Accent and Dialect

Accent and Dialect - Year 8
It's the way that you say it

This unit explores the different varieties of spoken English and people's attitudes towards regional accents and dialects.

Task One: Making Judgements

Read the following statements. Explain whether you agree or disagree with them. Explain your reasons in a paragraph after each statement.

Some accents are pleasant to listen to. Others sound horrible.

Agree or disagree?

You can tell some people are clever by the way they talk.

Agree or disagree?

People with posh accents are rich and snobbish.

Agree or disagree?

Some accents are funny.

Agree of disagree?

People with country accents are slow to understand.

Agree or disagree?

Some accents make people sound thick.

Agree or disagree?

Older people care more about the way you speak than young people do.

Agree or disagree?

You can tell some people are street-wise by the way they talk.

Agree or disagree?

Some accents are better than others.

Agree or disagree?

Task Two: Skills

Read this passage carefully. In your own words, write a definition of: ACCENT, DIALECT and STANDARD ENGLISH:

Spoken English

When talking about Spoken English there are three terms you need to understand:

Accent

This is the term used to describe the way people pronounce words. Most British people English speakers have a regional accent. The place they live influences the sound of their words.

Dialect

This is the term used to describe the differences in vocabulary (the words) and grammar (the way words are put together into sentences) between different versions of a language.

Dialects belong to particular places and are usually spoken with the accent of the same area. For example, Scouse dialect will be spoken with a Liverpool accent, Geordie dialect with a Newcastle accent.

Dialects also belong to particular cultures and communities. For example, in some families the older members of the family have come to Britain from another country, where English is the first language spoken. It is quite likely that they will speak a very different form of English from the younger members of the family , who will have spent all their lives in Britain and spoken English from their earliest childhood.

Standard English

This is the dialect of English used for most written English. It is a form of English speech that is taught all over the world. Very often, people switch between a local dialect and standard English when they need to. Standard English may be spoken with any accent.

Task Three: Others ways of talking

We all make choices about the way we speak. For example we talk to friends rather differently from the way we talk to our family or teachers. Sometimes the differences are quite subtle, sometimes very noticeable. Developing skills at switching from one variety of English to another - or from one language to another - to suit the situation is all part of being a good talker.

Fill in the following chart, explaining how you would change your speech according to the purpose and audience of your words:

Purpose and audience	How I'd change my dialect	How I'd change my accent
Showing a visitor around school
Reading the news on TV
Entertaining your friends with gossip
Talking to a member of the Royal family.
Being a DJ on a radio station
Appearing on Blind Date as a contestant

Task Four: Write a short script of one of the above conversations

Set it out like a drama script, use stage directions and punctuation to create atmosphere and excitement.

E.g.:

John

(excitedly)

Mary

John

Task Five: How do you speak?

If you had lived in Great Britain about a hundred years ago, you would probably have spoken the dialect of the area you lived in, and you would have spoken it with a regional accent. But times change. Nowadays we travel more. We move from one country to another. We spend more time in school. We hear other ways of speaking on the television, the radio and in films.

All of these experiences influence the way in which we speak.

Write "My Language Autobiography" explaining the influences on the way that you speak.

Use the following questions to focus your paragraphs:

How has your family influenced your speech?

How have the places where you have lived influenced your speech?

Has your English ben influenced by contact with other dialects or languages?

Have your friends influenced your speech?

Has television or film affected your speech?

Have you ever tried to change the way that you speak?

How would you describe the type of English that you speak?

Do you like the way that you speak now?

Are there any reasons you may want to change the way that you speak in the future.?

Task Six: Dialect in Stories

Most of the books published in English are written in Standard English. Authors sometimes, however, choose to write in dialect, either to show how their characters speak or to achieve a particular effect.

Read the following extract from a story and answer the questions.

A Murder in Cornwall

Dinah Tredinnick has been murdered, and her maid has disappeared. At around the same time a mysterious young girl, Kerris, who has lost her memory, arrives at Clem Trenchard's farm. Clem goes to Penzance to try to find out if there is a link between the two events.

