Lightning talk: Poster: English Accents in Derry Girls

Examining Derry English and Estuary English

This poster is about the findings of a term paper for which I examined accents in the TV series Derry Girls: The character Michelle’s Derry English and the character James’ Estuary English. I started the paper with a theory part by determining the prominent features of each accent. Then, I examined whether Michelle and James actually speak in the accents I had speculatively assigned to them. For Michelle, I found the monophthongisation of diphthongs, the simplification of the consonant cluster -ing, the rising intonation in statements and the rhoticity of her accent very striking. I did not observe these features in James’ speech but I was able to place his accent in the south of England, with features like the/ʌ/ phoneme and long /ɑː/ in specific words. It is also not a conservative form of RP, exemplified by his display of Yod-Coalescence and L-Vocalisation. Both accents display T-Glottaling, however, Michelle does so in word-medial positions whilst James only glottalises in word-final positions. The last part of the term paper was about a survey I had conducted about the two accents, with questions regarding the understandability and (perceived) authenticity of each accent and whether people liked them or not. People found it easier to understand James and harder to understand Michelle. Both accents were rated as equally authentic and likeable, which shows that understandability does not seem to have an impact here.

Info

Tag: 04.11.2022
Anfangszeit: 14:45
Dauer: 00:15
Raum: Wiwi-Bunker —Room 3016
Track: Phonetics and Phonology
Sprache: en

Programm 72. StuTS