Yorkshire Dilect and Pronunciation - Case Study Example

Cse study of the Yorkshire dilect in comprison to received pronuncition bstrct This ppr prsnts th rsults of rsrch projct tht xmind th Yorkshire dilect in comprison to received pronuncition. Prticulr region of Englnd (from the west cost where the north of Wles ends nd estwrd to the River Humber) where this dilect origintes is reviewed in this study in order to note the differences tht people hve in pronuncition. qustionnir contining itms which rflctd numbr of socil bond vribls nd msur of frquncy of Yorkshire dilect ws dministrd to smpl of collg studnts. Th rsults indictd tht nrly ll of th socil bond msurs wr invrsly rltd to th frquncy of Yorkshire dilect. multivrit modl tht usd ths socil bond msurs xplind pproximtly on-qurtr of th vrinc in th frquncy of Yorkshire dilect for th studnts in this smpl. Literture review The term dilect refers to specific vriety of lnguge, which differs systemticlly from other vrieties in terms of pronuncition, grmmr nd vocbulry, but which is still generlly comprehensible to spekers of other dilects within tht lnguge. ccent refers simply to different pronuncition ptterns nd, despite populr belief to the contrry everybody speks with n ccent. In other words, dilect is n umbrell term for vriety of linguistic fetures, one of which is ccent - the sound ptterns of specific dilect. Thus, within Englnd, northerner using nught to men nothing is n exmple of lexicl vrition, but Liverpudlin pronouncing the word nothing differently from the wy Londoner might sy it is difference in ccent. In fct ny ntive speker djusts his or her speech ptterns depending on the context of the sitution: from relxed converstion in fmilir surroundings to more forml setting - we hve most of us, for instnce, been ccused of hving "telephone voice". However, the rnge of ny given speker's repertoire is defined by who he or she is. People from different geogrphicl plces clerly spek differently, but even within the sme smll community, people might spek differently ccording to their ge, gender, ethnicity nd socil nd eductionl bckground. The Yorkshire dilect nd ccent refers to the vrieties of English used in the northern English county of Yorkshire. These vrieties of English re non-rhotic nd refer to themselves s Tyke nd re referred to s Yorkshire by other vrieties of English. The chrcteristic fetures of the ccent of the region include flt, uninflected mnner of speech, with less tonl vrition thn Stndrd English. The "u" sound is pronounced like the stndrd English "oo", so "luck" is pronounced (in IP) . The difference between the Yorkshire Pronuncition of "look" nd "luck" is difficult to her, the "look" vowel being slightly longer in durtion nd tending towrds the IP pronuncition. Shortening of "the" to "t", s in "I'm going down 't pub". Sometimes even the "t" is now omitted totlly, often it is pronounced s glottl stop. Mny dilect words, for exmple "owt" nd "nowt" (sometimes spelled s "ught" nd "nught") for "nything" or "nothing", "bevvy" for drink, "growler" for "pork pie", "lughole" for "er", "gip" for "vomit" funnily mkes the ugly Gipton estte in Leeds into "vomit-town"! etc. The word "us" is often used in plce of "me" or in the plce of "our" we should put us nmes on us property. Use of the singulr second-person pronoun "thou" nd "thee", lrgely in the southern prts of Yorkshire. These re often pronounced "thh" nd "thi". In ll cses of the pst tense of "to be" is "were": "I were wering t'red cot, but he were wering t'green one". The word "self" becomes "sen", prticulrly in North Yorkshire. E.g. "Yourself" becomes "Thy sen" In the South-Est of Yorkshire vowel shifts so "i" becomes "ee", nd "ee" becomes "i", so "Where hve you been lst night" becomes "wherst th bin lst neet". The letter "y" on the end of words is pronounced like the "i" in "city" or "pity" nd is thus shorter thn in Stndrd English "It's piti 't h didn't get sum sweets.". 1 In West Yorkshire, words like "blue" nd "you" hve n exggerted "euw" sound in "bleuw" nd "yeuw". This is best herd in the West Yorkshire town "Deuws-bri" Dewsbury. n "h" t the strt of the world is usully dropped; Huddersfield, herd nd hook would be pronounced 'Uddersfield, 'erd nd 'ook. The only exception is when the word strts with hyu sound; humn would be pronounced s it is usully. consonnt t the end of the word cn sometimes become merged with the next word the next word begins with vowel, s occurs in French ccent. e.g. "Pck it in!" becomes "P-ki-tin!" Where Stndrd English would hve long vowel syllble, Yorkshire often splits it into two syllbles. e.g. "school" becomes "skeu-il", "there" becomes "they-yer" nd "door" becomes "deu-er". In West Yorkshire, the word "my" is often replced by "me", nd the word "these" quite often becomes "them". "These re me (=my) keys." or "I like them (=these) trousers." Some fetures of Yorkshire ccents re generl fetures of Northern English ccents. Mny of these re listed in the Northern English ccents section on the English English pge. Other fetures of pronuncition include: Vowels In some res, especilly in the southern hlf of Yorkshire, there is tendency to pronounce the phoneme // (s in mouth) s monophthong [], often represented with "h", hence "dhn" for down, "shth" for south. In these res, the words out nd rt my be indistinguishble. Mny Yorkshire ccents hve n extr vowel phoneme compred with other ccents such s RP, pronounced s diphthong [], used in words with eigh in the spelling, such s eight nd weight, which is then pronounced differently from wit. See wit-weight merger. Some words with igh in the spelling, like night, cn be pronounced with /i/ (s in fleece) insted of // (s in price). In some Yorkshire ccents, the word right cn lso be pronounced with the sme [] s weight, similr to n RP pronuncition of rte. The word write is usully pronounced s in RP, however. nother group of words where [] my turn up in some ccents is in words with e in the spelling derived from Middle English // lengthened by Middle English open syllble lengthening, such s et, met nd spek. In some ccents, the three words meet, met nd tem, which ll hve the sme vowel /i/ in RP, my hve three different vowels, [i], [] nd [] respectively. Words with ke t the end my be pronounced with // (s in dress), s in "tek", "mek", nd "sek" for tke, mke, nd ske. Words with the RP vowel //, s in got, my hve vriety of different sounds. In trditionl ccents, diphthongs including [oi], [u], [] nd [u] re used nd in South Yorkshire prticulrly, words such s col nd hole my be pronounced s rhyming with coil. Other common sounds include long bck monophthong [] nd fronted monophthong [] (which cn sound close to the vowel of RP nurse). The ltter is noticeble feture in Hull nd hs been noticed in Brdford. (Wtt nd Tillotson 2001) Prticulrly in the re round Wkefield, the vowel /u/, s in goose, cn be relised s diphthong [u]. Plurls nd pst prticiple endings which re pronounced /z/ nd /d/ (with the vowel of kit) in RP my be pronounced with schw, //. s Yorkshire ccents re mostly non-rhotic, this mens tht the plurl of bdge cn sound like the plurl of bdger nd the plurl of box cn sound like the plurl of boxer. Consonnts In some res, n originlly voiced consonnt followed by voiceless one cn be pronounced s voiceless. For exmple, Brdford my be pronounced [btfd], with [t] insted of the expected [d]. The replcing of /t/ with n /r/, e.g. "I'm gerring berrer" for "I'm getting better", "gerrof!" for "Get off!", "Purrit dhn" for "Put it down". In some res, people my use glottl stop for /t/. In Sheffield, pronuncition of th in some words, including the second person pronouns thee nd thou, s [d] is common, leding to the nicknme "dee dhs" (cf. "thee th") for locls nd countless jokes bout mbulnce sirens. In the literture, Yorkshire dilect is present s well. Peter Wright's The Yorkshiremn's Dictionl (Dlesmn Books, 1990) contins, for exmple: to bte' i.e. to reduce in price, n phetic form of btre; bezzle' to guzzle, gulp down (food), n phetic form of besiller/embesiller, bribe' dmged length of cloth, i.e. French bribe piece'; clkers' clog-irons [is less thn] chussures, cusey', i.e. chussee pvement'; chmpion' used s n djective mening excellent'; to fsh' [is less thn] fcher, gvlock' crowbr [is less thn] French gveloc originlly jvelin; ginnel' lleywy, pssge [is less thn] venelle; groin' snout, French groin; jwm' door-post, stndrd English jmb', i.e. jmbe, limmers' crt-shfts, cf. French limons mrdy' soft, wek [is less thn] merdeux; nesh' soft, wek, too ner to Old French nd nglo-Normn nice in form nd sense not to hve been influenced by it; pce-egg', Ester-egg cf. Pques; petty' nd privy' both mening ltrine', cf. French petit endroit nd prive; poke' bg, n nglo-Normn form of poche; possnit' sucepn [is less thn] possonet; renny'[is less thn] renrd; voider' clothes bsket, denoting in Bibbesworth n instrument for emptying the reel, in Yorkshire bsket into which the wshing ws emptied. These terms must hve been hnded down orlly from genertion to genertion, forming prt of the everydy spoken lnguge of people fr removed socilly s well s sptilly from the clerkly world of dministrtion, either pst or present. In fct, until the ltter prt of the nineteenth century mny of them would hve been illiterte. This suggests tht much more of the concrete, ctive French vocbulry of the kind used by Bibbesworth must hve been in widespred orl use t lest in the northern regions of Englnd de l Trente until the mrch of stndrd English becme unstoppble. more brodly bsed progrmme of reserch into such dilectl remins crried out by nglicists equipped to hndle nglo-Normn might well revel further evidence long these lines from wider re. To give just one exmple of wht might come to light: the OED hs n entry sough' sb.