Notes on Region for AQA's latest English Language specification (A-level 7702)
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Language and Region
In order to gain your AO2 marks, you need to know key theories:
Ed Miliband
Changed his speech style closer to Russell Brand’s = convergence
“Gotta” – elliptical construction
“National ‘ealth service” – elision of consonant /h/
Estuary English
Name given to the form of English widely spoken in and around London and South East of England
Features:
The glottal stop – missing the ‘t’ from the middle of words e.g. bottle
L vocalisation – pronouncing words such as ‘milk’ as ‘mlk’, there’s emphasis on the L
TH fronting – ‘th’ becomes ‘f’ e.g. ‘thing’ becomes ‘fing’
Paul Kerswill
He accepts the Estuary English but disputes the claim that this is a recent variety
He insists that something like “Estuary” has been around for longer than its commentators
claim, but that in the 1990s, its geographical spread has accelerated
This reflects tendencies in language change generally
One can see how a number of variant forms can slowly coalesce to represent a variety that
becomes recognizable to language users - and when this happens they may adopt the
features of this variety through accommodation
All descriptions of regional varieties are general and approximate - individual speakers may
use all or some of them, and each to a greater or less degree, which will itself vary from one
situation to another
Kevin Watson
Young Scousers aren’t giving up
Many young people re sounding increasingly scouse
Shows a sense of regional pride – want to incorporate it in their identity
Not letting outdated opinions shape them
, Scouse
The accent and dialect of Liverpool
Features of accent:
Fast and highly accented
Flat vowels
Emphasising consonant clusters
Features of dialect:
Elision e.g. hanging becomes hangin’
Nonstandard use of pronouns and adverbs
Some features of Estuary English e.g. t-glotting
Kevin Watson and Scouse Resistance to Dialect Levelling (2007)
In comparison to other regions in the UK, it appears that Liverpool is resisting dialect levelling
He notes that the glottal stop is still fairly rare in Liverpool because:
Act of linguistic identity – a form of divergence
Closed network – as Liverpudlians tend to stay in the area and marry other people from
Liverpool with the presence of strong community bonds – their dialect and accent is
continually reinforced
MLE (Multicultural London English)
A sociolect of English that began to emerge in the late 20 th century
It’s mostly spoken by the young, working class in London and there’s a suggest that it’s
spreading further afield
Phonological features:
Pronunciation of /h/
TH fronting
Lexical and grammatical features:
Indefinite pronoun e.g. man’s looking at
Elliptical tag questions e.g. you got me?
Brown and Levinson’s politeness theory (1987)
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