English World-Wide - Volume 45, Issue 1, 2024

Abstract

Linguistic research refers to many related accents in Southeast England: Standard Southern British English (SSBE), Received Pronunciation (RP), Estuary English (EE), Cockney and Multicultural London English (MLE). However, there is inconsistency and imprecision in the demarcation of these accents based on linguistic and social factors. This paper delineates accents in Southeast England based on patterns of linguistic co-variation which we then relate to social predictors. We applied functional Principal Component Analysis to F1 and F2 measurements for diphthongs extracted from wordlist and passage productions for 193 young, south-eastern speakers. Principal Components were entered into a clustering analysis that identified patterns of linguistic co-occurrence. Three clusters emerge, broadly aligning with SSBE, MLE and EE for both linguistic and social factors. We illustrate the linguistic centre of gravity of the three diphthong systems for use as reference points in future research, and we discuss the need to make explicit how accents are defined.

Abstract

Variable use of the canonical participle for the canonical preterite is attested cross-dialectally in English. However, most variationist studies of this phenomenon focus on variability for one or a few verbs rather than the full set of verbs with canonically distinct preterites and participles. This study examines participle-for-preterite variation across this full set of verbs in Tyneside English. We find that variability is lexically and morphophonologically restricted, and overall subject to change from above toward use of the canonical preterite. At the same time, there may be a countervailing trend in which low-frequency verbs that form the participle by changing the stressed vowel to /ʌ/ are changing toward usage of the participle for the preterite. We suggest that the pattern of variation indicates that, although the canonical forms of two categories are varying, the categories themselves remain distinct in speakers’ grammars.

Abstract

The impact of editorial intervention on the language of published written texts has been the topic of a handful of recent empirical investigations within the world Englishes paradigm. These studies have demonstrated that the linguistic changes that editors make to texts written in world Englishes contexts are not as conservative or consistent as previously assumed, with some scholars suggesting that the sociolinguistic profiles of such editors might account for the varying behaviours noted in the corpus-based investigations. In this article, I build on recent arguments for a more considered view of the impact of editorial intervention on the language of published written texts in world Englishes contexts by examining editors’ sociolinguistic profiles and the overt norms they draw on in the course of their work to explore how they orient their normative behaviour and how this may be related to the evolutionary development of their respective varieties.

Abstract

That U (upper-class) and non-U (non-upper class) speakers are identifiable through their vocabulary is an axiom in England. These claims are repeated in books, in print media, on social media, and in conversations regarding social class. However, such claims are seldom investigated empirically. To redress this, we consider the production and perception of allegedly U and non-U lexis through two studies. In the first, we identify the sociolinguistic distribution of the usage of three variables which are purported to be indicators of socioeconomic status, namely, loo, napkin, and sofa. The second study employs the matched-guise technique to investigate the perception of variants of these three variables. The production results reveal that all three variables exhibit change in apparent-time with limited evidence of class-based variation. In the perception study, we find no systematic class-based indexicalities across the variables. Ultimately, our findings challenge the belief that allegedly U words are shibboleths of upper-classness.

This article reviews Conversation in World Englishes: Turn-Taking and Cultural Variation in Southeast Asian and Caribbean EnglishEUR 110.87978-110-883-802-3

This article reviews New Englishes, New MethodsEUR 99978-902-721-368-6