Attitudes Towards Accents: The Scouse Accent

Attitudes Towards Accents The Scouse AccentIntroduction An emphasise is an oral expression, a precise pronunciation within a position language. Accents pile a good deal be confused with dialects which are varieties of language that differ in vocabulary and syntax. Commonly, people do not believe that they themselves possess one, til now it is impractical for anybody to speak without using an parlance. Accent variation is an important infract of sociolinguistics because people lots attach significance to distinguishable tensenesss. This study concerns attitudes towards accent variation the accent at the centre of this study is the non-standard accent of English, Liverpool English, commonly referred to as Scouse. Liverpool English is one of the or so recognisable accents in the country, and arguably, the world. The Scouse accent is infamous for its harsh, nasal tones and despite some similarities it is distinctly different to the accents of the surrounding areas. A famous l inguist, Fritz Spiel, once described the accent as one-third Irish, one-third welsh, and one-third catarrh The accent is widely known for its negative stereotypes and the reason for this study is to investigate the hypothesis that Students at the University of Wales, Bangor nourish a positive(p) attitude towards the Liverpool accent. Accent variation is often most noticeable within the vowels used in pronunciation, however with the scouse accent, both the vowels and the continents are affected by the accent. The accent of an psyche can often reveal information such as where they come from. However accents can also invite stereotypical judgements of social class, wealth and levels of education. The Liverpodlian accent has been heavily influenced by the Irish accent, for example Liverpudlians tend to pronounce the letter H and Haitch. The huge success of The Beatles in the 1960s, a band who were all originally from Liverpool, helped to publicise the metropolis of Liverpool in a po sitive way and encouraging the accent to be perceived as friendly. And a more recent positive change apothegm Liverpool become Britains favourite location for call centres (Ward, 2000). Despite these positive changes, which succeeded in generating a more positive public image for the city, a significant anastigmatic view of the accent still appears to remain in modern society and this study will outline whether these stereotypical viewpoints are held by the students of the University of Wales, Bangor. Theoretical undercoat In 1975 a study was conducted by Giles and Powesland using a method called the matched-guise technique. This technique involved playing a recording of a verbalizer imitating different accents and then asking participants to rate the vocalizer on different categories such as attractiveness or social status. The study found that standard accents such as RP were more likely to be associated with a person who is a prestigious and articulate speaker. However, acc ents associated with urban areas were considered unattractive and perspective to be spoken by low-status speakers. Rural accents were regarded as being aesthetically pleasing but inferior to RP in terms of social status. This particular study was repeated by an undergraduate student Sarah Wood (Stockwell 2002) who replicated the study but made some adjustments such as only using native speakers of the accents in her recordings and used all distaff students in their 20s in commit to control gender and age to improve the analysis. Her study concluded that southern accents attracted the highest ratings in most categories and the northern accents came out worst, with the urban accents being the most stigmatized. These studies highlight the stigma attached to particular accents and may be an important factor in the attitudes of the students of Bangor, towards the Liverpudlian accent. The Liverpool English accent has been regarded in society as being ill educated and low prestige. This stereotypical view could well be influenced by the medias pattern of Liverpudlians, who are often portray in a negative or criminal way. In 2004, the BBC conducted an online poll to determine attitudes towards the accents and languages in the British Isles. The poll, of which there were 5000 participants, concluded that Asian, Liverpool and Birmingham accents were unpleasant to listen to and absentminded in social status (BBC, 2004). In addition to this, participants were asked to rank celebrities by how pleasant their accents are. The Liverpudlian accents of celebrities Cilla Black and Paul o Grady were received negatively by participants. Another keep up of 1000 participants, conducted by Bury Technologies, also concluded that the accent is unpopular, as Liverpool came out at the bottom of the poll of British accents. adept third of Liverpudlians who took part in the nationwide survey admitted to changing or calming down their accent whilst being interviewed for a job in ord er to benefit their career.Methodology To collect the relevant data, an online survey was conducted, in which participants were asked two questions. In the first question, participants were asked to state which words came to their minds when thinking of the Liverpudlian accent. Secondly participants were asked whether they thought there should be an increase in the amount of Liverpudlian accents within the media, and their reasons for this. The Questionnaire was sent to Students at Bangor University only to complete. A recording of a Liverpudlian speaker was obtained for the study. The person in