Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-j824f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-11T08:35:21.230Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Cardiffians’ perceptions of English in the UK

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 June 2020

Betsy E. Evans ,
Matthew Dunbar  and
Nicole Chartier
Betsy E. Evans*
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA
Matthew Dunbar
Affiliation:
Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA
Nicole Chartier
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA
*
Author for correspondence: Betsy Evans, Email: evansbe@uw.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This Perceptual Dialectology (PD) study asked residents of Cardiff, Wales, about their perceptions of English in the United Kingdom (UK). In addition, because face to face exposure to dialect variation has rarely been included as a variable in PD studies, participants were asked about their travel experience to ascertain whether this might influence their responses to a PD map task. Participants’ responses to the map task were analyzed using ArcGIS to create composite maps. Results show that these Cardiffians perceive “dialect or regional” speech boundaries to be located around major cities in England and Wales but also southwest Wales. Composite maps and polygon counts suggest that the more traveled respondents have a more nuanced perception of dialect regions than those who claim to travel less, suggesting that travel experience may influence PD participants’ responses to map tasks.

Keywords

perceptual dialectologywelsh Englishtravel experience
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Linguistic Geography , Volume 8 , Issue 1 , April 2020 , pp. 1 - 8
Check for updates
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Allport, Gordon William. 1954. The historical background of modern social psychology. In Lindsey, Gardener & Aronson, Elliot (eds.), The handbook of social psychology, 3–55. Cambridge: Addison-Wesley.Google Scholar
Benson, Erica J. & Williams, Anneli. 2017. Crossing the line: Effect of boundary representation in perceptual dialectology. 46 th meeting of New Ways of Analyzing Variation, Madison, Wisconsin.Google Scholar
Benson, Erica J. & Risdal, Megan. 2018. Variation in language regard: Sociolinguistic receptivity and acceptability of linguistic features. In Evans, Betsy E., Benson, Erica J. and Stanford, James (eds.), Language regard: Methods variation and change, 80–95. London: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bourhis, Richard Y., Giles, Howard & Tajfel, Henri. 1973. Language as a determinant of Welsh identity. European Journal of Social Psychology 3 (4). 447–460.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bourhis, Richard Y. & Giles, Howard. 1976. The language of co-operation in Wales: A field study. Language Sciences 42. 13–16.Google Scholar
Bourhis, Richard Y. & Giles, Howard. 1977. The language of intergroup distinctiveness. In Giles, Howard (ed.), Language, ethnicity, and intergroup relations, 119–136. London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Braber, Natalie. 2015. Language perception in the East Midlands in England: Investigating East Midlands adolescents’ perception of language variation in the UK. English Today 31 (1). 16–26. doi:10.1017/S0266078414000509 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coupland, Nikolas, Peter Donald, Garrett & Williams, Angie. 2005. Narrative demands, cultural performance and evaluation. In Thornborrow, Joanna & Coates, Jennifer (eds.), The sociolinguistics of narrative, 67–88. Amsterdam: Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coupland, Nicolas & Bishop, Hywel. 2007. Ideologised values for British accents. Journal of Sociolinguistics 11/1. 74–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DeMaio, Theresa J. 1984. Social desirability and survey measurement. In Turner, Charles & Martin, Elizabeth (eds.), Surveying subjective phenomena, vol. 2, 257–282. New York: Sage.Google Scholar
Demirci, Mahide. 2002. Gender differences in the perception of Turkish regional dialects. In Long, Daniel & Preston, Dennis R. (eds.), Handbook of perceptual dialectology, vol. 2, 41–50. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Demirci, Mahide & Kleiner, Brian. 1999. The perception of Turkish dialects. In Long, Daniel & Preston, Dennis R. (eds.), Handbook of perceptual dialectology, 263–282. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Durham, Mercedes & Morris, Jonathan. 2016. An overview of sociolinguistics in Wales. In Durham, Mercedes and Morris, Jonathan (eds.) Sociolinguistics in Wales, 3–28. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eckert, Penelope. 2012. Three waves of variation study: The emergence of meaning in the study of sociolinguistic variation. Annual Review of Anthropology 41. 87–100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Evans, Betsy E. 2011. Seattletonian to faux hick: Mapping perceptions of English in WA. American Speech 86 (4). 383–413.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Evans, Betsy E. 2013. Seattle to Spokane: Mapping perceptions of English in WA. Journal of English Linguistics 41. 268–291.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garrett, Peter. 2010. Attitudes to language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garrett, Peter, Coupland, Nikolas & Williams, Angie. 1995. ‘City harsh’ and ‘the welsh version of RP’: Some ways in which teachers view dialects of Welsh English. Language Awareness 4 (2). 99–107.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garrett, Peter, Coupland, Nikolas & Williams, Angie. 2003. Investigating language attitudes: Social meanings of dialect, ethnicity and performance. Cardiff: University of Wales Press.Google Scholar
