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Short vowels in real time: TRAP, STRUT and FOOT in the South of England

Short vowels in real time: TRAP, STRUT and FOOT in the South of England. Anne Fabricius Roskilde University, Denmark ICLAVE #5, Copenhagen June 27th, 2009. Introduction. Language change in progress, its social embedding, predictions and complications

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Short vowels in real time: TRAP, STRUT and FOOT in the South of England

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  1. Short vowels in real time: TRAP, STRUT and FOOT in the South of England Anne Fabricius Roskilde University, Denmark ICLAVE #5, Copenhagen June 27th, 2009

  2. Introduction • Language change in progress, its social embedding, predictions and complications • A real-time diachronic study of some features of modern RP/changing SSBE • At one level a quantitative study of patterns of variation implicated in linguistic change in some cases • At another level, a study of the evolution and devolution/transformation of modern RP as a social practice and its place in the sociolinguistic landscape of the UK • Here: an exemplificatory look at short vowel configurations ICLAVE#5, June 2009

  3. Background • Phonologically and phonetically the RP accent has been well described in the past (native speaker phoneticians e.g. Daniel Jones’ EPD, Gimson & Cruttenden) • Methodological foundations in the structuralist tradition of phonetics, a ‘variety’ perspective • “axiom of categoricity” vs sociolinguistic/variationist school of thought • Historical roots of RP are discussed by Mugglestone (2003): Talking Proper: the rise of accent as social symbol • the traditional ‘non-regional’ accent /as consequence of the insularity of public school boarding life/preparatory schools from age ~7, 8 ICLAVE#5, June 2009

  4. RP: fact and fiction (Ramsaran 1990) • ‘Native RP’ (s) • Sociolinguistically observable through a defined population in successive generations • Sociologically • Socioeconomic background • Educational background and experiences • Phonological system(s) with phonetic variations … • Change is a different phenomenon in each case • All ‘varieties’ have this potential ambiguity • ‘Construct RP’ (s) • Systematically related to n-RP but distinct and with its own diachrony • Here the notion of ‘standard’ comes into play, and can change • E.g. on age-graded reactions to t-glottalling • Each generation has its own cutoff points: ‘posh’ • Examples of ‘clergy-speak’ • A sociolinguistics of perception… (Harrington , Kleber and Reubold 2008, on generational perceptions of /u/-fronting) ICLAVE#5, June 2009

  5. Modern RP or SSBE? • A question of naming practice • Why ‘Modern RP’ • Why ‘SSBE’ • What do the titles emphasize and de-emphasize • Standard as a label mixes form and function, Southern as a result of regional history • Modern RP emphasizes a generational sociolinguistic continuity • which however may be illusory in some individual cases • Ask what is the ‘breaking point’, empirically, for a decisive cut with the earlier label… • Connotations of ‘RP’ led many to abandon it in the 60’s. ICLAVE#5, June 2009

  6. Empirical background: Social polarities in the UK • Historical social differentiation in UK secondary education: public school - independent school – grammar school - state school (similar to Australia, vs e.g. Denmark, Scandinavia) • Universities, Govt. Education policy and Access schemes • Are educational backgrounds blurred or maintained in a higher education context? • Application rates to e.g. Cambridge are rising (Access) • Present Economic situation (?) • What are students’ perceptions? (North-South divide, levelling, do accents ’matter’ to people) ICLAVE#5, June 2009

  7. Theory: sociolinguistics and class • Chambers (1995:37), • The “upper class,” consisting of people with inherited wealth and privileges, is so inconsequential – nonexistent outside Europe and Asia and dwindling rapidly there - that it will not be considered here. • Schneider's (1999:51) review of Chambers • "we are less well-informed about [upper-class] speech patterns, attitudes, ... and although it may be true that for sociolinguistic purposes they are rather irrelevant, that still does not imply non-existence, - for sociolinguistic modelling, a continuum of which one pole just does not exist, would not be very convincing." • Macaulay (2002: 398) points out, social class was to some extent sidelined compared to ethnicity, social networks and gender as important sociolinguistic categories. • (My interviewees MC/UMC rather than aristocratic UC) ICLAVE#5, June 2009

  8. Kroch 1996 • Anthony Kroch’s interview-based study of the upper-class of Philadelphia • members of that group were users of the same phonological system as other Philadelphians • E.g. complex phonetic conditioning of features such as Philadelphians short /a/. • What distinguished them in their speech and in the perception of others was a distinctive set of prosodic and lexical behaviours. (c.f. creak in RP) ICLAVE#5, June 2009