Clem began his investigations by paying a visit to a popular local inn and listening in on the gossip there. It wasn't long before the horrific murders were mentioned and a rather hushed discussion was started.

A grim-faced sailor asked him, "Know what we're talking about, do 'ee?"

"Aye", Clem said, as if he was only half-interested, as all faces turned to him. "I come from further round the bay, two miles from Marazion. There's been some awful murders round there too over the past twenty-odd years. You must have heard about them."

"Aye, we have", the serving girl interjected. "From what some folk do say, 'tes not only round the bay but up-along too."

Clem gave an involuntary shudder. It made the business he was here on uncomfortably close to home. "Makes you nervous for your kin, though 'tis only the immoral and low life being killed."

"Not the last one!" exclaimed the landlord, slamming down the tankards of frothing ale on the bar. He glared at Clem with hostility. There was bad feeling between Penzance and Marazion folk, ever since the former had ousted the latter as the principal market of the region. "She were a good decent little maid. Well brought up, she was. Her father's a silversmith. They got a nice little house up Caunsehead."

Clem ignored the frostiness of the landlord. "There's many theories going around to who the killer is. Some say he could be a sailor, begging your pardon," he added to the first man who had spoken to him. "They happen sporadically so it could be when a ship moors up here or at the Mount."

"Aye, Penzanns is a seafront town, 'tes what most folk think 'ere too," someone else said.

"Didn't one of the victims have a maidservant go missing? One who was never found?" Clem queried, glancing round at the men and the well-built serving girl who gave him a come-on eye.

"Why do 'ee ask?" the landlord spat, and Clem was suddenly surrounded by suspicious faces.

"No reason, forget I asked." He scowled at them "Just being conversational." He drank up and left. He couldn't tell any one he suspected the missing maid was living on the farm. If he spoke to the killer or someone who knew the killer, he would put Kerris' life, and possibly his family's, in terrible danger.

He wandered about Penzance, listening to talk among traders and customers around the market house at the top of market jew Street and round the corner at Greenmarket.

Back in Chapel Street he made his way just a little further along, crossed the street and stopped by St Mary's chapel, where a legless beggar hailed him. "Got a penny for an old soldier, sir?"

Clem tossed the beggar, who may have been an old soldier but was not an old man, and unusually clean-looking for one of his trade, a shilling and crouched down to talk to him. "Have you done well today?"

"Not too bad, thank 'ee sir. A fine lookin' gentleman just gived me a two-shillin' piece. My son and I will eat bread and meat tonight."

"Where's your son now?"

"Oh, he's off lookin' fer any labourin' job he can do. He'll be back to pick me up on our cart, which is our home, hopin' I haven't fell foul of one of the constables and been locked up fer vagrancy." The beggar pointed to the space where his legs should have been and grinned widely. "I don't get too much trouble from 'em, 'tisn't as if they can put me in the stocks!"

"What's your name?" Clem asked.

"Jacob Penberthy and me son's called Ben. Got work fer him by any chance, have 'ee sir? Ben's got a strong broad back and I can turn me hands to anything, nothing wrong with them." Jacob Penberthy held up two large calloused hands as proof of his statement.

"My name's Clem Trenchard and I'm the tenant farmer of the Trecath-en Farm on the Pengarron estate, which is round the bay, past Marazion. I'm sure I can find something for you both for a few days and you're welcome to sleep in my barn. Tell me, Jacob, do you use this spot often? Tell me Jacob, do you use this spot often?"

Gloria Cook ( from a Murder In Cornwall )

Task Seven: Answer the following questions by looking closely at the text

In what way do you think Clem is different from the people he speaks to in Penzance? How does the writer give this impression?
Pick out five words which are spelt in a way that suggest a Cornish accent. Write the Standard English spelling next to each one. What differences do you notice?
Make a list of as many dialect words and phrases as you can find. Write Standard English translations for as many as you can.
List all of the people in the story who talk in Cornish dialect.