How the English accents have changed through history? What are the arguments for and against a non-native speaker pronunciation model? (página 2)

The accent which enjoys the highest overt prestige in
England is known to phoneticians as Received Pronunciation. It is
the most general type of educated British pronunciation. Socially
it is characteristic of the upper and upper middle class, insofar
as members of the latter class, sociologically defined, speak
with an accent not localizable within England. Until the early
1970s, this was the accent demanded in its announcers by the BBC.
By the end of the century everyone growing up in Britain may have
some degree of local accent. Or, instead, some new
non-localizable but more democratic standard may have arisen from
the ashes of RP: if so, it seems likely to base on popular London
English. (Wells, 1982:118).

However, this criterion is not analysed in the same way
by other linguists who do not think it is quite significant in
the present times. The author Graddol (1996:260) considers,
"linguists now would claim not to attach the social and
personal
significance to RP (and RP speakers) that society in general
appears to do. Most linguists treat RP simply as one of a variety
of accents, neither better nor worse than any other accent of
English. Yet RP surfaces silently as the basis of linguists"
phonemic descriptions of English, and this had led to other
accents being described in terms of their distance from an RP
standard."

On the other hand, there is the criterion that, the
Cockney accent has undergone favourable changes than other
accents, differing in some aspects concerning to the RP.
According to Wells (1991), "Cockney clearly has much more
l-vocalization than does RP, and uses it in environments where it
is more noticeable. In particular, Cockney uses it where RP would
have a laterally released alveolar plosive, as little,
middle, and across certain word
boundaries where RP would usually have the 'clear'
allophone."

Ladefoged (2005:93) points out a very good example when
states, within Britain, a cockney English speaker might be
heard as saying light when actually saying late. Many speakers of
different kinds American English might get a pin when asking for
a pen and this happens because there is no world-wide standard
variety. Even within Britain or America there are differences
that will cause problems for speech recognitions
systems.

In general terms, it is difficult to study the English
accents without analysing the ways in which they differ focusing
on their dissimilar sounds or phonemes, the distribution of these
phonemes and how they are pronounced in the present times. In
addition, the classification of accents is also a very useful
issue to be taken into account in order to have a better
understanding of their variation.

Concerning this idea McMahon (2002: 94) argues that,
accents may differ in three ways: systemic, realisational and
distributional. "First, the systems of two accents may contain
different number of phonemes, so different phonemic oppositions
can be established for them: these are systemic differences.
Second, the same phonemes may have different allophones: these
are realisational differences. Finally, there are distributional
differences, whereby the same lexical item may have different
phonemes in two different varieties: or alternatively, the same
phoneme may have a phonological restriction on its distribution
in one variety but another." The same author refers also that,
"The first and most obvious difference between accents is the
systemic type, where a phoneme opposition is presented in one
variety, but absent in another. Consonantal examples in English
are relatively rare."

However, another criterion is analysed by the author
Wells (1982: 76) when he agrees with the fact that accents may
differ taking into account the phonotactic distribution. One
fundamental division in English accent types depends upon a
difference in phonotactic distribution of the consonant
/r/.

Concerning the phonotactic distribution of the consonant
/r/, if we compare the United Sates accents with the accents from
England and from Jamaica, there will be some differences among
them, because each of them corresponds to one of these
classifications: rhotic, non-rhotic and semi-rhotic.

In the rhotic accents which belong to the United Sates,
among other countries /r/ can occur, with an overt phonetic
realization, in a wide variety of phonetic contexts, including
preconsonantal and absolute-final environments, thus
farm [farm], far || [far]. On the other hand in the
non-rhotic accents /r/ is excluded from preconsonantal and
absolute-final environments, thus farm

[fa : m], far || [fa :] and this accents include some
countries such as England and Wales, including RP. (Wells, 1982:
76)

It has already been noted that English accents are
divided between those which are rhotic (a postvocalic [r] is
pronounced) and those which are non-rhotic. In the latter, the
sound which corresponds to postvocalic r is often a vowel,
[?].

