Related Research Articles
Received Pronunciation (RP) is the accent regarded as the standard and most prestigious form of spoken British English, since as late as the early 20th century. Language scholars have long disagreed on questions such as: the exact definition of RP, how geographically neutral it is, how many speakers there are, the nature and classification of its sub-varieties, how appropriate a choice it is as a standard, how the accent has changed over time, and even its name. RP is an accent, so the study of RP is concerned only with matters of pronunciation, while other features of Standard British English, such as vocabulary, grammar, and style, are not considered. The accent has changed, or its traditional users have changed their accents, to such a degree over the last century that many of its early 20th-century traditions of transcription and analysis have become outdated and are therefore no longer considered evidence-based by linguists. Still, in language education these traditions continue to be commonly taught and used, and the use of RP as a convenient umbrella term remains popular.
In phonetics, rhotic consonants, or "R-like" sounds, are liquid consonants that are traditionally represented orthographically by symbols derived from the Greek letter rho, including ⟨R⟩, ⟨r⟩ in the Latin script and ⟨Р⟩, ⟨p⟩ in the Cyrillic script. They are transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet by upper- or lower-case variants of Roman ⟨R⟩, ⟨r⟩: ⟨r⟩, ⟨ɾ⟩, ⟨ɹ⟩, ⟨ɻ⟩, ⟨ʀ⟩, ⟨ʁ⟩, ⟨ɽ⟩, and ⟨ɺ⟩. Transcriptions for vocalic or semivocalic realisations of underlying rhotics include the ⟨ə̯⟩ and ⟨ɐ̯⟩.
General American English, known in linguistics simply as General American, is the umbrella accent of American English spoken by a majority of Americans, encompassing a continuum rather than a single unified accent. It is often perceived by Americans themselves as lacking any distinctly regional, ethnic, or socioeconomic characteristics, though Americans with high education, or from the (North) Midland, Western New England, and Western regions of the country are the most likely to be perceived as using General American speech. The precise definition and usefulness of the term continue to be debated, and the scholars who use it today admittedly do so as a convenient basis for comparison rather than for exactness. Other scholars prefer the term Standard American English.
The phonology of the open back vowels of the English language has undergone changes both overall and with regional variations, through Old and Middle English to the present. The sounds heard in modern English were significantly influenced by the Great Vowel Shift, as well as more recent developments in some dialects such as the cot–caught merger.
Scouse, more formally known as Liverpool English or Merseyside English, is an accent and dialect of English associated with the city of Liverpool and the surrounding Liverpool City Region. The Scouse accent is highly distinctive as it was influenced heavily by Irish and Welsh immigrants who arrived via the Liverpool docks, as well as Scandinavian sailors who also used the docks, and thus has very little in common with the accents found throughout the rest of England. People from Liverpool are known as Liverpudlians, but are usually called Scousers; the name comes from scouse, a stew originating from Scandinavian lobscouse eaten by sailors and locals.
English phonology is the system of speech sounds used in spoken English. Like many other languages, English has wide variation in pronunciation, both historically and from dialect to dialect. In general, however, the regional dialects of English share a largely similar phonological system. Among other things, most dialects have vowel reduction in unstressed syllables and a complex set of phonological features that distinguish fortis and lenis consonants.
The close and mid-height front vowels of English have undergone a variety of changes over time and often vary by dialect.
There are a variety of pronunciations in Modern English and in historical forms of the language for words spelled with the letter ⟨a⟩. Most of these go back to the low vowel of earlier Middle English, which later developed both long and short forms. The sound of the long vowel was altered in the Great Vowel Shift, but later a new long A developed which was not subject to the shift. These processes have produced the main four pronunciations of ⟨a⟩ in present-day English: those found in the words trap, face, father and square. Separate developments have produced additional pronunciations in words like wash, talk and comma.
The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) can be used to represent sound correspondences among various accents and dialects of the English language.
In English, many vowel shifts affect only vowels followed by in rhotic dialects, or vowels that were historically followed by that has been elided in non-rhotic dialects. Most of them involve the merging of vowel distinctions and so fewer vowel phonemes occur before than in other positions of a word.
Most dialects of modern English have two close back vowels: the near-close near-back rounded vowel found in words like foot, and the close back rounded vowel found in words like goose. The STRUT vowel, which historically was back, is often central as well. This article discusses the history of these vowels in various dialects of English, focusing in particular on phonemic splits and mergers involving these sounds.
