Paul Kerswill FRIAS, 27 November 2009 Workshop III: Language, Space and Geography

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 Expectation: speech community type has a perceptual correlate  Perceptual linguistic parameters: what is the envelope of variability?  Perceived social parameters: which parameters? Which values (ethnicity, class)?  Link to focusing  What is effect of listener characteristics? 3

 More consideration of the ‘big picture’:  Expansion in ethnographic and cognitive approaches  More concern with geographical context  But perceptual dialectology has not (yet) made a big impact ▪ Garrett et al.’s study of recognition of Welsh English varieties (1990s) ▪ Montgomery’s perceptual maps (200os) 4

The context: a model of dialect change 1. Speech community type  Community structure (Henning Andersen’s open/closed, exocentric/endocentric dichotomies), stratification, group formation, intergroup relations, in-migration/immigration, outward contact, orientation  The mirroring of these factors in observable sociolinguistic variation patterns, including change  The embedding of the speech community in wider geographical dynamics of levelling and divergence 2. Community-external factors, related to wider (both local and national) ideologies about social groups and language 5

 Dedialectalisation  Regional dialect levelling (= supralocalisation)  Geographical diffusion  Innovation (divergence) 6

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 Endocentric closed (Type 1): Metropolitan inner city. Language contact- based innovation. Examples: London and Birmingham inner cities  Endocentric open (Type 2): General urban, with strong external contacts favouring outward diffusion. Examples: Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester  Exocentric closed (Type 3): A low-contact community whose orientation to outside linguistic norms is positive. Change by ideology, not contact. Example: Glasgow inner-city communities, taking up off-the- shelf features (discussed in Lecture 1).  Exocentric open (Type 4): Often rural communities, and unlike Type 1 not especially protective of local norms. Strongly affected by incoming features, diffusing from local urban centres. Example: Huntly. Also high-mobility, high-contact urbanised regions around a metropolis: the south-east of England 10

 Hypothesis 1: Recognising voices from one’s own community (‘own-community recognition’) will be better if one has strong local ties. Thus, working-class judges in established towns will be more successful than middle class groups in the same towns, but working-class judges in a New Town will not have the same advantage.  Hypothesis 2: Own-community recognition will be better in towns with relatively little mobility than in towns with high mobility.  Hypothesis 3: Own-community recognition of an accent with strongly localised phonetic features will be better than that of accents without such distinctive features 11

12 Tape presented to judges in: Voices H ULL 1 Hull F83 2 Milton Keynes F13 3 Durham M55 4 Middles- brough F17 5 Reading F50 6 Hull M9 7 Public school M14 8 Yorks. East Riding M80 9 London M13 10 Hull M15 R EADING 1 Reading M82 2 Hull M15 3 London F35 4 Reading M15 5 Durham M55 6 London M13 7 Public school M14 8 Reading F50 9 Milton Keynes F13 10 Reading F18 M ILTON K EYNES 1 Milton Keynes F82 2 Hull M15 3 London F35 4 Reading M15 5 Durham M55 6 London M13 7 Public school M14 8 Reading F50 9 Milton Keynes F13 10 Milton Keynes M9 Voices presented to judges in Hull, Reading and Milton Keynes

13 (From P. Kerswill and A. Williams 2002)

14 (From P. Kerswill and A. Williams 2002)

15 (From P. Kerswill and A. Williams 2002)

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 Perceptual disjunction between older voices and younger voices  Older voices perceived as ‘further west than here’  But judgement of young voices not uniform: voice with levelled accent was problematic, though notably not judged as ‘London’  Difference in WC and MC perceptions  Ascribable to differences in familiarity 22

Investigators: Paul Kerswill (Lancaster University) Jenny Cheshire (Queen Mary, University of London) Research Associates: Sue Fox (Queen Mary, University of London) Eivind Torgersen (Lancaster University) Funded by the Economic and Social Research Council E· S· R· C ECONOMIC & S O C I A L RESEARCH C O U N C I L 23

Investigators: Paul Kerswill (Lancaster University) Jenny Cheshire (Queen Mary, University of London) Research Associates: Sue Fox, Arfaan Khan, (Queen Mary, University of London) Eivind Torgersen (Lancaster University) E· S· R· C ECONOMIC & S O C I A L RESEARCH C O U N C I L Funded by the Economic and Social Research Council Multicultural London English: the emergence, acquisition and diffusion of a new variety (2007–10) 24

Are these the innovators? Roll Deep Crew (East London Hip-Hop crew) 25

Havering Hackney 26

FACE MOUTH TRAP STRUT START PRICE CHOICE GOAT 27

Laura, AngloIssah, Kuwait Grace, Nigeria Jack, Anglo Issah & Grace: shorter trajectories than Laura & Jack. In GOAT, they go their own way – divergence from south-eastern fronting change 28

