Language and Speech Intonational Variation in the North- West of England: The Origins of a Rising Contour in Liverpool (original) (raw)
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Same difference: the phonetic shape of High Rising Terminals in London
English Language and Linguistics, 2018
This article investigates patterns of variation in the phonetic shape of High Rising Terminal (HRT) intonation contours on declarative utterances in London English. Previous research has demonstrated that there are two pragmatically distinct meanings for HRTs in London, distributed across different groups of users and conversational contexts. Based on current theories of intonational meaning, we would expect this pragmatic differentiation to correlate with differences in tune shape, given the assumption that there is a one-to-one correspondence between a contour's meaning and its phonological form. Following the example of prior studies of HRTs in other locations, analyses focus on three phonetic properties: rise excursion size, rise dynamism, and the alignment of the rise onset with the nuclear syllable. Unlike much previous research elsewhere, mixed-model regression analyses demonstrate that pragmatic differences in how HRTs are used in London do not correlate with differences in the phonetic characteristics under investigation. The discussion focuses on how to reconcile this result with theories of intonational meaning, arguing that the findings for London may be due to the relatively recent arrival of HRTs in the variety, and, as a result, the lack of a differentiated field of form–meaning correspondences for the contour in the region.
Some phonological innovations in southeastern British English
1997
4 Sussex (Trudgill 1990:33). In the western parts of my area, pronunciation of /r/ in all historical positions as in farmer and more was the norm up to a few decades ago and can still be found among older people in some areas (Trudgill 1990:73).
The British English rising contour: an exception in read speech?
2020
This paper focuses on rising contours in English read speech. Our hypothesis is that they are very few in this particular speech style. This is confirmed by quantitative and qualitative analyses, conducted on a corpus of read speech by native English speakers with a standard British English accent. The main result of the quantitative analyses is that out of 1076 tone units, 82% (whether final or not) are uttered with a falling contour, which is much more than could be expected. The qualitative analyses consisted in a thorough examination of the intonation contours in relation with the syntactic characteristics of our data, as well as an analysis of the pragmatic functions of the contours. They allow us to revisit the generally accepted idea that falling contours are associated with final statements and rises with yes-no questions and continuation. We show that the tonal sequence fall plus fall is by far the most common in read speech, whatever the syntactic structure, except for enumerations. Contrary to what is stated in the literature, the main function of rising contours is not to indicate non-finality and continuation, but rather to convey attitudes, at least in read speech.
Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 2019
This study analyses the time-varying acoustics of laterals and their adjacent vowels in Manchester and Liverpool English. Generalized additive mixed-models (GAMMs) are used for quantifying time-varying formant data, which allows the modelling of non-linearities in acoustic time series while simultaneously modelling speaker and word level variability in the data. These models are compared to single time-point analyses of lateral and vowel targets in order to determine what ana- lysing formant dynamics can tell about dialect variation in speech acoustics. The results show that lateral targets exhibit robust differences between some positional contexts and also between dia- lects, with smaller differences present in vowel targets. The time-varying analysis shows that dia- lect differences frequently occur globally across the lateral and adjacent vowels. These results suggest a complex relationship between lateral and vowel targets and their coarticulatory dynamics, which problematizes straightforward claims about the realization of laterals and their adjacent vow- els. These findings are further discussed in terms of hypotheses about positional and sociophonetic variation. In doing so, the utility of GAMMs for analysing time-varying multi-segmental acoustic signals is demonstrated, and the significance of the results for accounts of English lateral typology is highlighted.
Intonational Variation in the British Isles
2002
Models of intonation are typically based on one dialect and one style and do not account for inter-or intra-speaker variability. Speech data from the IViE corpus, however, demonstrate considerable variation in English intonation that occurs both across and within dialects (IViE = Intonational Variation in English, UK ESRC award R000237145, http://www.phon.ox.ac.k/\~esther/ivyweb). In this paper, we introduce the IViE corpus and present a selection of findings. Concentrating on nuclear accents, we provide evidence for (1) variation in the production of nuclear accent types and (2) variation in the phonetic realisation of nuclear accents. We discuss data from seven dialects. The results show that intonational differences between dialects of one language can be greater than intonational differences between dialects of two different languages. They also show that there is considerable intra-dialectal variation.