question was asked to talk for a short period of time about any subject in order for us to issue the participants with a firm understanding of the accent in question. The Individual being recorded held many of the typical scouse accent traits. To ensure that the data was intimately comparable, a multiple choice questionnaire was produced for the study. The questionnaire consisted of ten q uestions concerning personal characteristics and social status, such as polite or impolite of which the students had to tick the statement that they were in most agreement with. The Participants, all students from Bangor University, were each played the recording and asked to complete a multiple choice questionnaire designed to obtain the students personal opinions and expectations of this person based in all upon their Liverpudlian accent.Results Of the ten respondents to the online survey, the most commonly used words used to describe Liverpudlians were negative words such as chav, criminal thief. However positive words such as friendly were also used more than once. In response to an increase in Liverpudlian speakers in the media, the majority of the participants were in favour of the increase, either due to their being a lack of them in the media currently or because they particularly enjoy the sound of the accent. Two of the respondents remained neutral however one stated that despite being neutral they find the accent to be one of the ugliest in the country. The final 3 respondents were against the idea, all claiming that the accent was uncorrectable to understand. The recording of the accent received a great deal of negative responses such as generally unpleasant sounding, common, irritating, loud and rough, harsh sounding. On the remote some participants responded positively, describing the accent as friendly and a nice sound The answers to the questionnaire support the common stereotype of scousers, with the majority of respondents assuming that the Liverpudlian would be untrustworthy, impolite, unfriendly, not wealthy, not educated past GCSE level, not in full-time employment and not pee a high IQ level. On the slightly more positive side the majority of respondents assumed the Liverpudlian would not have criminal record, be average looking, and passive. Discussion The study was limited to one particular social community. Only students at the Uni versity of Wales, Bangor were asked to participate and therefore the results are not statistically significant. The study only involved 30 participants and is not reflective of a large enough scale for the data to be considered representative on behalf of all of the students at the University. A substantial flaw in the methodology of this survey is that the person on the recording was not reading from a particular script or text. His chosen dialogue may have influenced the opinions of the participants and their results may not have been an accurate reflection of their view of the accent itself, but rather of this particular personality. A more beneficial approach to the study would have been to have the speaker to read a text that was specifically written to contain accent variants of the Liverpudlian accent as this would have provided an accurate representation of the accent being discussed. Within the recording the speaker expresses certain opinions and makes personal comments, th is kind of speech could have easily affected the opinion of the students, particularly regarding questions of politeness and friendliness. The individual also made a comment when discussing his accent that no UK residents tend to like it. This information could have influenced a previously unbiased participant who took part in the survey as it shows the accent in a negative light and implies that having a dislike towards the accent is a common response. To have had the speaker read from a given text would have neutralised any alteration in his speech that may have occurred due to the subject or unscripted nature of the recording. Also the study may have benefitted from having a speaker with a broader accent, as although it was clearly a Liverpool accent it wasnt particularly tough which could be misleading by not presenting the students with a typical, strong Liverpudlian accent. The background of the students could have influenced their level of loyalty towards Liverpool and the a ccent. The students chosen for the survey should have been restricted to those without a particular devotion towards to city, such as it being their hometown or birthplace. Having impartial participants would have resulted in a more accurate and honest representation of the students point of view as oppose to the student giving a positive view based on blind faithfulness rather than the accent. induction This questionnaire assessed the students levels of expectations regarding the personality and social attributes of a person with a Liverpudlian accent. The following graph interprets the gathered data in terms of the students expectations of the speaker after sense of hearing the recording. An overall view of the data suggests that the students involved in the study, on average had negative opinions regarding an individual with a scouse accent, particularly in terms of ingenuousness and social class. This study was performed using only a small sample of students from one universi ty, which is not a good basis for investigating this hypothesis. The study would have to be repeated and carried out on a much bigger scale for the information to be representative of all the students at the University of Wales, Bangor.