02 Aug 2004
I was on the point of writing a post about how odd I'm finding it to be surrounded by people with regional accents (I should say, people with the same regional accent1), when I spotted a post on Birmingham accents by David, which in turn was commenting on a post at Language Log. There is a native Oxford accent (which most people would be able to identify as broadly 'rural'), but it is increasingly rare with so much of the population of Oxford composed of students or academics from across the world, tourists and London commuters.
The Brummie (an affectionate term for natives of Birmingham, for non-UK readers) accent does get a very bad press; the stupid/irritating/boring character in dramas is often given a Brummie accent. I'm not sure whether this is a cause or an effect of the negative attitude towards the accent. Unlike David, I rather like it, and find it sing-song and musical, somewhat like Welsh in the intonation. Part of the problem is that the accent given the the characters in dramas isn't real Brummie at all. As discussed on Language Log, the intonation is rising rather than falling in tone in general, and I for one don't find it depressing2. It's lovable, interesting and lilting. It helps that Birmingham people are very down-to-earth, and have a robust and dry sense of humour, even though they are often the butt of jokes — indeed, they are often the first to make fun of themselves.
Yowm awlroight, chick? Bosting!3. See, I'm picking it up already.
1 And of course I should further clarify, the same regional accent, but different from my own.
2 I would like to add that this has nothing to do with the fact that Brummies are currently responsible for the correct functioning of my new bathroom.
3 Before any pedants comment, I know this is strictly speaking a Black Country dialect, not a Birmingham one, but the accent itself is difficult to express in the written word as it's all in the intonation.
2
In one of Bill Bryson's books he comments on islands off Martha's Vinyard (I think) where the local dielect is coming back. Non-native long-time residents were found to be adopting it, presumably unselfconsciously, in order to differentiate themselves from incomers. Interesting I thought. I know I tend to mimick without meaning to (which I put down to moving home every few years as a kid). So, when do you start work? Good luck settling in.----- Bill Bryson excellent author. His observations of both the British and his own countrymen are extremely witty. Not to forget the Australians as well, the country where no one can name the primeminister! Yes the black country accent, and as people from Wolverhampton are affectionatly known...yam yams.by Chas Creek @ 03/08/2004 9:09 pm • Permalink
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Some of the famous Sociolinguist Labov's early work was with the fishermen of Martha's Vineyard. He found them to be reasserting an 'a' vowel previously typical of the island at a time when wealthy mainlanders were beginning to buy holiday homes on the island. This vowel, without going into any phonetic detail, was different to the mainland 'a' vowel that was becoming popular on the island. This suggests - as has a lot of research since then (including my own) - that external factors certainly influence people's language, and, might I add, if we imagine a cline between conscious and subconscious awareness, then such experiences probably happen at all stages along that cline. Let's not go down the 'Bill Bryson the Linguist' route, though. He's an amusing author, but he isn't a linguist.by David (TEFL Smiler) @ 04/08/2004 2:08 am • Permalink
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I forgot to mention: so yes, this sound spread from the fishermen to the other people of the island, including people who were originally mainlanders but who had settled on the island, and who wanted others to recognise their attachment to the island rather than to associate themselves with the holiday home-buying wealthy mainlanders. The question is, Bsag: are you now going to pick up some Brummie to show your attachment to your new home - maybe with a broader Brummie accent when actually conversing with people from outside Birmingham?by David (TEFL Smiler) @ 04/08/2004 12:08 pm • Permalink
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David (TEFL Smiler): That's really interesting. Have you published your research on this? I'd like to read itânot my field, of course, but I have an amateur interest in language generally. As I said, I'm not sure that I will pick up the accent externally. Even if I did, I suspect that I would probably retain my long vowels (I'm a soft Southerner, you see). I'm sure it would be quite a weird combination! When I worked on the Isle of Mull for a while, I didn't pick up the accent, but did subconsciously start replacing 'yes' with 'aye' to match other people there. Unfortunately, it just sounded like I was taking the mickey, but it was completely subconscious. Interestingly, Mr. Bsag doesn't have a Brummie accent (despite being born here and living here most of his life), but he does have the short vowels. His brother, on the other hand, does have a strong accent. Go figure.6
My own work doesn't look at pronunciation, but rather at referring expressions, or more specifically how we refer to inanimate objects, and my research focused on English and Danish. It indicates that people alter their types of referring expressions (eg 'the book on the table', 'that book', 'that', 'it') according to a number of criteria, including not only what is due to the specific context but also - and this is the relevant part here - what is due to their past experiences with other people who they perceive to share a similar background to who they're speaking to now. Thus, typically we might use a full referring expression when speaking to a non-native speaker ('the book on the table') in a situation where we would otherwise use a reduced referring [removed]'that') or a group noun phrase ('that thing') with our native speaker friends, for instance. If so, we'll do this based on our past experiences with non-native speakers, if we have learnt that this strategy aids communication. Or, if we're not being friendly, we'll do the opposite of what we've found to be useful for successful communication. What I'm describing here isn't just relevant for discourse between native and non-native speakers of a language; it is, in fact, relevant for discourse between any speakers. Although I haven't touched on the area of pronunciation in my work, you can see how we will alter our regional accent in accordance to our political goals from any communicative situation. Either we'll do all that is within our knowledge to sound more like the person who we're speaking to or an accent that is perceived to be (cough) 'neutral' such as on TV (if our intention is for our discourse to be successful), or we'll do the opposite (if we don't feel that we can get anything useful out of the conversation, and we want to be awkward buggers!). In the end, our language usage is all political (with a small 'p', of course), within the grammatical framework of the language we're using. If you really want to read my MA dissertation on the use of referring expressions in English and Danish, you can download a PDF of it from <a >my .Mac homepage</a>. It was strongly suggested that I should try to get it published, but I haven't done anything about that yet. Hmm.by David (TEFL Smiler) @ 05/08/2004 11:08 am • Permalink
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David (TEFL Smiler): Cool! It sounds like you should publish it. I always find it amazing that we can be so vague and imprecise when using language (particularly when speaking) and yet still get our message across. And we manage to shift the way we use language so subtly depending on context, without really being aware of what we're doing.8
I found that when in my teens, like a chameleon, I would unconsciously absorb very quickly, almost by osmosis, the accents of those around me, but like most people, as I got older my voice became more rigid and the process became much slower and less complete. However I don't think it ever quite stops. Certainly living in London for 20 odd years gave my Home Counties middle class accent a slight but quite definite metropolitan twang. I agree also that while the process is not usually conscious, my desire is usually to have a neutral voice that people cannot hang too many class or regional prejudices onto. You want people to listen to what you are saying, not how you are saying it. I also find that much to my children's embarrassment, I do pick up local usages if I spend even a small time in say Ireland or Scotland, but only when I find them attractive. For instance isn't "grand" such a fine and expressive word. I think we should all use it more often. My 16 year old son of course favours the word "cool", which I find rather dull now, though at his age, I used it all the time. But he too for the same reason as me wants to sound like his contemporaries. -----by ThoughtBadger @ 07/08/2004 12:08 am • Permalink
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Ian: Yes, I've come across that phenomenon too. Even if I don't mimic the accents that surround me out loud, my 'inner voice' acquires an accent. It's a bit odd. I started work on Monday, so not much time for a rest! Chas Creek: I'm fond of Bill Bryson too. I love his assertion that cricket is a sport invented by the English to make any other endeavour seem interesting by comparison. That's just about right, I think.by bsag @ 03/08/2004 9:09 pm • Permalink