UNIT 1_THEORY

Silvia C. Barreiro Bilbao

Variedades fonético-fonológicas de la lengua inglesa

Unit 1_THEORY: Introduction

Contents Outline

Standard English Varieties (from Trudgill & Hannah’s)

The Spread of English Overseas (from Trudgill & Hannah’s)
The Nature of Overseas English (from Trudgill & Hannah’s)
Kinds of Language Varieties (from Trudgill & Hannah’s and this document)
Appendix 1: Symbols & diacritics missing in Trudgill & Hannah’s
Appendix 2: References and Further Reading

Read the textbook (Trudgill & Hannah, chapter 1, pp. 1-13, both editions), and then
complete the information on the topic Kinds of Language Varieties with the contents
provided in this document, which also includes two appendices for voluntary reading.

KINDS OF LANGUAGE VARIETIES

In this section, two aspects will be discussed: factors accounting for variability and
kinds of variability.

1. Factors accounting for variability

There are several factors that explain the variability among speakers regarding
pronunciation. We can find differences in pronunciation resulting from “personal” (or
‘static’) variables including:

 Age (and sex) of the speaker: Differences between the pronunciation

of younger and older generations, and between men and women.

 Social class: A certain social class, let’s say the upper class, may
have features that are different from the rest of the speakers.

 Educational background

 Profession o role

 Personality: A speaker may avoid vulgarisms, such as the use of

glottal stops for /t/ in certain environments.

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Variedades fonético-fonológicas de la lengua inglesa

 Attitudes to language and to other speakers

 Age of accent acquisition: If it is acquired after childhood a speaker

is likely to avoid normal features of faster speech, such as, the
dropping of unaccented /h/ in pronouns in the case of RP, for
instance.

 Frequency with which a speaker uses a word: It seems that less

frequently used words tend to change less than more frequently used
words.

 Feeling of correctness: A speaker may think that the pronunciation

of a word by a teacher is the correct one.

There are other factors that are situational, such as:

 The social relationship between speaker and hearer (how well they
know each other, the relative status of the people speakers are
talking to…)

 The topic the speaker is talking to or written about

 In what place the conversation is taking place (whether one is

speaking in public or in private)

 The purposes for which the speaker is using the language

2. Kinds of variability
English language is very varied. First, there are considerable regional and social
variations within the English language in different parts of the British Isles as well as
in other parts of the world. As you already know, these social and geographical
kinds of language are known as dialects. Everybody speaks a dialect. Dialects have
to do also with the grammatical forms that are used together with any regional
vocabulary that is employed. There is a clear relationship between social and
regional variation, with more regional variation at the bottom of the social scale and
less, at the top. Standard English is the dialect with the greatest prestige in UK,
although linguistically speaking is not superior to all the other non-standard varieties
representing other grammatical systems.

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Variedades fonético-fonológicas de la lengua inglesa

A dialect can be spoken with any kind of accent. Accent refers to pronunciation.
Your accent is the way you pronounce English when you speak. Furthermore, the
relationship between social and regional variation can also be applied to accents.
The higher a person is on the social scale, the less regionally marked will be his or
her accent, and the less it is likely to differ from a model of pronunciation such as
RP, the one taught in the previous course Pronunciación en la lengua inglesa.
Funny enough, some people, trying to climb the social scale modify their accent in
the direction of RP and assign wrongly certain pronunciations (hypercorrections).

Furthermore, there are differences of pronunciation which can only be explained in

terms of the combination of accent and dialect for one particular speaker, that is, the
idiolect. It can be defined as the distinctive speech of a particular individual, in other
words, the way he/she speaks within the overall system of particular language. It
would include those features that distinguish one individual from others, such as
voice quality, pitch, speech rhythm.

In addition to regional and social accents (and dialects), English has different
styles, which are used in different social situations. The situational variables
mentioned above are responsible for these stylistic variations. Changes in
pronunciation then are conditioned by speakers’ perception of the situation in which
they are speaking in terms of the degree of formality. In formal situations, speakers
tend to articulate more slowly and carefully, besides there will be fewer elisions, in
short, speakers will use a more careful speech. On the contrary, in informal
situations, speakers will be more likely to speak quickly and less carefully, more
casually, eliding or assimilating individual sounds according to the context. Most
differences, however, have to do with words rather than changes in pronunciation.
Those words used in a very informal situation are often referred as slang.

There is another kind of variation within English, which is not dependent on dialect
or style. This has to do with the subject or topic being talked or written about, and
with the users’ roles. Kinds of language that reflect this ‘about’ are known as
registers. Registers show t he “membership” in a group, who is member of a group
or not (social function), and it is mostly signalled by the vocabulary used. For
example, the set of terms or expressions used professionally by doctors is not the
same as that used by journalists. Outsiders often react to this by calling insiders’
registers jargon. We will call them “technical” (or “non-technical”) registers.

Remember that there is no necessary connection between a certain dialect (or

accent) and a certain register or style!

Finally, there are differences of pronunciation which cannot be explained in terms

either of change over time or of speech style but in terms of the speaker’s
preference for one pronunciation over others. For instance, in a word like pot the
speaker can produce a glottal stop or a full plosive at the end of the word, being both
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Variedades fonético-fonológicas de la lengua inglesa

commonly accepted pronunciations. Therefore, those sounds (glottal stop and

plosive) are said to be in free variation. As you may notice, this kind of variation
occurs in those situations where two (or more) sounds can be used in an identical
phonological environment and yet the difference between them is not phonologically
relevant in the sense that it does not change the meaning of the word.

