Competition - post a photo you've taken of nature >>

English sociolinguistics help

Hello all!!

I have to write a paper in sociolinguistics and have decided to work on accents and songs, or how artists take on a different accent or reinforce their own when singing. There are a couple of articles written on the subject already and I'd like to read them, but for some reason I just can't get my hands on them!! Even with my uni's subscriptions I can't find/access them.

One I'd really like to get is

Joan C Beal: “You’re Not from New York City, You’re from Rotherham”: Dialect and Identity in British Indie Music Journal of English Linguistics September 2009 37: 223-240, first published on July 6, 2009
on http://eng.sagepub.com/content/37/3/223.abstract

And the other is one by Trudgill:

Trudgill Peter. 1983. ‘Acts of Conflicting Identity. The Sociolingistics of British Pop-Song Pronunciation’. Peter Trudgill, On Dialect. Social and Geographical Perspectives. Oxford : Blackwell. 141-160.

Seeing as we're a huge community of students on here, I was wondering whether anyone would be kind enough to see if they can access either of these sources and get a PDF out of it, to send to me? Maybe other unis have the proper subscriptions...anyway, it would really help me out!

Thanks ever so much :^_^:

Reply 1

TurboCretin

Hey, good to see a fellow linguist. Which uni are you at?

I've got hold of the Beal paper you linked, couldn't find the Trudgill one quickly though. If you have a link for that one I'll get you that as well.

If you PM me your email or something I can send you the Beal paper.

Reply 2

LilyCH

Oh that's amazing, thank you so much!!

I'm studying English at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland, and the course includes literature and linguistics. Where are you studying?

I'll PM you my address right away, thanks again!

Reply 3

chandlermbing27

Hi, are you all from UNIL ? Because I'm going there next year but I don't speak much french, but I'm alright I can manage but I really want friends who speak English, I'm quite jovial and I make friends easily but not when i speak french so I was wondering are there a lot of people who speak english in unil? Will i make friends?

Reply 4

thegiantinfinity

Original post by TurboCretin

WOOOOO!!!!! Nice one!!!!!! Get in!!!!!!

Reply 5

py0alb

Original post by LilyCH

A lot of the time, people are alleged to be affecting accents when actually the author simply doesn't understand the mechanics of pronunciation and how it is affected when singing (obviously this doesn't apply to Trudgill).

I was at a lingustics lecture in the US once when the lecturer put forward the idea that because John Lennon's English accent was difficult to detect in the singing of the Beatles, he must be subconciously affecting some American intonation. When pushed for examples, she pointed out that instead of pronouncing the word butter as either "butta or bu'a" as is common in this country, he used the voiced dentive "budda" instead - commonly seen as an americanism. another example was the vowel in "hot", which instead of being pronounced in a characteristic British short way, was drawn out into a "hawt" - again, commonly seen as a more American pronunciation.

At this point I went :facepalm2:

Reply 6

areonite

Original post by LilyCH

Is this legal?

Reply 7

LilyCH

Original post by areonite

Is this legal?

Why shouldn't it be? Can't students help each-other out?

Reply 8

LilyCH

Original post by chandlermbing27

Hi there!! I'm the only one from UNIL as far as I know. I guess quite a few people speak English, so you should be fine! What are you coming to study? And how did you pick out such a random uni haha?

Reply 9

LilyCH

Original post by py0alb

Hah this is funny. I love how Trudgill patiently took the time out to make a model and named it USA 5 like some kind of rocket. The subject is endlessly interesting, glad I picked it out for my paper!

Reply 10

py0alb

Original post by LilyCH

"the “USA 5 model”. Specific phonology aside, these include differences in the t’s in “better,” the a in “dance,” the r in “girl,” i in “life,” and o in “body”. "

Without wishing to contradict such an excellent sociolinguist as Peter Trudgill (but I'm going to anyway), you may wish to consider how difficult it is to sing whilst maintaining voiceless consonants without consciously thinking about it. Its impossible to sing the word "better" unless you make a real conscious effort to spit out the t.

Also: short vowels are no longer short when you have to hold the note over a couple of beats. this explains the a in dance and the o in hot sounding "american" its simply impossible to sing them any other way.

Its also impossible to stretch a dipthong out over a note without it sounding like one of its constituent vowel sounds. This explain the i sound in life.

Basically, its very difficult not to sing in an accent that sounds American to some ears. I think the idea that its a subconscious attempt to identify with a target audience is wholly unjustified.

The rotization I'm not so sure about. I don't think americans rotize when singing in general either, so the same reason - it makes the singing sound nazal.

Reply 11

chandlermbing27

Original post by LilyCH

Hi there!! I'm the only one from UNIL as far as I know. I guess quite a few people speak English, so you should be fine! What are you coming to study? And how did you pick out such a random uni haha?

Haha thanks yeah im in switzerland and i dont know why im going to unil
im gonna do medicine.

Reply 12

molchy

Original post by TurboCretin

Would you also be able to send me the link to this paper? I'm really interested in focusing my a level coursework on accent and dialect within music and this would be really helpful!