Investigating speech samples as dialect in discourse: discourse analysis, phonetics and language attitudes

Abstract

This paper seeks to explore the use of spontaneous speech samples in indirect language attitude investigations. It examines two such texts used in an attitudi-nal survey carried out in York in March 2002. In this survey, teenagers at three secondary schools in York were asked to respond to samples of dialect-in-discourse from various kinds of British English. The speech samples examined here are from two male speakers educated at fee-paying schools in England, one of modern RP and one of Regional British English. Discourse and phonetic features are analyzed and compared. The quantitative and qualitative results of the attitude survey are then presented and aligned with the characteristics of the samples. The paper ultimately argues for a ‘gestalt’ approach to spontaneous speech samples used for evaluation: seeing the samples as performances with their uniquely detailed opportunities for interpretation, which can, with care, be generalized to community attitudes.

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