Transcript LELA 10082 Describing accents IV Case study: Liverpool 1/14

LELA 10082
Describing accents IV
Case study: Liverpool
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Liverpool accent
Spoken in quite
restricted area
around city, though
influences accents
(due to migration!)
as “far” away as
Southport,
Warrington,
Chester/North
Wales
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Liverpool accent
• Northern accent with no /~/ distinction, and typical
/a~A/ distribution
• But quite unlike other local accents (rural Lancs, Cheshire)
in other respects: close /i/ in city, diphthongs for /ei,ou/
• Said to derive from C19 migration of Manx, Scots, Welsh
and above all Irish – certainly there are Gaelic features in
the accent
• Amazingly, ignored in 1950-61 Survey of English Dialects
• Actually (like most accents) there are numerous varieties,
in particular “hard, gritty” vs “soft, lyrical”
• Distinctive intonation range (though more marked in recent
years)
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Most distinctive feature
• “Lenition” of stop consonants
• Realisation as fricatives or affricates of /t/
and /k/ especially, and to an extent /p/
• General “lax” articulation of voiced stop
consonants /b,d,g/
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Endocentric analysis of /t/ phoneme
(strongest accent)
• If realised as [s], forms homophone pairs
– sin/tin, lesser/letter, pass/pat, sri/tree, sop/stop, rice/rights,
chance/chant
• Word-finally may be realised as [h]
– but [bh], what [wh]
– But this is allophonic free variation, as [bs] and [ws] are also
possible
– And existence of /h/ phoneme is in doubt
• Similar situation with medial:
– Got a letter may be [gslEs], [glE
– This may be incidental variation, ie using /r/ phoneme
• Similar situation with lateral and nasal release:
– button, bottle more likely to be heard with [?] or [s]
– Glottal stop otherwise not particularly common feature
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Arguments against
• Many accents do make a distinction, even if /t/ is heavily
affricated
• Native intuition would recognize difference
– Though this is influenced by familiarity with RP and other accents
– And reinforced by the writing system
– In fact, may not even agree that eg but/bus are homophones
• Distribution of allophones can be described with reference
to “t in the spelling”:
– final [h] in but, what (but never in bus)
– medial ‘r’ sound in got to, lot of, better (but never in passer,
guesser)
– Glottal stop in bottle (but never in castle)
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Word list
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Narrative text
• Speaker
– Female
– “middle-aged”
– has lived in Liverpool all her life
• You can also hear one or two other speakers
– At least one of these is also Liverpudlian
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Things to listen out for
• Affricated stops:
– [x] in America, weeks (0:00), like (0:09), Walker (0:12),
can’t drink, can’t smoke (0:18), walking (0:18), working
(0:38), work (0:47), back (0:59) etc
– [s] in great (0:16), monitor (0:28), straight [sreIs]
(0:38), extra [Exsr] (1:18)
• Realisation of /r/:
– flap medially America (0:00); for her (0:37), for him
(0:59), where it (1:08);
– tap or roll in great (0:16), drink (0:18), straight (0:38)
• Medial /t/ realised as tap: what if (0:33), lot of
(1:08), got a job (1:15), tara (1:38) (= ta-ta)
• /h/ usually dropped: her (0:16), he’s (0:28), him
(0:59)
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Accents: Summary
• When comparing English accents, it is usual (and
easiest) to compare with RP
• Often there are a few very striking features which
we tend to focus on, but in reality there are
probably lots of others, sometimes quite subtle
• Notice we have tried to use phonetic terminology,
and avoid subjective comments about
attractiveness or otherwise of accents
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Regional accents in general:
Key points of variation
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•
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Realisation of // vowel
/a/ ~ /A/ distribution
Distribution of /r/ (“rhotic” accents)
/u/ ~ // distinction
/h/ phoneme (“H dropping”)
Use of glottal stop
Status of velar nasal /N/
Use of /j/ in consonant clusters
“Long mid diphthonging”
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• Distribution and phoneme status of velar nasal /N/
– Pronunciation of words ending in -ing
– [N] as an allophone of /n/
• “Long mid diphthonging”
– Variety in quality of diphthongs /ei/ and /ou/
– More southern accents have wider diphthongs
– Some accents have (historically older) monophthongs
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Accent
groups
of the
British
Isles
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CL: Central Lancs
CN: Central north
ESW: Eastern southwest
H: Humberside
M: Merseyside
NE: North-east
SM: South Midlands
WM: West Midlands
WSW: Western southwest
Source:
A. Hughes, P. Trudgill and D.
Watt.
English Accents and Dialects:
An introduction to social and
regional varieties of English in
the British Isles. (4th edition)
London (2005) Hodder Arnold
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