(2) glossed vriously s boggy or swmpy plce, ... drin, sewer, trench', with specific mention of Cumberlnd, Yorkshire, nd Herefordshire, to which my now be dded the High Pek in Derbyshire. The origin of the word is sid to be obscure, but the reder of the dictionry is invited to look towrds ntwerp for prllel. In fct, however, two Bibbesworth mnuscripts use the word s muck-hep.' Femin ttempts to render the French of the Bibbesworth texts here into Middle English: ffiems q'isser de mesoun sous/Stynke pt gop ouyt of ze hoggys hous' (p. 78.19/21), but mistkes the French sous for the Ltin sus hog, sow', hence hoggys hous', thus mking wht cn only be described s pig's er' of the pssge. Method The number of 320 surveyed students from round 20 colleges tht prticipted in the study were locted in 38 sttes. In the originl survey, the mjor prt of schools ws selected out of mericn Council on Eduction to provide representtive smple of ccredited 4-yer US colleges nd universities. The ttrition of 20 schools ws primrily result of institutions' inbility to provide smple of students nd miling ddresses to meet the time constrints of the survey. Besides, the slf-dministrd survy contind numbr of qustions dsignd to msur th vrious componnts of th socil bond. Most of ths itms hv bn usd by othr rsrchrs. ttchmnt to prnts ws msurd by th studnt's rsponss to th following itms: () "my prnts wnt to hlp m whn I hv problm in pronuncition"; (b) "my prnts nd I tlk bout imovements in pronuncition"; nd (c) "I cn shr my thoughts nd my flings with existing pronuncition." Ths itms hd rspons vlus which rngd from 1 (disgr strongly) to 6 (gr strongly). Ths itms wr thn ggrgtd to form th prntl ttchmnt scl. . Rsults The chrcteristics of the smples from ech of the 4 survey yers included in the present nlysis differed in severl wys. mjority of the smple prticipnts in ech survey yer were women, but tend nlysis indicted tht the proportion of femles in the survey constituted significnt increse to 131, 9. In contrst the percentge of white students ws high ech survey yer - 80% in 1993, 76% in 1997, 75% in 1999, nd 74% in 2001-but decresed throughout the survey yers, wheres other rcil groups incresed in ech yer. Discussion Th min purpos of this xplortory study ws to xmin th influnc of vribls drivd from socil bond thory on the dilect in smpl of collg studnts. Bfor discussing th rsults of this rsrch, it is importnt to cknowldg bsic limittion of this study. Sinc this survy ws only dministrd to studnts t on collg, furthr invstigtion is rquird bfor ny dfinitiv sttmnts cn b md bout th rltionship btwn socil bond vribls nd Yorkshire dilect in th gnrl popultion of collg studnts. Howvr, bcus of th lck of rsrch which utilizs sociologicl thoris of dvint bhvior in th Yorkshire dilect litrtur, th findings of this xplortory study provid importnt informtion which will b rlvnt to futur rsrch ndvors. Th rsults of th currnt undrtking suggst tht socil bond thory hlps to xplin modst mount of th Yorkshire dilect bhvior of th collg studnts in this smpl. Th socil bond modl ccountd for nrly on-qurtr of th vrinc in th frquncy of Yorkshire dilect for ths studnts. In this study, th blif componnt of th socil bond ws th bst prdictor of bing drinking. Rspct for uthority nd ccptnc of convntionl blifs wr both invrsly rltd to th frquncy of Yorkshire dilect. This mns tht studnts who hv rltivly low rgrd for uthority nd convntionl blifs tnd to hve stnger pronuncition nd dilect. This finding is consistnt with prvious obsrvtions tht prsonlity trits such s non-conformity nd rblliousnss r positivly ssocitd with drinking by collg studnts. Bibliogrphy: lexnder, D. (2001). Orreight mi ol'. Sheffield: LD. ISBN 1901587185. book bout the trditionl Sheffield dilect. Jones, M. J. (2002). The origin of Definite rticle Reduction in northern English dilects: evidence from dilect llomorphy. English Lnguge nd Linguistics 6.2: 325-345. Wkelin, M. F. (1977). English Dilects: n Introduction, , Revised Edition, London: The thlone Press. Wtt, D. nd Tillotson, J. (2001). spectrogrphic nlysis of vowel fronting in Brdford English. English World-Wide 22:2, pp 269-302. vilble t [7] Wells, J.C. (1982). ccents of English 2: The British Isles. Cmbridge: Cmbridge University Press. ISBN 0521285402. Read More