  9. Thus... • A research interest in the sociolinguistics of the successor to RP, e.g. speakers’ rates of participation in ongoing England-wide vernacular changes (such as discussed in Foulkes and Docherty 1999) • Is non-regionality breaking down/changing, e.g. in Oxbridge contexts? • What does Higher education contribute to koinéization processes (Bigham 2008)? • Reflects a changing picture of (fluid) relationships between language and socioeconomic privilege and historical processes • Part of the picture of English in the UK in its entirety ICLAVE#5, June 2009

  10. Moreover • When is an accent variety no longer the same, when has it changed beyond recognition (mutually intelligible still across generations or breaking down: through changes below consciousness... yeast/used, toasties/tasties) • Linguistic Variety perspectives and social practice/social constructionist perspective potentially complement each other (having an accent versus doing being a student at Cambridge linguistically) • Thus, linguistic and ethnographic/sociological perspectives can/must potentially intertwine... • Need an updated model of the generational picture also for ’modern RP’ speakers (cf Rampton’s model based on Wells 1982) ICLAVE#5, June 2009

  11. The research questions arising here • To what extent is there still a non-regional accent of English in the UK? • What phonetic characteristics does it maintain from earlier generations? • and to what extent are ongoing UK-wide processes of vernacular change visible here? • Are there changes particular to this variety alone? • What is its relationship to ongoing metaprocesses of standard-formation/devolution/transformation ICLAVE#5, June 2009

  12. Methods • Interview corpus with present author as interviewee • 40+ interviews collected 1997/1998 • 40+ interviews collected 2008 • At Cambridge University • Students with independent school backgrounds • Structured sociolinguistic interviews, 1hr duration • Ongoing project • Quantitative studies of phonetic variation to ’map’ the accent variety empirically to an extent not attempted before ICLAVE#5, June 2009

  13. Presuppositions • The forces of linguistic change which act on all varieties of a language will also apply to n-RP • whether internally-motivated endogenous or contact-induced exogenous changes (Trudgill 1999) • Popular or folk-linguistic notions of, and about, correctness or standardness also undergo change, due to historical societal developments, • these changes represent developments in c-RPs (cf Rampton’s ’posh’ performances) ICLAVE#5, June 2009

  14. The unity of varieties... • Varieties emerging from dialectologically-focussed studies • Demarcation lines become important; Wells 1982 (RP, near-RP…) • However, difficulties of demarcation and definition in late modern societies are sometimes emphasized (RamptonLanguage in Late Modernity) • So is the British accent landscape characterized by stability as well as change? • Coupland and Bishop 2007 reporting stability in regional vernacular downgrading • Plus younger speakers’ rejection of standard prestige in highly decontextualised attitudinal rating settings • Report ”disappointingly familiar conservative tendencies”..(2007:84) • Alongside findings for younger listeners ” [that] at least to a limited extent, challenge the inference that there is a consolidated, single ideological set in the evaluation of English accents” (2007:85) ICLAVE#5, June 2009

  15. ...contra social practice perspectives • Social practice emerging through ethnographic approach • We could for example ask how do students do being at Cambridge linguistically • speaking differently when they start and when they finish… (Evans and Iverson 2007) • Are there gender distinctions? (are they potential motors of wider change?) • Communities of practice in the Cambridge University landscape: rowing clubs, choirs, subject groups (Classics?), different colleges, could form basis for ethnographic studies ICLAVE#5, June 2009

  16. Data: short vowels in reading passage data Data set Analysis • Lexical items with tone group prominence • PRAAT analysis using standard settings (adjusted with greater Hz range for female voices) • PRAAT script by Tyler Kendall to extract mid-point formant values • 900 tokens in all, 8 keywords • Hand checked, 4 tokens discarded ICLAVE#5, June 2009

  17. Comparisons presented here • Compare reading passage data in year and gender cohorts • For comparison with trends in RP over the course of the twentieth century, see Fabricius 2007a and b. • TRAP-STRUT rotation brought about by (1) trap backing and lowering (2) STRUT raising to central or back of central position • FOOT fronting (and unrounding) towards KIT • Changes in short vowel system only. • Comparisons needed with long vowels e.g. START ICLAVE#5, June 2009

  18. Male speakers, 1998 cohort ICLAVE#5, June 2009

  19. M3’s interview speech LOT-FOOT TRAP-STRUT ICLAVE#5, June 2009

  20. Male speakers, 2008 cohort ICLAVE#5, June 2009

  21. Female speakers, 1998 cohort ICLAVE#5, June 2009

  22. Female speakers, 2008 cohort ICLAVE#5, June 2009

  23. Tendencies suggested • TRAP/STRUT configuration stable • LOT raising vis a vis FOOT • Females 2008 plus 1 male 2008 speaker • FOOT remains distinct from KIT, process has slowed • STRUT/ START overlapping needs further investigation • Importantly, individual differences can be tracked • Unity and diversity... ICLAVE#5, June 2009