There are some examples provided by Hawkins (1992: 250)
that illustrate this point.

However, in the case of Jamaican accents they should be
classified as semi-rhotic having lost preconsonantal /r/ but
retaining it in certain word-final environments, this is the case
of f?rm [fa: m] but far || [fa: r].

So, it is evident that the British and the American
accent have some differences according to the phonotactic
distribution, but it is not the unique issue that makes them
different. Concerning Hawkins (1992: 240), "many of the
differences between British and American accents can be classed
as selectional, such as the American preference for /e/ rather
than /i/ in ecological, amenable; for /e?/ rather than /?/in
tomato; and for /?/ rather than /o?/ in progress. The phonemes
/e/ and /i/, /e?/ and /?/, /?/ and /o?/ are found in the accents
on both sides of the Atlantic, so there is no difference in the
phoneme system: it is just a different choice of phoneme in
certain words."

However, the selectional differences can not be
predicted by the phonetic environment: a statement to the effect
that American accents have /e/ word-initially, while British
accents have /i/ is impossible; otherwise the Americans would
have to pronounce easy as /ezi/. Nor could the rule be limited to
"word-initially before /k/", otherwise in addition to /ek-/ vs
/ik-/ in ecological, economic, etc., we would require eccentric
with /ik-/ in Britain. The e/i alternation across accents is thus
found in only a few words; it can not be explained on the basis
of distribution, and will therefore be classified as selectional.
(Hawkins, 1992: 241).

So, it is evident that there is a variety concerning the
English accents which might affect the understanding and the
communication efficiently between the people with different
phonological backgrounds and this issue frequently happens to non
native speakers who have to face this difficulty. Due to this
aspect, the lecturer in sociolinguistics and phonology Jenkins
(2000: 136) created a pronunciation model that "allows speakers
plenty of scope to adjust their pronunciation in order to
accommodate to their receivers" and this model is called Lingua-
Franca core. One of the main goal of the LFC is to make simpler
the learning task as far as is realistically possible.

The Lingua-Franca core play a very significant role in
terms of learners acquisition of the pronunciation, because of
the fact that learners learn less issues concerning this aspect
in comparison with a native speaker model.

There are some arguments in favour of it for instance,
concerning the LFC"s position regarding substitutions of the
fricatives /?/ and /ð/: Jenkins (2000: 138) argues
that, they are not necessary for intelligible EIL pronunciation,
"obviously, the decision as to whether it is worth making the
effort to acquire the dental fricatives is one which can only be
taken by individual learners according to their personal needs
and wishes. It is thus crucial that teachers be aware of the
factors involved in the L1 and L2 use of these sounds and in the
L2 acquisition of them, so that they can help their learners to
make informed decisions."

There is another RP/GA omission from the LFC related to
a phonetic feature. This is the use of dark (velarised) /l/ or
[?], syllabically (for example, in "little") and before a
consonant sound (for example, in "milk"), or a pause. The
production of dark [?] is problematic for most learners of
English, and many never acquire it. The majority of RP speakers
already pronounce pre-consonantal dark [?] as /?/ in non-careful
speech, but concerning L2 speakers it seems unreasonable to have
"higher" expectations. Jenkins (2000: 139)

Another important argument is the pronunciation of
plosives /t/ or /d/, as in the words "little", "middle",
"settle", and so on, because there is an added complication for
learners because the plosives are now released laterally by means
of lowering the sides of the tongue and this is a particularly
difficult procedure for learners to imitate and as, with /?/ and
/ð/, there is no pay-off for the immense effort
involved in terms of ILT intelligibility. Due to these reasons,
pre-consonantal and syllabic /l/ are not included in the LFC.
Jenkins (2000: 139)

The next issue is the aspiration [h] following the
fortis plosives /p/, /t/, and /k/ when they occur in initial
position in a stressed syllable. As Jenkins (2000: 140) argues
"without the help of this puff of air, a listener will find it
more difficult to identify the sound as voiceless. Thus, an
unaspirated /p/ may be mistaken for /b/, a /t/ for /d/, and a /k/
for /g/. This phonetic distinction is particular important for
NBESs, since they have a narrower band of tolerance than
proficient L1 or L2 speakers, and are therefore more likely o
interpret a phonetic variant categorically or in other words, as
a completely separate phonemes where such an alternative
exists.

