Anne FabriciusRoskilde University, Denmark

Guest Lecture, University of Cambridge, 2nd December 2008

IntroductionThe issues behind today’s title:

the implications for the whole of each part of the title Real time studies of speech communities Modern RP/SSBE ‘Native’ and ‘construct’ varieties Varieties and social practice perspectives Language change in progress, its social embedding, predictions

and complicationsBlending these ingredients into the theoretical,

methodological and empirical foundations for a real-time diachronic study of some features of modern RP/changing SSBE

Prolegomena: a series of introductory remarks or prefaces…amounting to the kernel of a research project

description……with exemplificatory sound samples…

First, a case for relevance...Making a contribution to models of the relationship

between language change and social embeddingRegional sociolinguistic studies often focus on a

broad working class/middle class dichotomyWould perhaps a priori exclude speakers who had

e.g. boarding school backgrounds(Is there sometimes a slippage/false analogy

between ‘vernacular’ and ‘non-standard’ in sociolinguistics?)

Result: Ignoring the non-regional accent as a historical process and product

Of the interaction of class and sociolinguistic theory... 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 model character, 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 has to some extent been sidelined compared to ethnicity, social networks and gender as important sociolinguistic categories.

MC/UMC rather than UC

And also ...Phonologically and phonetically the RP

accent has been well described (native speaker phoneticians e.g. Daniel Jones’ EPD)

has its scientific foundation in a structuralist tradition of phonetics, a ‘variety’ perspective

has therefore not always sat easily with the sociolinguistic/variationist school of thought arising in the 1960s.

Historical roots of RP discussed in Mugglestone (2003)

Therefore...Much less is known about the sociolinguistics of

successor to RP, e.g. speakers rates of participation in ongoing England-wide vernacular changes (such as discussed in Foulkes and Docherty 1999)

Is a regionalizing process taking place? Is non-regionality breaking down/changing?Higher education koinéization (Bigham 2008)?a changing picture of (fluid) relationships between

language and socioeconomic privilege and social processes

Part of the picture of English in the UK in its entirety

Philosophical issuesWhen 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 complementing 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, Wells 1982)

Some overarching theoretical issues for sociolinguistics ...the role of cognitive processes in the initiation of language

change and their relation to social lifeVariation, variability and the triggers of language change

Actuation problem: why does change X emerge here and now?

Labov (1994: 415): “The diffusion of linguistic change in large cities is promoted by women who combine upward mobility with a consistent rejection of the constraining norms of polite society”UMC?

The core of the transmission problem (Labov 1994: 416) is “Children must learn to talk differently from their mothers, and these differences must be in the same direction in each succeeding generation”Also UMC, for some changes

Social polarities in the UKHistorical 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 schemesAre educational backgrounds blurred or maintained in a

higher education context? Application rates to e.g. Cambridge are risingEconomic situationWhat are students’ perceptions? (North-South divide,

levelling)Are old distinctions being maintained or dissipatingIf the latter, what replaces them? (an empirical

ethnographic question)

Kroch 1996Anthony Kroch’s interview-based study of the

upper-class of Philadelphia members of that group were users of the same

phonological system as other PhiladelphiansE.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. (cf creak in RP)

Accessing the variety empirically Interplay of ‘native’ and

‘construct’ results in a systematic ambiguity; Ramsaran: fact and fiction

‘Native RP’Sociolinguistically

observable through a defined population in successive generations

Sociologically and phonologically

Phonetic variations …

Change in Native variety and the ‘construct’ variety are different

‘Construct RP’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, NWAV)

Categoricity versus Variability‘no-one speaks RP anymore’ .... a categorical view following Chambers' (1995:25)

formulation of the Chomskyan "axiom of categoricity”all linguistic units are invariant, discrete and

qualitative, Thus a description of RP ties down that object ...

However, language in a sociolinguistic perspective is variant, continuous, and quantitativeThus diachronic fluidity is possible through

generational transmission; variability built in

A theoretical presuppositionThe 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-RP (cf Rampton’s ’posh’ performances)

Modern RP or SSBE?A question of naming practiceWhy ‘Modern RP’ Why ‘SSBE’What do the titles emphasize and de-emphasizeStandard as a label mixes form and function,

Southern as a result of regionalizingModern RP emphasizes a generational

sociolinguistic continuity which however may be illusory in some

individual cases Asking what is the ‘breaking point’, empirically,

for a decisive cut with the earlier label…

The 1997-8 corpusPhd thesis, Fabricius 2000, plus subsequent

studies on weak vowels (2002b) and the short vowel system (2007)

PhD: A synchronic study of word–final t-glottalling in the speech of 24 ex-independent school students at Cambridge University recorded in 1997-1998.

