CLIVE UPTON
British English pronunciations range along a cline from the most regionally marked to that accent generally known as Received Pronunciation (RP), that is at least within England where it is essentially region-neutral. The multiplicity of accents in the British Isles stems in part from social structures, resulting in placement on the cline depending on speakers’ needs and on the pressures exerted upon them to conform to some group norm. In larger measure, however, the variety of accents is born of the sheer length of time, some sixteen centuries, over which the language has developed in the islands. This “time depth” has led to greater fragmentation of speech-forms than that which has yet occurred in other places to which English has subsequently migrated: different influences have been exerted on the language and local allegiances have built up, to the extent that variety has become inevitable and is greatly cherished as a signal of regional and social identity.
This is not to say that RP is little regarded. Many British people both admire the accent and are pleased to see it having international status. However, comparatively few people speak RP, even that variety of it that is quite unmarked for privilege (see below on variation within the RP accent). Estimates vary on RP use in England. Wells (1982: 118) puts the figure at 10% “[e]ven with the more generous definitions [of what constitutes the accent]”, while Romaine (2000: 20): put the figure at 5% at most. Such figures are purely guesstimates in fact, since no objective research into the matter has been carried out, and if all varieties of RP are counted together even Wells’ figure might be rather low. Nevertheless, most people are readily identifiable to a place or region, which they would not be were they only RP speakers, and many people who have access to RP as one style of pronunciation do have access to more regionally-identifiable pronunciations too, which they use at need naturally and unconsciously to accommodate to more localized speaker situations. So the picture is complicated as regards the kinds of pronunciations that are to be heard in the British Isles. On the one hand there is a quite regionless, and now fairly classless, accent, RP. There is a multiplicity of regionally and still more locally espoused pronunciations, which are used by the majority of people all or most of the time. Most speakers roam, with greater or lesser ease, between accents at or approaching RP and accents that are very readily identifiable non-RP, which are sometimes regional to a very marked degree.
There is a long tradition of describing and analysing RP, beginning with Daniel Jones in the very early twentieth century (Jones 1909, 1917) and moving into the present day with a variety of materials, including many directed at the English-teaching and -learning community. RP models are also set out in pronouncing dictionaries of different styles and with varying perspectives on how the model is to be described (see, for example, Jones 2011; Olausson and Sangster 2006; Upton, Kretzschmar, and Konopka 2001; Wells 2008). Likewise, there exists a wealth of authoritative descriptions and analyses of regional and social British accent variations. Many of these are monographs dealing with the pronunciations to be found in particular regions of Britain. Stuart-Smith (2003) is an excellent example. Others are in the form of overviews of accent variety more generally. They might be written for the scholarly community. Wells (1982) is a model here. Alternatively they might be aimed at instructing the early student. Hughes, Trudgill, and Watt (2005) and Trudgill (1999) are good examples. Longer, more analytical and discursive treatment based on large research data are also available, some of this being available online. A most notable collection is to be found on the Accents and Dialects site of the British Library (http://sounds.bl.uk/Accents-and-dialects). At the historical level we might remark the many publications resulting from the Survey of English Dialects (Orton et al. 1962–1971), which are used to inform most commentaries, and the Linguistic Survey of Scotland (Mather and Speitel 1975–1986). These English and Scottish surveys have continuing relevance in the British sections of Schneider et al. (2004), where their findings emerge alongside more recent research to inform our understanding of regional pronunciation distributions. This work, being a compendium of very recent research by leading scholars of regional accents in the British Isles, is recommended as an ultimate authority. Its scholarship, also available in Kortmann and Upton (2008), furnishes in amplified form that which is digested here.1
Received Pronunciation (RP) might seem a straightforward concept. It is to be found, usually without critical explanation, question, or qualification, as the exemplum in countless ELT books. It has most significantly been used for establishing the “standard lexical sets” system found in Wells (1982), the sets being “based on the vowel correspondences which apply between British Received Pronunciation and (a variety of) General American” (Wells 1982: xviii). This system has become something of an “industry standard” for the discussion of English vowels, and it is used in this chapter. It would be comforting to think of RP, then, as a fixed point of reference for description and teaching. However, nothing relating to the accent is entirely straightforward. At an elementary level of description, we must first recognize that RP only relates to an accent of England: it is English, not British. This is important, as the other components of the British Isles, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland (described in more detail below), have, alongside their regional variations of pronunciation, variants that can to some considerable extent be considered as “standards”, and which are widely regarded as such within the British Isles. It will be apparent to listeners to national radio and television that today even newsreaders, who might once have been expected formally to address their audiences in RP, are possessed of accents far removed from this, and that Welsh and Scottish accents especially are often to the fore. Of course, those accents will have been selected to be readily comprehensible to a wide international audience, but they will differ from RP to a marked degree in the regional elements that they contain. No one hearing an authoritative voice from Britain, therefore, should assume that they are hearing an RP accent. More significantly still, no one hearing an English voice should assume this either. There is today greater acceptance of the regional accents of England in broadcasting and the professions than there was formerly, rendering the identification of RP uncertain and, it must be said, of rather questionable importance, for native British English speakers themselves.