English World-Wide, 2001
Urban Voices provides a useful collection of papers on 14 urban accents of the British Isles. Apart from Foulkes and Docherty's introduction, each paper (bar one) is partly driven by theoretical research interests and partly a comparative formulaic overview, using the lexical set approach developed by Wells (1982), of the phonological system of each accent. In this sense the book is therefore both a useful reference text, as well as a contemporary discussion and application of a range of theoretical issues, such as dialect levelling, the role of instrumental phonetics in accent studies, dialect attrition, and models of phonological representation. The text will be attractive both to introductory undergraduate students and to research-active professional linguists. The introduction, "Urban voices-Overview" (1-24), sets the scene both for the individual urban studies which follow, and embeds the issues they raise in a broader framework of sociolinguistic, phonetic and phonological debate. Of particular interest to the authors is the relationship with the field of variationism which these studies both contribute to and critique, and the authors highlight the development of a "British" variationist line of research which has begun to question the North American "mainstream". A number of "themes" are highlighted in this introductory chapter. In a discussion of linguistic change, the authors highlight the role that non-standard accents play in variation and change in the Englishes of the British Isles. They imply that this is a recent phenomenon and point to the adoption in many urban dialects of a number of mainly consonantal features dominant in the southeast of England. These include h-dropping, th-fronting and the use of labio-dental forms of /r/. How this has happened is contemplated both here and in a number of the subsequent contributions. Is it diffusion from London, and if so how? (Particularly how has it reached Glasgow, Newcastle and so on?); is it "levelling", or could it be some other factor (e.g. the retention of forms
The heterogeneous homogenisation of dialects in England.
Taal en Tongval 63: 43-60., 2011
As a result of high levels of mobility in contemporary England, one outcome of the resultant dialect contact that has been regularly highlighted in the literature is supralocalisation – the success of dialect variants that have a wide geographical currency at the expense of those which are much more locally restricted. This article begins by presenting the case for the existence of supralocalisation, but then goes on to problematize it, thereby suggesting where we must look in order to fully understand the linguistic consequences of present-day social and geographical mobility. I begin by pointing out that supralocal forms mentioned in the literature are often still minority forms in their communities, but suggest that this is understandable given the multiscalar nature of our own mobilities. Secondly, I argue that whilst mobility is often portrayed as a democratising force that is driving linguistic convergence, contemporary mobilities themselves are extremely socially differentiated. I suggest, consequently, that this diversity needs to be taken into consideration when we examine the linguistic consequences of movement – we need to ask who is mobile. Finally, I propose that we need to socialise studies of supralocalisation, which, until now, have largely ignored the dynamics of the social indexicality of supralocal forms. Both supralocalisation and mobility have been depicted as forces of convergence – this article attempts to show that the diversity of the latter undermines a simplistic view of the former.
The various rising tones in Newcastle English: a phonological distinction?
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), 2020
L'anglais de Newcastle est caractérisé par l'utilisation de contours ascendants comme contours par défaut, l'anglais du Tyneside faisant partie en tant que tel des variétés présentant une intonation appelée UNBI (Urban Northern British Intonation), typique des grands centres urbains du Nord de la Grande Bretagne. Une étude précédente sur l'anglais de Newcastle réalisée sur le corpus NECTE a permis de distinguer deux grands types de contours montants : les montées simples ou montéesplateau d'une part, et les montées par paliers, d'autre part. Dans cette étude, nous faisons l'hypothèse que la différence entre ces deux types de contours montants est une distinction phonologique plutôt que phonétique, ce qui signifie que chaque type de montée aurait une fonction spécifique. Nous avons testé cette hypothèse en réalisant une étude pilote basée sur une expérience de perception. Le test ne montre pas de différence phonologique claire entre les deux contours, mais confirme que l'anglais de Newcastle appartient au groupe UNBI. Les résultats du test nous conduisent à une autre hypothèse, à savoir que l'un de nos contours montants serait en fait un contour connu sous le nom de HRT (High Rising Terminal ou Uptalk). HRT a en effet commencé à se diffuser à travers les variétés UNBI, et ce serait le cas à Newcastle, où l'on trouverait une cohabitation entre les deux intonations. Si cela s'avérait exact, on pourrait alors dire qu'il existe bien une distinction phonologique entre les deux types de montées puisqu'il a été démontré que les HRT ont des fonctions interactionnelles.
Pitch accent realization in four varieties of British English
Journal of Phonetics, 2000
In intonation languages, the realization of pitch accents varies with the application of phonetic e!ects such as &&truncation'' and &&compression''. These e!ects can change the surface form of accents but do not a!ect the inventory of phonological contrasts. Cross-linguistic di!erences in the application of truncation and compression have been attested for the standard varieties of English and German, and cross-varietal di!erences have been shown to apply within Swedish and Danish. This paper provides evidence for cross-varietal di!erences in truncation and compression in four varieties of British English. We show that speakers of Cambridge English and Newcastle English compress rising and falling accents, but in Leeds English, in identical contexts, we "nd truncation. In Belfast English, we "nd rise-plateau patterns in contexts eliciting rises and falls in Cambridge English, Leeds and Newcastle, and these riseplateaux are truncated. Our data show "rstly that di!erent varieties of one language can share intonological speci"cations but di!er in the way these speci"cations are realized in F. Secondly, they show that the reverse is also possible. Di!erent varieties can share a phonetic realization e!ect, but apply this e!ect to di!erent pitch accents.