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APPENDIX 1: SYMBOLS & DIACRITICS MISSING IN TRUDGILL

& HANNAH’S BOOK (just for reading!)

Here is the list of the vowel symbols and diacritics, missing in the preface of Trudgill &
Hannah’s book International English. A guide to the varieties of Standard English
(2008, 5th edition):

i Cardinal vowel no. 1: close front unrounded vowel (also used for RP /iː/
in see)

ɪ Lax Cardinal vowel no. 1: Centralised (fairly front) fairly close unrounded
vowel (as in RP hit)

e Cardinal vowel no. 2: close-mid front unrounded vowel (also used as a

conservative pronunciation for RP in red)

ɛ Cardinal vowel no. 3: open-mid front unrounded vowel (also used for RP
in red)

a Cardinal vowel no. 4: open front unrounded vowel

ɑ Cardinal vowel no. 5: open back unrounded vowel (also used for RP /ɑː/
in car)

ɔ Cardinal vowel no. 6: open-mid back rounded vowel (also used for RP
/ɔː/ in saw)

o Cardinal vowel no. 7: close mid back rounded vowel

u Cardinal vowel no. 8: close back rounded vowel (also used for RP /u:/ in
do)

ʊ Lax Cardinal vowel no. 8: fairly back fairly close rounded vowel (as in RP
pull)

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ø Cardinal vowel no. 10: close-mid front rounded vowel

ɒ Cardinal vowel no. 13: open back rounded vowel (also used for RP in
doll)

ʌ Cardinal vowel no. 14: open-mid back unrounded vowel (also used for
RP in cup)

ɤ Cardinal vowel no. 15: close-mid back unrounded vowel

ʉ Cardinal vowel no. 18: close central rounded vowel

ə Cardinal vowel no. 22: ‘schwa’, mid central unrounded vowel (also used
for RP in letter)

ɵ Cardinal vowel no. 23: close-mid central rounded vowel

ɐ Cardinal vowel no. 24: fairly open central unrounded vowel

æ Cardinal vowel no. 25: fairly open front unrounded vowel (also used for
RP in cat)

ɜ Cardinal vowel no. 26: open-mid central unrounded vowel (also used for
RP in bird)

: Indicates long vowel (as in RP /i/, /u:/, /ɑ:/, /ɜ:/, /ɔ:/) (IPA symbol ː )

ˑ Indicates half long vowel (IPA symbol ˑ )

V̝ Indicates more closed (or raised) vowel (C̝ means more closed consonant)

V̞ Indicates more open (or lowered vowel (C̞ means more open consonant)

V̘ Indicates more front (or advanced tongue root) vowel (C̘ means more
front consonant)

V̙ Indicates more back (or retracted tongue root) vowel (C̙ means more
back consonant)
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Variedades fonético-fonológicas de la lengua inglesa

APPENDIX 2: REFERENCES & FURTHER READING (UNIT 1)

Journals: (check more information on Internet)

1. English World-Wide: A Journal of Varieties of English, John Benjamins,
Amsterdam, 1980-; twice a year. It deals with the dialectology and
sociolinguistics of the English-speaking communities.

2. World Englishes: Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1993-; three times a year. It is

committed to the study of varieties of English in diverse cultural and
sociolinguistic contexts. Check UNED Library!

Books:
1. Bauer, L. 2002. An Introduction to International Varieties of English.
Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press.

2. Burchfield, R. (ed.). 1994. English in Britain and Overseas: Origins and

Development. The Cambridge History of the English Language, vol v.
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

3. Crystal, D. 1997. English as a global language. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press. Chapter 2 (spread of English)

4. McArthur, T. 1998. The English Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press. (English division)

5. McMahon, A. 2002. An Introduction to English Phonology. Edinburgh,

Edinburgh University Press (comparison among varieties)

6. Melchers, G. & P. Shaw. 2011. World Englishes. London: Hodder Education.

(English varieties)

7. Wells, J.C. 1982. Accents of English. Volume 1. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press.

Internet Links:
Accents of English from Around the World (loads of samples of English
accents)

Easily confused phonetic symbols (list of common errors when using the
International Phonetic Alphabet, by professor J.C. Wells)

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fonetiks (samples of sounds from different parts of the English-speaking

world)

International Dialects of English Archive (IDEA) (recordings of dialects and

accents of languages from all over the world, including the English- speaking
areas)
International Corpus of English (recordings of short samples of different
speakers from Australia, India, Great Britain and Jamaica, among others)
Internacional Phonetic Alphabet (videos and recordings of the IPA sounds,
Sheffield University)
International Phonetic Alphabet charts (clickable charts allowing you to listen
to the sounds of the International Phonetic Alphabet, and diphthongs in
General American and British (RP) English)
International Phonetics Association (it includes phonetics information and
resources)
IPA Online (IPA transcription exercises of American English)
IPA Transcription Practice (transcription exercises)

Resources on pronunciation and transcription

Speaker and accent, and speaker variability, if you wish.

Speakers and Accents

The Speech Accent Archive (recordings of many languages from around the
world; it includes transcriptions and phonological information)

The Audio Archive (recordings of English texts of speakers from UK, Canada,
Australia, India, Ireland, New Zealand and USA)

The UCLA Phonetics Lab Data (recordings of a great number of languages

from around the world, including British and American English)

The UCLA Phonetics Lab Archive (collected recordings of hundreds of

languages from around the world, providing source materials for phonetic and
phonological research)

World Englishes (mp3 audio files associated to the book World Englishes by
Melchers & Shaw) (You need to register to get a password to log in)