The Lingua-Franca core established new favourable
changes in the pronunciation of the consonants. The same happened
with respect to the vowels, mainly with diphthongs. The "LFC has
opted for the rhotic variety of /r/, the diphthong inventory is
already reduced from eight to five, as the three centring
diphthongs /? ?/, /e ?/, and / ? ?/ are automatically excluded,
and the schwa substituted with [?]" (Jenkins 2000:
145)

Concerning the lengthening of stressed (nuclear)
syllables the author Jenkins (2000: 150) considers that it seems
to be crucial to intelligible English pronunciation. With respect
to this point "the majority of two-syllable nouns receive
stress on the
first syllable and two syllable verbs on the second; that certain
suffixes, for example, -ee and –ese are stress-bearing
unless the word modifies another (He"s ChinESE" as compared with
"He"s a CHInese STUDent"); that some suffixes cause the stress to
shift to the syllable preceding them."(Jenkins, 2000: 151). The
same author adds that the nuclear stress production and placement
occupy an important place in the LFC and for EIL, and especially
for NBESs; the greatest phonological obstacles to mutual
intelligibility appear to be deviant core sounds in combinations
with misplaced and/or misproduced nuclear stress. And contrastive
stress is particularly crucial in terms of the
receptive-productive mismatch. (Jenkins 2000: 155).

In my view the Lingua-Franca core is very useful for non
native speakers because its main goal is to give the learners the
useful content avoiding unnecessary difficulties and keeping
sounds as close as possible to orthography.

Despite the fact the Lingua-Franca core has many
positive aspects; it presents some disadvantages, such as the
simplification it provides to the pedagogic task by removing from
the syllabus many time-consuming items which are either
unteachable or irrelevant for EIL. (Jenkins 2000: 160). The
influence of the society might be another disadvantage from my
view, because sometimes the social factors define how a person
must pronounce. It is necessary to consider also learners"
motivation and interest towards the Lingua-Franca core and also
the atmosphere learners have in the class, because it might
contribute in a negative way to an effective acquisition of the
pronunciation.

To conclude it can be said that due to different factors
there is a great diversity concerning English accents. Even
though there are some pronunciation models like the Lingua-Franca
core, learners still face some difficulties in terms of
communication. So, in order they can communicate properly and
understand each other, they must know a general background the
English accents in general. Although if they are able to
communicate and being understood by other people, their English
accent is not a fundamental issue.

Bibliography

Culpeper, J., (2005). History of English.
Second Edition. Language Workbooks. London and New York:
Routledge. Taylor and
Francis Group.

Fennel, B., (2001). A History of
English. A Sociolinguistic Approach. Oxford: Blackwell
Publishers Ltd. Cowley Road.

Graddol, D., Leith, D., Swann, J., (1996).
English history, diversity and change. London: The Open
University.

Hawkins, P., (1992). Introducing
Phonology. Great Britain. Hutchinson. co. (Publishers)
Ltd.

Jenkins, J., (2000). The Phonology of
English as an International Language. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.

Kachru, B., (1986). The Alchemy of English. The
Spread, Functions, and Models of Non-native Englishes. USA
Pergamon Press.

Knowles, G., (1997). A cultural history of the
English Language. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.

Ladefoged, P., (2005). Vowels and
consonants. Second Edition. Blackwell Publishing. Copy
righted material.

Available from:
www.blackwellpublishing.com

[Accessed 9th December 2007]

McMahon, A., (2002). An Introduction to English
Phonology. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Wells, J., (1982). Accents of English
1. An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.

Wells, J., (1991). The Cockneyfication
of RP? Available from:

[Accessed 15th December, 2007]

Autor:

MSc. Yordanka Bunet Valle