EL1102

EL1102 Studying English in Context

Week 5, Second Semester, 1998/99

Tutorial No. 3: Accents; why language changes

Go to this Web site (The Audio Archive) if you want to hear sound samples of English speakers from around the world
http://comserv.urz.uni-magdeburg.de/~merfert/engpron/engpron.html

1. Your tutor will have cassette containing two minutes’ recording of two people (Louise and Janet) speaking English, taken from a radio soap opera. Listen to how they speak during the tutorial and try to answer these questions. (Your tutor may play it a few times if necessary.)
Click here see the transcript of the recording.

Do you recognise the accents?
Can you hear if the accents are rhotic or not?
Notice the vowel sounds in the Louise and Janet. Are Louise’s ‘oh’ sounds (don’t, so, hoping, go) different from Janet’s (old, don’t, know, no)? Are Louise’s short ‘a’ sounds (understand, Jamshed, that) different from Janet’s (Sassenachs, that). Can you comment on some of the other vowel sounds, including diphthongs? (Listen to Janet’s Scottish song, to, face, besides, how.)
How are the t’s at the end of syllables pronounced (Scotland, that)?
Who speaks faster? Is one accent more evenly paced (syllable-timed)?
Can you hear the difference in intonation in the accents?
Do you think it is possible to assess people according to their accents? Does Louise or Janet sound more educated, intelligent, caring, approachable? (If you don’t know the soap, you tutor will reveal to you the roles of Louise and Janet later.)

2. What do you understand by language contact? What evidence is there for saying that colloquial Singaporean English started out as a contact variety?

3. What do you understand by the centripetal and centrifugal force?

According to Trudgill, is the accent with or without the glottal stops the prestige accent like in Norwich?
According to Labov, whose accent was despised and whose accent was admired in Martha’s Vineyard?
According to Labov, was the rhotic or non-rhotic accent the prestigious one in New York? Do you think the prestige accent in other parts of the world (UK, Australia, South Africa, etc.) is also a rhotic one?
If time permits, consider the section entitled ‘Multistyle’ (in the David Graddol book, pages 311–2), in particular the box entitled ‘Slanging in Singapore’ (p. 311). Do you agree with the definition of slanging? Why should some Singaporeans want to ‘slang’?
If you are in the company of a group of people who ‘slang’, do you try to ‘slang’ back? How much do you accommodate in such a situation? Are you more likely to accommodate in other situations?

Please note that I put ‘slang’ in inverted commas because this is a non-standard Malaysian / Singaporean usage of the word. ‘Slang’, in Standard English, is usually a noun, defined as ‘informal vocabulary items’; it is also used in the phrase a slanging match to mean a rude, angry verbal attack. If you need to use the Malaysian/Singaporean colloquial item ‘slang’ in something more formal, you should use: ‘put on an accent’ or ‘put on a twang’ instead.

4. From your observations in Questions 1 and 3, what do you think people mean when they say an accent is ‘good’, ‘bad’, ‘beautiful’, etc.? Are they really evaluating the accent, or the people who use the accent? What do you think of as ‘beautiful’ or ‘ugly’ accents?

5. On 27 July 1996, a man telephoned to give warning of the pipe bomb at Atlanta Centennial Park. He was described in the media as having ‘accentless English’. Can you say what it means not to have an accent? (The excerpt from the Associated Press is in the box below.) How do you suppose that the Federal official was able to say that the man was white?

The call came from ‘a white male with an indistinguishable accent’, the FBI’s Woody Johnson said, acknowledging that the voice sounded American. A Justice Department official said the caller spoke ‘in a calm voice’…. [FBI = Federal Bureau of Investigation, equivalent to CID (Criminal Investigation Department) in Singapore]

Because of the American-sounding voice on the call and the simple design and low power of the device, investigators were concentrating initial attention on domestic suspects, possibly an individual working alone or perhaps a paramilitary group, officials said.

6. [Attempt only if time permits] Sumiko Tan recently complained about the different English accents on Singapore-produced television programmes (Sunday Plus, 21/6/98). These include:

talk-down accent (Wee Soon Hui/Mrs Tay, Growing Up; Adrian Pang, Forever Fever)
Chinese accent (Moses Lim, Under One Roof; Edmund Chen, Dreamers)
fake ang mo accent (James Lye, VR Man; Sheikh Haikel, Donny Lee Show)
real ang mo accent (Robin Leong, Three Rooms; Edwin Chong, Phua Chu Kang)
Singapore street accent (Gurmit Singh, Irene Ang, Phua Chu Kang; Catherine Sng, VR Man)
NUS accent (Andrew Seow, Growing Up; Darryl David, Benedict Goh, Pyramid Game)

Do you agree with her classification? How are these accents different? Is having a multiplicity of accents problematic?

7. [All groups should attempt this] What do you understand by linguistic determinism or Whorfism? What is the relationship between the language we use and how we see the world? Katie Wales (below) uses a metaphor when she talks about how language ‘"blinkers" our perception of the world’. A blinker is a device in the form of a flap attached near a horse’s eyes to prevent it from seeing sideways or backwards. Why should a horse need blinkers? In what way is language a ‘blinker’?

That differences in world-views between societies are to be attributed to differences in linguistic systems is difficult to prove or to disprove; but that language influences forms of thought in some way, or ‘blinkers’ our perception of the world, is certainly plausible, and various kinds of degrees of determinism are continually advocated. [Katie Wales, A Dictionary of Stylistics, p. 116]

There are four words for ‘rice’ in Malay: padi, beras, pulut and nasi. If you are not a Malay speaker, try to get an informant to distinguish between these words. If you speak other languages, ask yourself also how many distinct words there are there. In English, rice is common; and occasionally paddy (or, in Singapore and Malaysian English, padi) is used. Why should this be the case?
Why does English make a distinction between cow/cattle and beef, calf and veal, sheep/goat and mutton; whereas other languages would just have the equivalent of cow and cow meat, sheep and sheep meat, goat and goat meat, and so on? (Don’t be afraid to make guesses. Dr Rubdy will probably make use of this example in a later lecture.)
Can this help us argue the case for many different varieties or dialects of English — in that each variety or dialect presents a different perspective of the world?

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