'Dialect' and 'Accent' in Industrial West Yorkshire

Download or read book 'Dialect' and 'Accent' in Industrial West Yorkshire written by K.M. Petyt and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 1985-01-01 with total page 411 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume is concerned with one of the few thorough-going Labovian studies carried out in Britain. Based on a survey of over hundred randomly selected informants from the towns of Bradford, Halifax and Huddersfield, it deals first with the methodology employed, and then sketches some aspects of the ‘traditional’ dialects of the area before describing a large number of variables. Other non-standard features encountered during the survey are described, since these too are part of the changing patterns of speech in West Yorkshire. The final chapter draws a distinction between ‘dialect’ and ‘accent’ which is slightly different from that generally employed, and suggests that while ‘dialect’ features seem to have declined under the pressure of the standard language, ‘accent’ still persists as a social differentiator.