Even if one targets RP as a desirable acquisition, it will be apparent to the linguistically aware that the notion of it being one immutable accent must be a fiction. This iconic variety is a moving target on which its describers and teachers have constantly to adjust their aim. But in spite of there being a variety of labels referring to the same and different subvarieties (Upton 2004: 219–220), not to mention re-description reaching to the Oxford English Dictionary itself (Upton 2012: 62–65), experience shows that many people, including some language professionals, have a fixed notion of how the RP model is to be transcribed, and that it is firmly rooted in the past. A complication is the fact that, faced with linguistic change, people will accommodate to it at different speeds and to different degrees. Communities will therefore have a range of speakers possessed of accents ranging from the progressive to the reactionary, with a ready sprinkling of those whose idiolects show signs of misunderstanding of or indifference to what actually qualifies as any kind of RP. The result is that transcriptions of what is claimed to be RP, if faithfully reproduced according to phonetic principles, can lead to pronunciations that will sound old-fashioned, quaint, or even affected to many native British English speakers. By the same token, attempts to revise formal descriptions of RP will be met with incomprehension by some and, pronunciation being a contentious subject, with hostility or even outrage by more than a few, who either misunderstand what is being attempted or are simply resistant to the notion that an iconic model will change. (It is ironic that those who are resistant to the notion that RP can change are themselves the inheritors of a description model that is in some important respects markedly different from Jones’ “Public School Pronunciation” (PSP) and the RP that it quickly became. (See Upton 2012: 58-60 for details of early variants later superseded.)
Happily, the variables that are contentious in a (re)description of RP today, though individually significant, are few in number. Most of the variants of the model accent that, following Ramsaran’s (1990) labelling “traditional RP”, I have elsewhere (Upton 2004) termed “trad-RP”, continue into the present. There is therefore considerable coincidence between the transcriptions of Wells (2008) and Jones (2011), on the one hand, and those of Upton (2004[and the ongoing Oxford Dictionaries]) and Olausson and Sangster (2006), on the other, which seek some modest re-design.
Table 14.1 charts vowel transcriptions that are most generally encountered in available descriptions of RP today. The vowel column makes use of the keywords of the Wells (1982) system of lexical sets. The RP column conveys the vowel transcriptions available in the Br[itish] element of Upton, Kretzschmar, and Konopka (2001) and in Olausson and Sangster (2006), and (alongside North American equivalents) in the online OED third edition. The trad-RP column shows those points at which more traditionally conservative systems of RP vowel transcription differ from those of RP proposed here, and the notes briefly explain those differences. The discussion that follows concentrates only on areas of difference. Areas that show no difference are not commented upon.
Table 14.1 Modern unmarked vowel transcription for Received Pronunciation, with present-day transcriptions of traditional alternatives. Adapted from Upton (2004).
Keyword | RP or | trad-RP | Note |
KIT | ɪ | ||
DRESS | ɛ | e | trad-RP symbol kept conventionally |
TRAP | a | æ | trad-RP symbol kept conventionally |
LOT | ɒ | ||
STRUT | ʌ | ||
FOOT | ʊ | ||
BATH | ɑː~a | ɑː | Short vowel in northern RP |
CLOTH | ɒ | ɒ~ ɔː | Long vowel only in the most rarified trad |
RP | |||
NURSE | əː | ɜː | Symbol difference only |
FLEECE | iː | ||
FACE | eɪ | ||
PALM | ɑː | ||
THOUGHT | ɔː | ||
GOAT | əʊ | əʊ~oʊ | trad-RP [oʊ] variant might be resurgent |
GOOSE | uː | ||
PRICE | ʌɪ | aɪ | Difference largely symbolic |
CHOICE | ɔɪ | ||
MOUTH | aʊ | ||
NEAR | ɪə | ||
SQUARE | ɛː | ɛə~eə | Some off-gliding, rarely full diphthong |
START | ɑː | ||
NORTH | ɔː | ||
FORCE | ɔː | ||
CURE | ʊə~ɔː | ʊə | RP monophthong increasing |
happY | i | ɪ | [ɪ] very conservative only |
lettER | ə | ||
commA | ə |
As above for vowels, concentration here is on those issues of RP consonantal articulation that diverge from widely held notions.
