Tempo variation in regional speech (based on northern and southern English dialects)
Demina Malvina Aleksandrovna, Shishova Polina Kirillovna
Moscow State Linguistic University; Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation
Submitted: 10.07.2024
Abstract. The article examines the variability of tempo in English unprepared dialect speech. The work aims to identify regionally specific tempo modulations in the monologues of eight speakers from the northern and southern parts of England. The scientific novelty of the study resides in the authors’ assessment of the prosodic manifestation of the historical linguistic divide between the two regions of England, which was previously described solely at the level of segments. This research focuses on the acoustic properties of phonation and pausing in the speech samples and pays particular attention to the variability of syllable and sense-group duration, with a special regard to the sociolinguistic and gender factors. The results of the auditory and acoustic analyses applied in the work made it possible to identify tempo attributes, specific to the communicative behavior of the northern and southern residents of England and reflecting their cultural identity at the prosodic level. The main tempo modulations that distinguish the participants’ speech patterns include the degree of rhythmicity and the length of phonation periods in speaking, as well as the frequency of pauses.
Key words and phrases: североанглийские диалекты, культурная идентичность, просодическая вариативность, темп речи, паузация, Northern English dialects, cultural identity, prosodic variation, tempo of speech, pausing
Open the whole article in PDF format. Free PDF-files viewer can be downloaded .
References:
Demina M. A. Proiznoshenie i identichnost': vokalicheskie i konsonantnye tendentsii v severnykh dialektakh Anglii // Filologicheskie nauki. Voprosy teorii i praktiki. 2023. T. 16. Vyp. 6. https://doi.org/10.30853/phil20230270
Ager D. E. Ideology and Image: Britain and Language. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters Ltd., 2003.
Cheshire J., Edwards V., Whittle P. Non-Standard English and Dialect Levelling. L.: Routledge, 1993.
Chubarova M., Shevchenko T. Celtic English Continuum in Pitch Patterns of Spontaneous Talk: Evidence of Long-Term Contacts // Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Cham: Springer, 2022. Vol. 13721. Speech and Computer. SPECOM 2022 / ed. by S. R. M. Prasanna, A. Karpov, K. Samudravijaya, S. S. Agrawal. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20980-2_12
Cruttenden A. Gimson’s Pronunciation of English. L.: Hodder Education, 2014.
Demina M. A. A Phonetic Marker of the Modern North-South Linguistic Divide in England // Russian Linguistic Bulletin. 2017. Vol. 4. https://dx.doi.org/10.18454/RULB.12.26
Demina M. A., Shishova P. K. Ascending Tones as Signifiers of Cultural Identity in Northern England // SHS Web of Conferences.International Linguistic Science and Practice Conference “Methods of Teaching Foreign Languages 2.0: Real vs. Virtual” (Moscow, June 17, 2021). Les Ulis, 2021. Vol. 127. https://doi.org/10.1051/shsconf/202112702019
Fenk-Oczlon G., Fenk A. Measuring Basic Tempo across Languages and Some Implications for Speech Rhythm // INTERSPEECH 2010, 11th Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association. 2010. https://doi.org/10.21437/Interspeech.2010-448
Giles H., Henwood K., Coupland N., Harriman J., Coupland J. Language Attitudes and Cognitive Mediation // Human Communication Research. 1992. Vol. 18. Iss. 4.
Halfacre C., Khattab G. North-South Dividers in Privately Educated Speakers: A Sociolinguistic Study of Received Pronunciation Using the FOOT-STRUT and TRAP-BATH Distinctions in the North East and South East of England // Proceedings of the 19th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences / ed. by S. Calhoun, P. Escudero, M. Tabain, and P. Warren. Melbourne, 2019.
Hopkins T., McKenny J. World Englishes. L.: Bloomsburry Academic, 2017. Vol. I. The British Isles. https://doi.org/10.1093/ijl/ecw042
Juskan M. Production and Perception of Local Variants in Liverpool English: Change, Salience, Exemplar Priming. Berlin: Language Science Press, 2018.
Language, Borders and Identity / ed. by D. Watt, C. Llamas. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2014.
Plug L., Lennon R., Smith R. H. Measured and Perceived Speech Tempo: Comparing Canonical and Surface Articulation Rates // Journal of Phonetics. 2022. Vol. 95. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wocn.2022.101193
Plug L., Smith R. H. Segments, Syllables and Speech Tempo Perception // Speech Prosody. 2018. https://dx.doi.org/10.21437/SpeechProsody.2018-57
Strycharczuk P., Brown G., Leemann A., Britain D. Investigating the FOOT-STRUT Distinction in Northern Englishes Using Crowdsourced Data // Proceedings of the 19th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences / ed. by S. Calhoun, P. Escudero, M. Tabain, and P. Warren. Melbourne, 2019.
Strycharczuk P., López-Ibáñez M., Brown G., Leemann A. General Northern English. Exploring Regional Variation in the North of England with Machine Learning // Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence. 2020. Vol. 3. https://doi.org/10.3389/frai.2020.00048
Šturm P., Volin J. Occurrence and Duration of Pauses in Relation to Speech Tempo and Structural Organization in Two Speech Genres // Languages. 2023. No. 8. https://doi.org/10.3390/languages8010023
Torgersen E., Kerswill P., Fox S. Ethnicity as a Source of Changes in the London Vowel System // Language Variation – European Perspectives: Selected Papers from the Third International Conference on Language Variation in Europe (ICLaVE3) (Amsterdam, June 2005) / ed. by F. Hinskens. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2006.
Trudgill P. The Dialects of England. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 1999.
Turton D., Baranowski M. Not Quite the Same: The Social Stratification and Phonetic Conditioning of the FOOT-STRUT Vowel in Manchester // Journal of Linguistics. 2020. Vol. 57. Iss. 1. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022226720000122
Wales K. Northern English: A Social and Cultural History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
Watt D., Milroy L. Patterns of Variation and Change in Three Newcastle Vowels: Is This Dialect Levelling? // Urban Voices / ed. by P. Foulkes, G. J. Docherty. L.: Routledge, 1999.
Wells J. C. Accents of English: in 3 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Vol. 2. The British Isles.
Русский
