REGIONAL VARIABILITY OF ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION
Norwich, Bradford and West Midlands
Most people in England speak some variety of RP. The vast
mass of urban speakers uses a pronunciation, which is characterized by certain
local peculiarities. Thus their speech diverges in many ways from what is
described as standard.
The article looks at the analysis of the phonetic
characteristics of certain regional accents in England. They are Norwich, Bradford
and West Midlands.
The speech of Norwich in particular, and East Anglia in
general, is southern.
The accent of Bradford, and of Yorkshire generally, is
northern.
The accent of the West Midlands is northern. This is the
accent spoken in Birmingham, Wolverhampton and a number of other towns in that
area.
The analysed accents – Norwich, Bradford and West Midlands – have many features which differentiate them from RP. These features are
found in the pronunciation of vowels occurring both in stressed and unstressed
positions. All types of vowels, namely short, long and diphthongs undergo
changes in the analysed accents.
The following phonetic processes may be found in short
vowels:
-
lengthening,
e.g. RP /æ/ ® [æ:];
-
change
of vowel quality, e.g. RP /e/ ® [ε], RP /ʌ/ ® /ʊ/.
At the same time two accents – Bradford and West Midlands –
have a similar pronunciation of the RP /ʌ/ which is realised as /ʊ/.
As to long stressed vowels, the following phonetic processes
were found:
-
diphthongization,
e.g. RP /i:/ ® [әi] (Norwich), /ɪә/
(Bradford), [ɜi] (West Midlands);
-
shortening,
e.g. RP /u:/ ® /ʊ/, RP /ɑ:/ ® /æ/;
-
widening
of a vowel, e.g. RP /ɑ:/ ® /æ/, RP /ɜ:/ ® [œ:].
The RP /ɑ:/ retains its quality in Norwich and Bradford, and
changes for /æ/ only in West Midlands.
In the pronunciation of diphthongs the following processes
were found:
-
monophthongization,
e.g. RP /әʊ/ ® /ʊ/, RP /eɪ/ ® [ε];
-
change
of quality of the first element, e.g. RP /aɪ/ ® /ɔɪ/, RP /eɪ/ ® [æɪ].
The diphthongs /eɪ/ and /aɪ/ are realised similarly both in Norwich
and West Midlands accents: RP /eɪ/ ® [æɪ], RP /aɪ/ ® /ɔɪ/.
Both the diphthong /eɪ/ and the diphthong /әʊ/ have two variants of
pronunciation found in Bradford accent: RP /eɪ/ ® /e:/ and [ε], RP /әʊ/ ® /ɔ:/ and [ɔʊ].
Closing diphthongs /eɪ/, /aɪ/ and /әʊ/ are variable in all
the three accents.
As to the pronunciation of vowels in the unstressed position,
we found only the vowel /ɪ/ occurring in the word final position. It has a
tendency to be lengthened in West Midlands: RP /ɪ/ ® /i:/.
As to the pronunciation of consonants, the following distinct
features were found in the analysed accents:
-
glottalization
of voiceless plosive consonants, mainly in Norwich accent, e.g. RP /p/ ® [pɁ],
RP /t/ ® [Ɂ], RP /k/ ® [kɁ];
-
the loss of the initial /h/ both in form words and in
notional words in all the analysed accents;
-
the
substitution of the apical alveolar /n/ for the back lingual /ŋ/ in the word final
position in all the three accents.
The information may be used by the students investigating
regional variants of pronunciation on the territory of Great Britain. It may
also be of great help for the people who visit certain regions of Great Britain
and communicate with people belonging to different social layers of society.
Оставьте свой комментарий
Авторизуйтесь, чтобы задавать вопросы.