In relaxed, informal speech yod coalescence is to be expected. Hence /sj/ can go to /ʃ/ in assume, /zj/ to /ʒ/ in resume, /tj/ to /tʃ/ in Tuesday, and/dj/ to /dʒ/ in due. As the second pair of examples here makes clear, coalescence might be expected word-initially as elsewhere in some words. Yod deletion has long been usual in words such /sj-/ words as suit (/suːt/) and, although not yet frequently heard, it is beginning to pass without remark in such a word as news [nuːz]).
Although RP is nonrhotic, both “linking r” (here and there /hɪər n ðɛː/) and also “intrusive r” (drawing [ˈdrɔːrɪŋ]) are normal, although their avoidance is a notable feature of trad-RP. As will be apparent from the here and there example, syllabic consonants are often to be encountered in RP, including for the conjunction and. Jones (1969: para. 213) sees syllabification as particularly a function of the “more sonorous consonants such as n, l”.
Whilst glottalization is not an especially marked feature of RP, /t/-glottaling especially is by no means as unheard in the accent as is sometimes thought. It might particularly be expected syllable-finally preceding a nonsyllabic consonant, [rʌɪʔˈwɪŋə] right-winger. It will sometimes be found between vowels at a syllable boundary, where the first syllable is unstressed and the second stressed: [rɪˈʔɔːgənʌɪz] reorganize.
RP is taken as a yardstick in the description of accents that follows, for no other reason than that this permits the omission of repetition should non-RP accents coincide with RP in certain particulars, although it must be appreciated that coincidence of a feature in RP and a localized accent does not mean that its user is speaking with an RP accent. Concentration from here on is primarily on non-RP sounds that have connections with particular parts of the British Isles, RP itself being drawn into the descriptions where inclusion might be informative. It is by such sounds as those that are individually associated with particular areas of the British Isles that speakers can be placed geographically. Particularly when they coincide with other sounds that are similarly located, they enable an informed hearer to identify a person’s origin, or at least the principal influences that have acted upon their accent. In a situation such as that existing in the British Isles, where varieties abound and many speakers are socially and geographically mobile, accents do not, of course, occur in tidy, monolithic blocks, each block distinct from another. Rather, a community, and indeed each speaker within a community, will exhibit features drawn from a wide area in the creation of their unique accent. Each of the phonemes (or variables) of a language has a particular distribution pattern for its variants across a territory: each sound will loosely occupy its own geographical space, the distribution patterns for no two variables coinciding absolutely.
So, since it is not possible to isolate an entire set of sounds and to allocate them to a particular place or region, concentration here is on the attachment of individual features to regions, these features being discussed one by one, rather than making an attempt to identify an amalgam of specific features all coming together in one place. Since it is the vowel system that is most telling of place, the primary device used in analysis is again that of standard lexical sets. Reference should be made to the country-wide (and RP) realizations from which divergence is described here. The descriptions are necessarily truncated, although they do provide what is needed for the reader to begin to form a proper understanding of sounds that a native British speaker is likely to use when seeking to identify a speaker with a place. The major resources drawn upon for the selection of these features are Schneider et al. (2004) and Kortmann and Upton (2008), and the reader is recommended to move out from here to those works in order to flesh out the thumbnail descriptions.
In order that a broad overview of the geographical distribution of major phonological distinctions might be followed, it is necessary to provide some short explanation of terms used to relate to areas of the British Isles. To begin with what is for many a particularly problematic geopolitical issue, the very term “British Isles” has to be addressed. It refers to all those islands that contain two adjacent but quite distinct nation states, the Republic of Ireland (or Eire) and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The Irish Republic occupies the south, middle, and north-west of the large island of Ireland, on the western side of the region. The United Kingdom (UK) takes in the countries of Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland (or Ulster) occupying the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland, and England.
