely linked to status

Question 8

Gile’s Matched Guise

Answer 8

• an attempt to identify attitudes and prejudices about accents
• Giles performed an experiment with an actor using both RP and a Birmingham accent
• the RP speaker was consistently judged to be more intelligent

Question 9

Dixon, Mahoney and Cox Matched Guise

Answer 9

• fake police interview setup
• everyone (including people from Birmingham) thought that the Birmingham speaker was most likely to be guilty

Question 10

Watson
Dialect Islands

Answer 10

claimed that Liverpool was a ‘dialect island’ as it was not undergoing the process of ‘dialect levelling’ that the rest of the country was
- Liverpool was actually becoming more Scouse
- Scousers aspirate sounds that they previously didn’t