Sample evenly split by gender, 12m, 12fSpeakers chosen through a combination of social

and linguistic criteriaEducational background, parents’ occupationsConforming to a phonological model of RP

The phonological criteria used in 1997-1998

last is lexically limited but solidly present in

Hannisdal’s 2007 study; all 30 BBC announcers have it

Suggested smoothing was still active (variability here needs tracking) eg lower, triumph, player in reading passage 1997-8 and 2008

Hannisdal 2007 examined smoothing as well in fire, power sequences; used significantly more by male newsreaders

Outside the phonological envelope in 1997-8...no contrast between STRUT and FOOTLexical h-dropping in stressed syllablesTH-frontingYod dropping, new [nu][æ] for the BATH words, such as grass and

pastVelar nasal fronting [n] in –ING forms

Variable phonetic parameters for the (2000) studyHAPPY-tensing happy, coffee, valley, but also pre-

vocalically as in various,happier (Wells 1997a: 20)GOAT allophony/ before dark /l/, [], as in cold,

gold, goal; 24/30 speakers in Hannisdal 2007, 2/6 on BBC World

l-vocalization coming into mainstream RP?Wells(1997a: 21)contra Maidment 1994Note two possible variants

Yod coalescence in stressed syllables :Tuesday ] Wells (ibid).

Quality of GOOSE, FOOT and TRAP vowel

The unity of varieties...Varieties emerging from dialectologically-focussed studiesDemarcation lines become important; Wells 1982 (RP, near-

RP…)However, difficulties of demarcation and definition in late

modern societies are sometimes emphasized (Rampton Language in Late Modernity)

Or is the British accent landscape characterized by stability as well as change?

Coupland and Bishop 2007 reporting stability in regional vernacular downgrading alongside 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)

...contra social practice perspectivesSocial practice emerging through ethnographic

approachcould 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 change?)Communities of practice in the Cambridge

University landscape: rowing clubs, choirs, subject groups (Classics?), different colleges, could all form basis for (others’) ethnographic studies

Real time studies(Tillery and Bailey 2003)Can be done by comparing data from present

time to documented sources (eg dictionaries like EPD; weak vowels, Fabricius 2002b)

Real time replication studies of two types:Trend survey (community) Panel survey (individuals)LANCHART in Copenhagen using bothMy replicated corpus is a trend study

Corpus 2008Presently being collected (40+ interviews) Chance to explore the accent over a ten year span... With data collection methodology (sociolinguistic

interview plus reading passage) replicated, same physical setting

Aiming again for 12m 12f core speakers, plus a continuum to local southern varieties/midlands

a trend surveyDefining the community sociolinguisticallyPotential disadvantages: wider demographic changes

in community can interfere with real time comparisons

Researcher age/positioning… (effect on e.g. t-glottalling?)

Future plans for the real-time corpus 1998-2008:1997-8 and 2008 materials transcribed and

annotated to form a Praat-based database, similar to LANCHART (Copenhagen) and DyViS (Cambridge)

External funding sources...Real-time segmental phonetic comparisons over

the ten-year span of the corpusCould also be used for prosodic comparisons

Building up a series of inductive quantitative sociolinguistic-oriented studies of change-in-progress

Language change in progress: other potential comparisonsGOAT fronting/merging with FACE, GOAT-allophonyMOUTH-PRICE onsetsT-glottalling (caveat…)Intonational patterns Vowels in unstressed syllables (weak vowels)L-Vocalisation (variants)Gender differentiations, lexical effects, style

effects in all of the above

Other contributionsBente Hannisdal’s Ph.D. Thesis, following six

variables could all be testedCURE loweringGOAT allophonyR-sandhi (Linking /r/ overall av. 60% Hannisdal

2007; higher rates between function words)T-voicingSmoothing Yod coalescence

Comparisons with London WC vowel patterns (Kerswill, Torgersen, Fox, & Cheshire)

Comparisons with DyViS

Sound samples 1From reading passage: ”Mr. Beebe sitting

unnoticed in the window, pondered over this illogical element in Miss Honeychurch”

((Sound))

Variations in l-vocalisation, NURSE vowel, strength of ejective /t/, creak...

Sound samples 2Both conservative and innovative features...Male speaker: 1990 (no happY-Tensing..)Male speaker: travelling Female speaker (So how was starting at

college for you?) Female speaker (plans for year abroad?)

Ejective release on the increase?....

In conclusionreal-time corpus establishedEnabling quantitative variationist studies of

the embedding of linguistic variables in speech of a sociolinguistically-identified group

Gender differenceschanges over the span of ten years

E.g. changes in vowel and diphthong qualitiesConsonantal features e.g. stops (t-glottalling,

ejectives, lenition)....

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. Coupland, Nikolas and Hywel Bishop. 2007. Ideologised values for British accents.

Journal of Sociolinguistics 11, 1: 74-103. Evans, B. And P. Iverson, 2007. Plasticity in vowel perception and production: A

study of accent change in young adults. JASA 121, 6: 3814-3826. Fabricius, Anne. 2007. 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. 2007. 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.

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.

Bibliography 2 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.

Maidment, John. 1994. Estuary English: hybrid or hype? Paper presented at the 4th NZ Conference on Language & Society, Christchurch, NZ. http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/estuary/maidment.htm

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.

Schneider, E. W. (1999). Review of Chambers 1995. Journal of English Linguistics. 27,1. 49-56.

Tillery, Jan and Guy Bailey 2003. Approaches to real time in dialectology and sociolinguistics. World Englishes 22,4: 351-365.

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.

AcknowledgementsDepartment of Culture and Identity, Roskilde

University

Department of Linguistics, Cambridge UniversityFrancis NolanKirsty McDougall, Toby Hudson

(for corpus-talk, coffee and companionship )