We all have notions of what it means to "speak correctly." On the syntactic level, an example of "speaking correctly" might include avoiding the use of "like" and "you know" as discourse markers. On the morphological level, "speaking correctly" might mean avoiding slang words such as " dude" or "cool." Even on the phonetic level, we have notions of what it means to "speak correctly" in the form of standard vs. non-standard dialects. It is precisely these notions of what is correct vs. incorrect speech that underlies language stereotypes and bias. For example, one reason that African American English is so controversial in the public school system is because some people perceive it as an "incorrect" variation of the English language. Of course, in reality the controversy surrounding AAE is more complicated and ultimately involves issues of race and socio-economic status, but it is at the level of language rather than race or socio-economic status that the mainstream public discourse of this debate primarily exists.

The field of Linguistics also has notions of what is referred to as "standard" dialects. Linguists refer to standard dialect in the United States as "General American" and we refer to standard dialect in England as "Received Pronunciation." Remember in the Unit 2 introduction, I instructed you to open each of the sample speakers’ vowel charts (a male from Texas/Georgia, a female from San Francisco, and a male from Pennsylvania/Arizona) and move them so that they are next to the standard vowel chart on the IPA page of the LSP web site. When you did this, you would have noticed that each of the sample speakers’ vowel charts is different than the standard IPA vowel chart. This is due to the speakers’ dialect variations. The IPA vowel chart is modeled on the notion of a standard dialect. It is an abstract representation of how the vowel system is supposed to stand in contrast. In reality, as we will see when we begin to study dialect of different English speaking regions, real people’s vowel systems are quite varied.

For this unit, you will first read a general introduction to RP and GenAm by Wells, in which Wells briefly discusses each dialect and describes their vowel systems. You will then read an article analyzing the Queen’s vowels over a 40 year period. This article illustrates a shift in the Queen’s vowels over this period of time, a shift which has significant implications for RP.

READINGS:

• Wells, Accents of English 1, pp. 117-127.
  
  
• Front Page and Received Pronunciation section of British English on the LSP website.
  
  
• Harrington, Palethorpe, Watson, "Monophthongal Vowel Changes in Received Pronunciation: An Acoustic Analysis of the Queen's Christmas Broadcast," Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 30.1/2: 63-78.

HANDOUTS:

• Lexical Sets Handout

DISCUSSION:

I mentioned in the introduction to this unit that the Queen’s vowel shift has significant implications for RP? What are these implications? HINT: Think about what the concept of a standard dialect means and whether or not such a concept implies constancy or allows for change. What are broader social implications of accepting a particular dialect as "standard"?