Programme: accepted abstracts

Abstract ID: 1057

Part of Session 157: Dialect Perceptions in the City (Other abstracts in this session)

Perceptual prominence of city-based dialect areas in England

Authors: Montgomery, Chris
Submitted by: Montgomery, Chris (Sheffield Hallam University, United Kingdom)

Previous perceptual dialectological research in England (Inoue 1996) has demonstrated that non-linguists recognise large city-based dialect areas when completing 'draw-a-map' (Preston 1982) tasks. Composite maps derived from Inoue's (1996) respondents' maps further demonstrate the importance of cities in perception. Inoue's composite maps use labels based on those given by respondents and include areas in the north of England labelled according to colloquial city names (including 'Geordie' and 'Scouse', as well as York). In this way, Inoue's perceptual data appears to provide support for theories of regional dialect levelling which point towards an increasing tendency towards supra-local varieties (cf. Milroy & Hartley 1994; Watt & Milroy 1999; Watt 2002). In addition to adding weight to such theories, Inoue's composite maps demonstrate an amount of correlation with primary isoglosses on other maps which are based solely on linguistic criteria, such as those drawn by Trudgill (1999) based on SED data.

Although Inoue's data appear to provide support for both primary isoglosses and the influence of regional dialect levelling, they do not show the emergence of new city-based dialect areas in England. Recent research in England (Montgomery 2007; Forthcoming) has argued that perceptual dialectology has a role to play in identifying emergent dialect areas, and that the role of cities is important in this respect. This paper will discuss the burgeoning perception of the concept of a 'Manc' (Manchester) dialect area. By contrasting research undertaken between 2005 and 2010 with that performed by Inoue in 1990, the impact of 'cultural prominence' on perception will be examined. The paper will argue that increased media exposure to Manchester has assisted in its recognition as a distinctive and emergent area in the dialect landscape of England.

References

Inoue, Fumio (1996). Subjective Dialect Division in Great Britain. American Speech, 71(2), p.142–61.

Milroy, Lesley & Hartley, Sue (1994). Local and Supra-local Change in British English: The case of glottalisation. English World-Wide, 15(1), p.1–33.

Montgomery, Chris (2007). Northern English dialects: A Perceptual Approach. Sheffield: University of Sheffield, Unpublished PhD Thesis. Available at: http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/1203/.

Montgomery, Chris (Forthcoming). Proximity Effects in Perceptual Dialectology.

Preston, Dennis R. (1982). Perceptual dialectology: Mental maps of United States dialects from a Hawaiian perspective. Hawaii Working Papers in Linguistics, 14(2), p.5–49.

Trudgill, Peter (1999). The dialects of England 2nd ed., Oxford: Blackwell.

Watt, Dominic (2002). “I don't speak with a Geordie accent, I speak, like, the Northern accent’: Contact-induced levelling in the Tyneside vowel system. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 6(1), p.44–63.

Watt, Dominic & Milroy, Lesley (1999). Patterns of variation and change in three Newcastle vowels: Is this dialect levelling? In Paul Foulkes & Gerard J. Docherty (eds.), Urban voices: Accent studies in the British Isles, 25–46. London: Arnold.

Sociolinguistics Symposium 19

Programme: accepted abstracts

Perceptual prominence of city-based dialect areas in England