  24. Some sound samples • 1997-1998 corpus: • M2 • M3 • 2008 corpus: • F1 • F4 ICLAVE#5, June 2009

  25. Future plans with corpus data • 1997-8 and 2008 materials will be transcribed and annotated • Building up a series of inductive quantitative sociolinguistic-oriented studies of stability, variation and change-in-progress • Mapping the current features of Modern RP/SSBE from a dynamic perspective which integrates individual and group differences ICLAVE#5, June 2009

  26. Language change in progress examples • GOAT fronting/merging with FACE • GOAT-allophony • MOUTH-PRICE onsets • Monophthongisation • T-glottalling • R-sandhi • Vowels in unstressed syllables (weak vowels) • L-Vocalisation (variants) • Gender differentiations, lexical effects, style effects in all of the above ICLAVE#5, June 2009

  27. Potential comparison points • BBC Newsreader corpus (Hannisdal) • London WC (Kerswill, Torgersen, Fox & Cheshire) • DyViS – 100 male SSBE speakers in Cambridge (Nolan, McDougall et al) ICLAVE#5, June 2009

  28. Bibliography 1 The Modern RP page www.akira.ruc.dk/~fabri Bigham, D. 2008. Dialect contact and accommodation among emerging adults in a university setting . Ph.D. Thesis, University of Texas at Austin. Chambers, J.K. 1995. Sociolinguistic Theory. Oxford UK and Cambridge USA: Blackwell. Cruttenden, Alan. 2001. Gimson's Pronunciation of English. 6th edition. Oxford UK: Oxford University Press. Coupland, Nikolas and Hywel Bishop. 2007. Ideologised values for British accents. Journal of Sociolinguistics 11, 1: 74-103. Fabricius, Anne. 2007a. Variation and change in the TRAP and STRUT vowels of RP: a real time comparison of five acoustic data sets. Journal of the International Phonetic Association 37:3: 293-320. Fabricius, A. 2007b. Vowel Formants and Angle Measurements in Diachronic Sociophonetic Studies: FOOT-fronting in RP. Proceedings of the 16th ICPhS, Saarbrücken, August 2007. www: www.icphs2007.de/. Fabricius, Anne H. 2002a. RP as sociolinguistic object. Nordic Journal of English Studies, Vol 1, nr 2:355-372. ICLAVE#5, June 2009

  29. Bibliography 2 Fabricius, Anne H. 2002b. Weak vowels in modern RP: an acoustic study of happy-tensing and KIT/schwa shift. Language Variation and Change.Vol 14, nr 2: 211-237. Fabricius, Anne H. 2002c. Ongoing change in modern RP: evidence for the disappearing stigma of t-glottalling. English Worldwide 23, 1:115-136. Foulkes, P. and G. J. Docherty. eds. 1999. Urban Voices: Accent Studies in the British Isles. London: Arnold. Labov, William. 1994. Principles of Linguistic Change volume 1: Internal Factors. Oxford:Blackwell. Hannisdal, Bente Rebecca . 2007. Variability and change in Received Pronunciation : a study of six phonological variables in the speech of television newsreaders . University of Bergen PhD thesis. http://hdl.handle.net/1956/2335 Harrington, J., F. Kleber and U. Reubold. 2008. Compensation for coarticulation, /u/-fronting, and sound change in standard southern British: An acoustic and perceptual study. JASA 123,5: 2825–2835. Macaulay, Ronald. 2002. "Extremely interesting, very interesting, or only quite interesting? Adverbs and social class." Journal of Sociolinguistics. 6.3:398-417. Mugglestone, Lynda. 2003. Talking Proper: the Rise of Accent as Social Symbol. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2nd edition. Rampton, B. 2006. Language in Late Modernity: Interaction in an urban school. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ICLAVE#5, June 2009

  30. Bibliography 3 Ramsaran, Susan. 1990. RP: fact and fiction. In Ramsaran, Susan, ed. Studies in the Pronunciation of English: A Commemorative Volume in honour of A.C. Gimson. London: Routledge. Schneider, E. W. (1999). Review of Chambers 1995. Journal of English Linguistics. 27,1. 49-56. Trudgill, P. 1999. Norwich: endogenous and exogenous linguistic change. In P. Foulkes and G.J. Docherty 1999, 124-140. Wells, J.C. 1982. Accents of English, 3 volumes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ICLAVE#5, June 2009

  31. Acknowledgements • Department of Culture and Identity, Roskilde University • Department of Linguistics, Cambridge University • Francis Nolan, Kirsty McDougall, Toby Hudson • Tyler Kendall, Duke University and North Carolina State University. ICLAVE#5, June 2009

  32. Short vowels in real time: TRAP, STRUT and FOOT in the South of England Anne Fabricius Roskilde University, Denmark ICLAVE #5, Copenhagen June 27th, 2009

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