Australian English (AuE) is a non-rhotic variety of English spoken by most native-born Australians. Phonologically, it is one of the most regionally homogeneous language varieties in the world. Australian English is notable for vowel length contrasts which are absent from most English dialects.
In the history of English phonology, there have been many diachronic sound changes affecting vowels, especially involving phonemic splits and mergers.
This article describes those aspects of the phonological history of English which concern consonants.
English diphthongs have undergone many changes since the Old and Middle English periods. The sound changes discussed here involved at least one phoneme which historically was a diphthong.
One aspect of the differences between American and British English is that of specific word pronunciations, as described in American and British English pronunciation differences. However, there are also differences in some of the basic pronunciation patterns between the standard dialects of each country. The standard varieties for each are in fact generalizations: for the U.S., a loosely defined spectrum of unmarked varieties called General American and, for Britain, a collection of prestigious varieties most common in southeastern England, ranging from upper- to middle-class Received Pronunciation accents, which together here are abbreviated "RP". However, other regional accents in each country also show differences, for which see regional accents of English speakers.
The Cardiff accent, also known as Cardiff English, is the regional accent of English, and a variety of Welsh English, as spoken in and around the city of Cardiff, and is somewhat distinctive in Wales, compared with other Welsh accents. Its pitch is described as somewhat lower than that of Received Pronunciation, whereas its intonation is closer to dialects of England rather than Wales.
Barbadian or Bajan English is a dialect of the English language as used by Barbadians (Bajans) and by Barbadian diasporas.
This article covers the phonological system of New Zealand English. While most New Zealanders speak differently depending on their level of cultivation, this article covers the accent as it is spoken by educated speakers, unless otherwise noted. The IPA transcription is one designed by Bauer et al. (2007) specifically to faithfully represent a New Zealand accent, which this article follows in most aspects.
Abercraf English is a dialect of Welsh English, primarily spoken in the village of Abercraf located in the far south of Powys.
References
- 1 2 Wells (1982), p. xviii.
- 1 2 Mesthrie, Rajend (2000). "Regional Dialectology". Introducing Sociolinguistics. Edinburgh University Press, p. 50.
- ↑ Armstrong, Nigel (2001). Social and stylistic variation in spoken French: a comparative approach. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. pp. 100ff. ISBN 90-272-1839-0.
- ↑ Raymond Hickey (29 August 2011). The Dialects of Irish: Study of a Changing Landscape. Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 978-3-11-023830-3.
- ↑ Robert McColl Millar (2007). Northern and insular Scots. Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 978-0-7486-2316-7.
- ↑ Wells (1982).
- ↑ Wells (1982), p. 117.
- 1 2 Wells (1982), p. 118.
- 1 2 3 Wells (1982), p. 123.
- ↑ Wells (1982), p. 165.
- ↑ Wells (1982), p. 122.
- ↑ Wells (1982), p. 136.
- ↑ Wells (1982), pp. 120–1.
- ↑ Wells (1982), pp. 257–8, 294, 299.
- ↑ Cruttenden (2014), pp. 84, 349–50.
- ↑ Wells (1982), p. 499.
- ↑ Wells (1982), p. 498.
- ↑ Wells (1982), p. 124.
- ↑ Wells (1982), p. 500.
- 1 2 "John Wells's phonetic blog: lexical sets". 2010-02-02. Retrieved 2010-04-30.
- ↑ Hickey, Raymond (2004). A sound atlas of Irish English. Mouton de Gruyter. pp. 54–55. ISBN 3-11-018298-X.
- ↑ Stoddart, Upton and Widowson in Urban Voices, Arnold, London, 1999, page 76
- ↑ Tollfree in Urban Voices, Arnold, London, 1999, page 165
- ↑ "John Wells's phonetic blog: the evidence of the vows". 2011-05-03. Retrieved 2014-02-17.
- ↑ Schneider et al. (2004), pp. 42–3, 53–4, 101–2, 137, 187, 236, 263–4, 273, 285, 290, 294, 303–4, 340, 359, 369, 395, 410, 460, 504–5, 515, 518, 585, 761–2, 849, 880, 893, 928, 945, 947, 956, 968, 987, 993, 1006, 1024, 1038, 1050.