- Home
- e-Journals
- English World-Wide
- Previous Issues
- Volume 43, Issue 2, 2022
English World-Wide - Volume 43, Issue 2, 2022
Volume 43, Issue 2, 2022
-
50 years of British accent bias
Author(s): Devyani Sharma, Erez Levon and Yang Yepp.: 135–166 (32)More LessAbstractDo accent biases observed half a century ago (Giles 1970) and 15 years ago (Coupland and Bishop 2007) still hold in Britain today? We provide an updated picture of national attitudes to accent labels by replicating and extending previous studies. Mean ratings and relative rankings of 38 accents for prestige and pleasantness by a large representative sample of the British population (N = 821) attest to a remarkably stable, long-standing hierarchy of accent status. We find little evidence of demotion of conservative prestige varieties or reranking of accents, although we do observe a slight improvement in lower rankings. We focus in detail on age and life stage, finding that most of the age patterns observed in earlier studies were in fact instances of age-grading (lifespan effects), not real-time change in attitude. The midlife phase of life corresponds to conservative shifts in the perception of global, migrant-heritage, and stigmatised varieties. Our findings add change in speech evaluation to the growing body of research on lifespan change in speech production. Finally, although effects of ethnicity, social class, regional self- and other-bias, and age remain firmly in place, earlier gender differences in respondent behaviour have more or less disappeared.
-
Produced and perceived authenticity in the Northern Irish TV show Derry Girls
Author(s): Sara Díaz-Sierrapp.: 167–191 (25)More LessAbstractThe success of the Northern Irish TV show Derry Girls seems partly due to its authentic portrayal of the English spoken in Northern Ireland and, more particularly, in Derry. This paper examines how authentic the performance of the Northern Irish accent by Ma Mary, one of the characters in the comedy, is from the points of view of produced and perceived authenticity. In order to determine the degree of produced authenticity, I investigate whether the pronunciation features present in Ma Mary’s speech are characteristic of Northern Irish English (NIE). On the other hand, an experiment has been designed to test the perceived authenticity of Ma Mary’s performed accent. The experiment consists of asking Northern Irish people to rate a short recording in terms of how authentic its representation of the NIE accent is. The results from the experiment confirm that the accent performed by Ma Mary is authentically Northern Irish.
-
How real has the long-anticipated fast-growing influence of American English on Kenyan English been?
Author(s): Alfred Buregeyapp.: 192–219 (28)More LessAbstractIn the 1990s, the existing literature anticipated a fast-growing influence of American English on Kenyan English in the following years. Mazrui and Mazrui (1996) even predicted a “coca-colanization” of Kenyan English. Focusing on vocabulary, the present study investigated whether the anticipated influence has occurred or not. From a sample of 75 fourth-year university students it collected self-reports of which words they used from 93 pairs of American-vs-British English counterparts. These self-reports were then compared with, among others, the frequencies of the same words in two corpora of Kenyan English which were compiled two decades apart. The study found that the respondents’ self-reports indicated a 59 percent use of British English vocabulary, against only a 28 percent use of American English vocabulary. This finding was by and large corroborated by the frequencies of the words concerned in the two corpora. Thus, the anticipated American English influence has not materialized.
-
Between first language influence, exonormative orientation and migration
Author(s): Christiane Meierkord and Bebwa Isingomapp.: 220–248 (29)More LessAbstractLike other Englishes, Ugandan English is not a homogeneous variety. Being a second language to the vast majority of its multilingual speakers, it is, inevitably, influenced by their first languages. However, first language influence is just one factor that continues to shape Ugandan English. This paper reports on how influence from exonormative teaching models and the effects of migration, which constantly results in frequent and regular contact between second language speakers of various first languages, contribute to its architecture. It does so by focusing on and carefully investigating future time expressions in a corpus of authentic spoken interactions across Ugandans, the face-to-face conversations of the Uganda component of the International Corpus of English.
-
Review of Davydova (2019): Quotation in Indigenised and Learner English: A Sociolinguistic Account of Variation
Author(s): Alexandra D’Arcypp.: 249–256 (8)More LessThis article reviews Quotation in Indigenised and Learner English: A Sociolinguistic Account of Variation
-
Review of Buschfeld & Kautzsch (2021): Modelling World Englishes: A Joint Approach to Postcolonial and Non-postcolonial Englishes
Author(s): Christian Mairpp.: 257–263 (7)More LessThis article reviews Modelling World Englishes: A Joint Approach to Postcolonial and Non-postcolonial Englishes
Volumes & issues
-
Volume 45 (2024)
-
Volume 44 (2023)
-
Volume 43 (2022)
-
Volume 42 (2021)
-
Volume 41 (2020)
-
Volume 40 (2019)
-
Volume 39 (2018)
-
Volume 38 (2017)
-
Volume 37 (2016)
-
Volume 36 (2015)
-
Volume 35 (2014)
-
Volume 34 (2013)
-
Volume 33 (2012)
-
Volume 32 (2011)
-
Volume 31 (2010)
-
Volume 30 (2009)
-
Volume 29 (2008)
-
Volume 28 (2007)
-
Volume 27 (2006)
-
Volume 26 (2005)
-
Volume 25 (2004)
-
Volume 24 (2003)
-
Volume 23 (2002)
-
Volume 22 (2001)
-
Volume 21 (2000)
-
Volume 20 (1999)
-
Volume 19 (1998)
-
Volume 18 (1997)
-
Volume 17 (1996)
-
Volume 16 (1995)
-
Volume 15 (1994)
-
Volume 14 (1993)
-
Volume 13 (1992)
-
Volume 12 (1991)
-
Volume 11 (1990)
-
Volume 10 (1989)
-
Volume 9 (1988)
-
Volume 8 (1987)
-
Volume 7 (1986)
-
Volume 6 (1985)
-
Volume 5 (1984)
-
Volume 4 (1983)
-
Volume 3 (1982)
-
Volume 2 (1981)
-
Volume 1 (1980)
Most Read This Month

-
-
English in Hong Kong: Functions and status
Author(s): K.K. Luke and Jack C. Richards
-
- More Less