Giles, Howard. 1970. Evaluative reactions to accents. Educational Review 22. 211–227.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giles, Howard. 1971. Patterns of evaluation to RP, South Welsh and Somerset accented speech. British Journal of Clinical Psychology 10 (3). 280–281.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giles, Howard & Johnson, Patricia. 1987. Ethnolinguistic identity theory: A social psychological approach to language maintenance. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 68. 66–99.Google Scholar
Hannerz, Ulf. 1996. Transnational connections: Culture, people, places. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Hartley, Laura & Preston, Dennis R.. 1999. The names of US English: Valley girl, cowboy, yankee, normal, nasal and ignorant. In Bex, Tony & Watts, Richard (eds.), Standard English: The widening debate, 207–238. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Jones, R. Merfyn. 1992. Beyond identity? The reconstruction of the Welsh. Journal of British Studies 31(4). 330–357.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krippendorf, Klaus. 2004. Content analysis: An introduction to its methodology, 2nd edn. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Labov, William. 1966. The social stratification of English in New York City. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Labov, William. 2006. The social stratification of English in New York City, 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leaver, Kate. 2018. Cwtch: The hug invented by the Welsh. BBC. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20180624-cwtch-the-hug-invented-by-the-welsh (4 March, 2020)Google Scholar
Lippi-Green, Rosina. 1997. English with an accent: Language, ideology, and discrimination in the United States. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Montgomery, Chris. 2007. Northern English dialects: A perceptual approach. Sheffield: University of Sheffield dissertation.Google Scholar
Montgomery, Chris. 2012. The effect of proximity in perceptual dialectology. Journal of Sociolinguistics 16 (5). 638–668. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/josl.12003 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Montgomery, Chris. 2016. The perceptual dialectology of Wales from the border. In Durham, Mercedes & Morris, Jonathan (eds.), Sociolinguistics in Wales, 151–179. London: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Office for National Statistics. 2016. Population and migration population estimates. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/timeseries/wapop/pop (4 March, 2020)Google Scholar
Pettigrew, Thomas F. & Tropp, Linda R.. 2006. A meta-analytic test of intergroup contact theory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 90 (5). 751–783.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Preston, Dennis R. 2004. Folk metalanguage. In Jaworski, Adam, Coupland, Nikolas & Galasinski, Dariusz (eds.), Metalanguage: Social and ideological perspectives, vol. 11, 75–101. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Preston, Dennis & Niedzielski, Nancy. 2003. Folk linguistics. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar
StatsWales. 2016. Population estimates by local authority and year. https://statswales.gov.wales/Catalogue/Population-and-Migration/Population/Estimates/Local-Authority/populationestimates-by-localauthority-year (4 March, 2020)Google Scholar
StatsWales. 2017. Private household population by local authority and year. https://statswales.gov.wales/v/Hgh0 (8 April, 2020)Google Scholar
StatsWales. 2019. Welsh index of multiple deprivation. https://statswales.gov.wales/Catalogue/Community-Safety-and-Social-Inclusion/Welsh-Index-of-Multiple-Deprivation/WIMD-maps-2019 (4 March, 2020)Google Scholar
Tajfel, Henri. 1981. Human groups and social categories: Studies in social psychology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Williams, Angie, Garrett, Peter & Coupland, Nikolas. 1996. Perceptual dialectology, folklinguistics, and regional stereotypes: Teachers’ perceptions of variation in Welsh English. Multilingua 15 (2). 171–199.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, Colin. 1981. On culture space: Perceptual culture regions in Wales. Études Celtiques 18. 273–295.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, Raymond. 2003. Who speaks for Wales? Cardiff: University of Wales Press.Google Scholar