 There is awareness in the press and radio of a ‘new’ way of talking in London: people claim that more and more white kids ‘talk black’ or ‘sound like they’re black’  The media have coined this ‘Jafaican’. We’ve called it Multicultural London English  Is there evidence that it is ethnically relatively neutral?  If so, we have evidence of a new, multiethnic variety (a “multiethnolect”) 29

 Task: ethnic and geographical classification of real speech from 2005 interviews  10 second sound clip per speaker  All listeners from inner London  Listeners aged 12 or 17 (N=68) 30

MeganHackneyAnglo AndrewHackneyAnglo LauraHackneyAnglo RyanHackneyAnglo SulemaHackneyNon-Anglo (Bangladeshi) KirstyHackneyNon-Anglo (Chinese) GraceHackneyNon-Anglo (Nigerian) DomHackneyNon-Anglo (Columbian) AmjadHackneyNon-Anglo (Pakistani) ChrisHackneyNon-Anglo (Afro-Caribbean) KellyHaveringAnglo DaleHaveringAnglo 31 Plus four Birmingham voices: 2 female, 2 male, one Afro-Caribbean, one Anglo for each sex

 If a listener claims a voice to be that of a Londoner, then we take this as a claim that the voice belongs to the listener’s speech community 32

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Actual ethnicity of speakers (1f, 1m for each ethnicity) Judgement of speaker’s ethnicity based on voice sample Actual ethnicity/sex of speaker Is heard as coming from... 34

Is heard as...Is heard as coming from... 35

Is heard as being... Is heard as coming from... 36

Is heard as...Is heard as coming from... 37

 Birmingham Non-Anglo voices are more likely to be heard as ‘London’ than Birmingham Anglos voices  Havering Anglo voices are heard as ‘white’ and as from London or Essex  Hackney Anglo voices are also heard as ‘white’, but much less consistently. One is consistently heard as ‘black’. They are heard as from London with more consistency than the Havering Anglos  Hackney Non-Anglo voices are heard as coming from various backgrounds, with no correspondence with actual race/ethnicity. The exception is Grace. 38

 Non-Anglo voices are heard as coming from London  This effect is extended to Birmingham Non-Anglo voices  Anglo voices are less strongly associated with London  Anglo voices from Hackney are more likely to be heard as being from London than those from Havering Question: can a content analysis of interviews shed light on these associations? 39

 How are ‘own place’ and ‘own language’ constructed?  Likely relevant categories for language: ‘Cockney’, ‘posh’, ‘Multicultural London English’ (need to look for members’ term for this concept, along the lines of Kiezdeutsch),...  Parameters of construction for place and language: Age, behaviour, dress, ethnicity, words, pronunciation... 40

41 Identi- fies as Cock- ney Identi- fies as ‘myself’ Identi- fies as East London Identi- fies as London Identifies as foreign ‘Cockney’ somewhere other than Hackney or local area ‘Cockney’ distinct from current language of own area Anglo n= Non- Anglo n= Columbian

42 ‘Cockney’ spoken by older people Cock- neys are white Cockneys have specific cultural character- istics (tea, beer, pubs, chips; they are chavs, racist) Cockney associated with words (geezer, all right, mate, cock, sweet, governor, rhyming slang) Associates own speech with words (what’s up, blood, bredren, save it, safe, shank, mug, bless) Refers to ‘slang’ as words distinguish- ing their speech from Cockney Refers to own variety as ‘slang’ Anglo n= Non- Anglo n= also ‘ghetto’, ‘rude’ (Non- Anglos), ‘raggo’ (Anglo)

 5/13 Anglos claim to be Cockneys  Citing family background: ‘Mum is a real Cockney’  Also language mentioned  No Non-Anglos claim either the identity or the dialect  Cockneys are defined by a process of othering  Social and linguistic practices (tea, bags of chips; ‘mate’, ‘geezer’...)  White (and sometimes racist)  Older people  ‘Cockney’ spoken somewhere else (other parts of London, Essex)  Or spoken here, but in another time  Own identity defined as local, East London, sometimes by postcode  But never ‘East End’, thus setting themselves apart from the soap Eastenders  No mention of race or ethnicity in this section of interviews 43

 Almost everybody says their speech is different from Cockney  Cockney is defined by words, freely cited  The speakers claim different words for themselves  Own speech and speech of the area rarely given a name  The designation ‘slang’ is often used, but speakers cite vocabulary to define it ( what’s up, blood, bredren, save it, safe, shank, mug, bless)  Accent never mentioned  Match in individual cases between self-ascription and members’ perception  Ryan is heard as black. He says of himself that he hates white people, and is always taken for black in the absence of visual clues  Dom does not claim a British identity. Of the Non-Anglos, he is heard as the least ‘London’ 44

 Dialect recognition and geographical ascription shows local perceptions of speech communities  Correlation with focusing/diffuseness, ongoing levelling  Gives quantifiable, but subtle picture of how individuals perceive local areas, local speech, and who is ‘one of us’  Match with both variation patterns and with ethnographic information 45