Year: 2011
Type: dissertation
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: This study is concerned with language variation and change in Northampton, United Kingdom. The accent of this area has rarely been investigated and it lacks empirical studies about recent changes. At the same time, there have been made claims about a geographical spread of a supposedly new variety called Estuary English, which is spreading rapidly from south-eastern England to the North. The aim of this study is therefore to provide information about changes in the Northampton accent as well as to contribute to the ongoing discussion about a geographical spread of Estuary English. The assumption is that a massive influx of overspill Londoners in the 1970s has led to accent levelling and that features associated with Estuary English are most advanced in the speech of Northampton's young adults. This investigation is exclusively concerned with phonological variation of consonants. The data were collected through sociolinguistic interviews of 14 speakers belonging to three different generations. All interviews were analysed auditorily and then quantified. The quantitative analysis confirms the hypothesis that the features investigated are most present in the speech of the youngest generation. However, those features associated with Estuary English seem to have been introduced into Northampton speech before the 1970s. Only features associated with the Cockney accent seem to have resulted from accent levelling in the 1970s. Significant gender differences could be found with the most stigmatised features. Those were generally preferred by the male speakers.
Author: Dania Jovanna Bonness
Language: English
Subfield: Linguistics and Language
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1596042883