X Международная студенческая научная конференция Студенческий научный форум - 2018

Geordie is one of Northern English dialects spoken by the inhabitants of the larger Tyneside region. The term is associated with Tyneside, south Northumberland and northern parts of County Durham.

In many respects, Geordie speech represents a direct continuation and development of the language spoken by the Anglo-Saxon settlers of this region. Initially they were mercenaries employed by the ancient Brythons to fight the Pictish invaders after the end of Roman rule in this area in the 5th century. The Angles came from the area around the border between Denmark and Germany. The Anglo-Saxon kingdoms that emerged during the Dark Ages spoke largely mutually intelligible varieties of what is now called Old English, each varying somewhat in phonology, morphology, syntax and lexicon. Thus in Northern England and the Scottish borders area, then dominated by the kingdom of Northumbria, there developed a distinct "Northumbrian" Old English dialect. Later Irish migrants (who influenced Geordie phonology from the early 19th century onwards) and Scottish admixture influenced the dialect. In more recent years (20th century to present), the North East area has received migrants from the rest of the world as well.

There is no common opinion about the etymology of the term. According to the first theory, “Geordie” is a derivation from a familiar diminutive form of the name George which was considered to be "a very common name among the pitmen”. According to the second theory, the word dates from the early 18th century, when Newcastle people declared support for the English kings George I and II, in opposition to the rest of the population of Northumberland, who supported the Scottish Jacobite rebellions.

Geordie shares some features with other Northern English accents. Some phonological characteristics of vowels are listed below:

The lack of the foot-strut split: /ʊ/ instead of /ʌ/ e.g. cup, love, money, above.

The BATH vowel is short /a/ in Geordie e.g. bath, grass, laugh, after

This is due to the trap-bath split which occurred in southern English accents, therefore Northern English accents still retain short /a/ sound.

/a:/ instead of /ɔː/ in such words as all, talk, walk, war

/ɜː/ in words like work becomes /ɔ:/

/ɛ/ often becomes /i/, especially in words spelled with ea like head. Thus head sounds like heed.

The schwa /ə/ is often rather open [ɐ] e.g. water, picture, shopper

The HAPPY vowel is tense [i] and is best analysed as belonging to the /iː/ phoneme

/u:/ instead of /aʊ/ in words like down, town

vowel [oː~ɔː] or [oə] instead of /əʊ/ in words like don't, goat, know, told

/eɪ/ can be realized as [eː~ɛː] or [eə~ɪə]

Features of consonants specific to Geordie are as follows:

Geordie is a non-rhotic accent. This means speakers pronounce /r/ only in intervocalic positions.

The rhotic sound (/r/) in Geordie is pronounced as [ɹ].

/ɪŋ/ appearing in an unstressed final syllable of a word (such as in reading) is pronounced as [ən] (thus, reading is [ˈɹiːdən]).

Yod-coalescence in both stressed and unstressed syllables (so that dew becomes [dʒuː]).

Geordie is characterised by a unique type of glottal stops. /p, k, t/ can all be glottalised in Geordie, both at the end of a syllable and sometimes before a weak vowel.

T glottalization, in which /t/ is realised by [ʔ] before a syllabic nasal (e.g., button as [ˈbʊʔn]), in absolute final position (get as [ɡɛʔ]), and whenever the /t/ is intervocalic so long as the latter vowel is not stressed (pity as [ˈpɪʔi]).

Intonation patterns in Geordie are quite distinctive, with a rising intonation at the end of declarative sentences (statements) – up-speak.

In order to conduct the current research, the modified questionnaire presented in Barona’s research was used. It comprised of 3 sections. Section 1 included personal information about participants: name, age, place of birth, occupation, English level. Section 2 consisted of questions as to perception of Geordie accent. Section 3 included questions aiming at identifying stereotypes of students’ perception of the personality of the speaker. 15 students of the Faculty of foreign languages took part in the research. The participants listened to the recording which running time was approximately 45 seconds.

The ratings given for each of the 15 descriptors by each of the 15 evaluators were examined and filled out a rating sheet using Likert scale.

The scores for each descriptor for each reader (Section 1) were added, the arithmetic mean was calculated and then converted into percentage.

The results are as follows (Section 2):

53,3 % of the participants consider Geordie to be intelligible.

56 % of the participants consider Geordie to be pleasant to listen to.

48 % of the participants consider Geordie to be accurate.

44 % of the participants consider Geordie to be appropriate for formal situations.

26 % of the participants were able to recognize the accent.

60 % of the participants would like to communicate with the person speaking this accent, with 40 % of the participants giving a negative answer to the question due to unintelligibility.

The descriptors of the 3 section of the questionnaire were grouped into 2 categories – Competence and Social Attractiveness. Competence was based on 5 descriptors: intelligence, ambition, self-confidence, stability and wealth. The scores for each descriptor for each reader were added and the result was divided by 5 and then converted into percentage.

64.5 % of the participants considered the personality of the speaker as competent.

The third category “Social Attractiveness” was based on 6 descriptors: friendliness, entertainingness, honesty, reliability, cleanliness and good looks.

67 % of the participants considered the personality of the speaker as socially attractive.

The results obtained that non-native speakers gave average ratings to Geordie accent in terms of its characteristics (intelligibility, melodious quality, accuracy, appropriateness for formal situations)

Non-native speakers have positive attitude towards Geordie accent

The results obtained that non-native speakers gave average ratings to Geordie accent in terms of its characteristics (intelligibility, melodious quality, accuracy, appropriateness for formal situations)

Non-native speaker have positive attitude towards Geordie accent.

Accent plays a significant role in influencing the listener’s judgment about the speaker’s personality.

Sources

Barona D.V. Native and Non-Native Speaker’s Perceptions of Non-Native Accents : LL Journal, Vol. 3, núm. 2, 2008

Watt, Dominic; Allen, William (2003), "Tyneside English", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 33 (2): 267–271, doi:10.1017/S0025100303001397

http://www.hawaii.edu/satocenter/langnet/definitions/geordie.html#sounds-hce

http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/sounds/case-studies/geordie/

http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/research/gsound/Eng/Database/Phonetics/Englishes/Home/HomeMainFrameHolder.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmxksDIL1cw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sumStCchdn8&t=6s

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