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Unit 17: Connected English Speech: Accent

transcription. But if English speakers hear maw tf+n they can usually recognise this as ‘my turn’ and Notes
not ‘might earn’. This is where the problem of juncture becomes apparent. What is it that makes
perceptible the difference between maw tf+n and maw tf+n? The answer is that in one case the t is fully
aspirated (initial in ‘turn’), and in the other case it is not (being final in ‘might’). In addition to this,
the aw diphthong is shorter in ‘might’. If a difference in meaning is caused by the difference between
aspirated and unaspirated t, how can we avoid the conclusion that English has a phonemic contrast
between aspirated and unaspirated t? The answer is that the position of a word boundary has some
effect on the realisation of the t phoneme; this is one of the many cases in which the occurrence of
different allophones can only be properly explained by making reference to units of grammar
(something which was for a long time disapproved of by many phonologists).
Many ingenious minimal pairs have been invented to show the significance of juncture, a few of
which are given below:
• ‘might rain’ mawt rewn (r voiced when initial in ‘rain, aw shortened), vs.
‘my train’ maw trewn (r voiceless following t in ‘train’, aw longer)
• ‘all that I’m after today’ ]+l xct awm Y+ftc tcdew (t relatively unaspirated when final in ‘that’)
‘all the time after today’ ]+l xc tawm Y+ftc tcdew (t aspirated when initial in time’)
• ‘tray lending’ trew lendw (“clear l” initial in ‘lending’)
‘trail ending’ trewl endw (“dark l” final in ‘trail’)
• ‘keep sticking’ ki+p stwkw (t unaspirated after s)
‘keeps ticking’ ki+ps twkw (t aspirated in ‘ticking’)
The context in which the words occur almost always makes it clear where the boundary comes, and
the juncture information is then redundant.
It should by now be clear that there is a great deal of difference between the way words are pronounced
in isolation and their pronunciation in the context of connected speech.
17.6 The Importance of Accent

Every speaker of English has a particular system of his or her own, known by linguists as that
individual’s idiolect. However, considering language only at the idiolectal level might produce
extremely thorough and detailed descriptions, but would give rather little insight into why individuals
speak in the way they do. To understand this, we must identify higher-level groupings, and investigate
geographical and social accents. That is to say, individuals adopt a particular mode of speech (or
more accurately, move along a continuum of modes of speech) depending on who they want to
identify with, who they are talking to, and what impression they want to make. Not all these ‘decisions’
are conscious, of course. Small children learn to speak as their immediate family members do; but
quite soon, the peer group at school (even nursery) becomes at least equally important; and later,
older children, then television presenters, actors or sporting heroes may become role models, leading
to modifications in accent. Consequently, age-related differences appear in all varieties; some will be
transient, as a particular TV show falls out of fashion and the words or pronunciations borrowed
from it disappear; others will become entrenched in young people’s language, and may persist into
adulthood, becoming entirely standard forms for the next generation.
This flexibility, and the associated facts of variation and gradual change, mean that phonologists face
a Catch-22 situation. On the one hand, describing idiolects will give seriously limited information,
since it will not reveal the groups an individual belongs to, or the dynamics of those groups. On the
other hand, we must take care that the groups are not described at too abstract a level. Any description
of ‘an accent’ is necessarily an idealisation, since no two speakers will use precisely the same system
in precisely the same way: our physical idiosyncracies, different backgrounds, and different preferences
and aspirations will see to that. Nonetheless, two speakers of, say, Scottish Standard English, or New
Zealand English, will have a common core of features, which allows them to be grouped together by
speakers of the same accent, by speakers of other accents, and by phonologists. Not everyone is
equally adept at making these identifications, of course. Speakers of other varieties may succeed in

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