Most of Group 3 met on Thursday (24th November) and agreed, as a group, that we would each post an analysis of our results obtained from our questionnaires.
Below is my analysis of the results obtained from my questionnaire. Six people completed the questionnaire, five of these were from the South of England, whereas one was from the North. An equal number of female and male informants were asked.
Consent was obtained from each informant before their data was used in this analysis.
Findings for Question One:
‘The accent in the television programme ‘Made in Chelsea’ is more approachable than the one in ‘Geordie Shore’’.
Indicate how far you agree or disagree with this statement (1 is ‘strongly disagree’ and 5 is ‘strongly agree’):
• Informant A answered with 2
• Informant B answered with 3
• Informant C answered with 5
• Informant D answered with 3
• Informant E answered with 2
• Informant F answered with 4
These results show that only two people ‘strongly agreed and ‘agreed’ with the statement. The other informants have indicated low responses for this question, which suggests that the majority of informants did not feel that the two accents were markedly different from each other in terms of how ‘approachable’ they sounded.
Findings for Question Two:
The representation of accent in Geordie Shore is attractive.
Indicate how far you agree or disagree with this statement (1 is ‘strongly disagree’ and 5 is ‘strongly agree’):
• Informant A answered with 3
• Informant B answered with 2
• Informant C answered with 1
• Informant D answered with 4
• Informant E answered with 4
• Informant F answered with 3
It appears that in the second question there is again a mixture of results. Two informants ‘agree’ that the accent in Geordie Shore is attractive, showing that some feel that some regional accents can be regarded positively.
The findings for question two are similar to those in question one because both sets of results seem to show that some informants have a neural or more positive response to the regional accent in Geordie Shore than others.
Similar findings have been recorded in studies which use a ‘matched guise’ technique to elicit informants’ reactions to different regional accents. Beal (2006) notes that:
‘The results of such experiments were very consistent: the RP guise was always given the highest score for features such as intelligence, whereas regional accented guises scored higher for features such as friendliness and honesty…’ (Beal 2006:30).
Findings for Question Three:
‘By listening to both the accents, it is clear as to which social class these characters belong’.
To what extent do you agree with this statement? (1 is ‘strongly disagree’ and 5 is ‘strongly agree’)
• Informant A answered with 2
• Informant B answered with 5
• Informant C answered with 5
• Informant D answered with 2
• Informant E answered with 4
• Informant F answered with 4
Four out of the 6 participants agreed that the accents in the clips showed which social class the characters belong to. This implies that, although some informants, may not find one accent to be more positive or negative over another, many of the informants asked felt that there is at least some connection with accents and social class. This is significant because it demonstrates that people do still make value judgements based on how we speak.
Findings for Question Four:
Circle the words in which you think the pronunciation of the vowels is typical of a ‘BBC English' accent (as found in the ‘Made in Chelsea’ accent).
Answers:
Talk 4
Newspaper 4
Captain 1
Watertight 5
Cake 3
Awkward 6
Granted 3
Play 2
Royal 3
Dance 5
The above numbers show how many times each word was indicated by each informant to be typical of a BBC English accent. We found that this was the best way of describing the accent in Made in Chelsea, especially because all of our informants had not studied English Language at degree level.
The data for question four shows that the words: watertight, awkward and dance were chosen most frequently. One reason for this may have been because five out of the six informants asked were from the South of England. Only one person was from the North.
This also demonstrates that people have an almost innate awareness of the idea that Received Pronunciation (or BBC English) is considered to be the most prestigious form by many people.
Findings for Question 5:
Below are extracts from the informants’ responses to:
‘How do the accents in the two programmes contribute to your ideas about social expectations and class within the areas of Newcastle and Chelsea?’:
“They don’t. There is no indication through accent which class these people belong to…”
“I think the accents inevitably have an influence on my beliefs, however the settings and topics under discussion in each programme had a reinforcement of these ideas…”
“The Newcastle accent makes the actors sound very lower class and the language used added to this.”
“I think they reinforce the stereotypes that regional accents belong to the lower classes and people with a ‘BBC English’ accent belong to the upper classes. However, I also think that the swearing and subject matter in ‘Geordie Shore’ also reinforces this – if they were talking about something different they might have given a different impression.”
“Because the accent in Made in Chelsea is more like the BBC English accent, I associate the accent in Chelsea with a higher social class than in Newcastle…”.
“The Accents from the two different areas defiantly confirm the existing preconceptions I had about Chelsea and Newcastle. This may be because of Chelsea’s connections to the above mentioned BBC English… However other aspects of the clips also contribute to my social expectations like the clothing, cursing and the environment of the characters”.
The results for this question are probably the most significant because they show that the majority of the informants asked still have pre-conceived ideas about regional accents and social class.
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