In what follows, the major designations that will be encountered will be “Ireland”, by which is meant the whole of the island that bears the name, “Scotland” in the north of the UK, “Wales” in the west, and “England”. Upon occasion it is necessary to distinguish between “Southern Ireland” and “Northern Ireland” with an implication that forms relate essentially to the Republic (south) or to the Irish part of the UK, Ulster (north). Wales and Scotland are also referred to separately, upon occasion with compass-based geographical subdivisions. Archipelagos extending northwards from the Scottish mainland, which exhibit markedly distinct characteristics for some variables, are the “Orkney Islands” and the “Shetland Islands” (together the “Northern Isles”). Descriptions within England most essentially see the country divided into “north”, “south”, and “Midlands”, this last separating again into the “East Midlands” and the “West Midlands”. The Midlands constitutes a transitional zone of indeterminate breadth exhibiting both shared northern or southern and region-specific features. The most easterly part of the East Midlands, which exhibits very distinctly-heard variants for some variables, is identified as “East Anglia”. Within the North we must at times identify as distinct the “North-east”, an area centered on the city of Newcastle upon Tyne and abutting the Scottish border. The south of England is upon occasion separated into the “south-west” (sometimes referred to as the “West Country”) and the “south-east”, an area dominated linguistically to some considerable extent by London. To the south of the English mainland the “Channel Islands”, with their historical French influence, again warrant separate mention at times.
The most significant pointer to broad regionality applying within the British Isles is that of rhoticity, the pronouncing of /r/ following a vowel, where <r> occurs in a word when written. (Rhoticity is signalled in English spellings that were fixed before many English accents became nonrhotic, this happening comparatively recently, with local speech even close to London evidencing the feature until the middle of the twentieth century (Orton et al. 1962–1971).) Rhoticity is a worldwide phenomenon, being, for example, a feature that predominates in the English pronunciations of North America, and is more common than is often supposed within the British Isles. It is the norm in Ireland, Scotland (though apparently receding in some urban areas, notably Glasgow), and in parts of Wales (in the south-west of the country and by transference from their Welsh in the English of Welsh speakers). Within England it is found in the West Country, southern Lancashire, and (as essentially a feature of older people’s speech) in the far north-east, north of Newcastle upon Tyne. Rhoticity has an effect on many preceding sounds: commonly in Scottish English there is no diphthong in such as word as here and sure, these being pronounced [hir], [ʃur].
Whether associated with rhoticity or not, realizations of /r/ are variable throughout the British Isles. Within Ireland an essential difference is between southern [ɹ] and northern [ɻ], though with a spreading of an unrelated [ɻ] outwards from the capital city Dublin in the south as well. The reverse of this is true of England, where [ɻ] is south-western and [ɹ] is more usual elswehere. The north-east England occasional feature is the “Northumberland Burr”, [ʁ]. In Wales, [ɾ] is especially brought from Welsh by Welsh-speaking speakers when they are using English. Scottish /r/ ranges from post-alveolar to retroflex or a tap.
The distribution of long monopthong versus diphthong is found here as is found for the FACE vowel. Accents of the South and Midlands of England, in the west extending as far north as Liverpool, are characterized generally by diphthongs, the most significant ones other than frequent [oʊ] being [ʌʊ] in the south-east, [ɔʊ] in the south-west, and [ʌʊ~aʊ] in the Midlands. In East Anglia there is variability in GOAT, between [ʌʊ] and [ʊu], according to etymology. See Wells (1982: 337) for an explanation of this.
In contrast to Southern and Midland English diphthonging, the monophthong [oː] is quite characteristic of the accents of Northern England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. Basic monophthong-diphthong GOAT variation, like that for FACE, is thus used by many listeners to place a speaker geographically. As noted in the section on RP above, trad-RP [oʊ] seems to be resurgent, a fact that might well be linked to its presence in some regional accents in England and Wales, and to some extent in accents outside these regions.
A social development in the North, spreading especially as a feature of the speech of younger middle class from the north-east and the east coast city of Hull is “GOAT-fronting” to [θ:]. A recessive feature of note is the North-east England traditional [ʊə], paralleling [ɪə] in FACE.
It is often thought that “h-dropping” or “h-deletion”, resulting in [aʊs] house, [apn] happen, is a universal feature of non-RP in Britain, but this is not the case. Whilst it is widespread in Wales, it is unusual in Scotland and Ireland, and although it is frequent in large areas of England it is not usual in the rural areas of East Anglia, or in the north-east north of Newcastle. Tied to matters of orthography as it is, the dropping of the initial [h-] tends to be socially stigmatized, rendering it the subject of as much sociolinguistic as it is regional-distributional debate (see, for example, Mugglestone 2003: 95ff).
A longstanding spelling signaling a pronunciation that is now regionally associated is <wh->, representing [ʍ-]. Whilst this is found in somewhat mannered forms of RP, it is especially associated with pronunciations local to Ireland, Scotland, and the Scottish–English borderland. In Ireland the pronunciation chimes well with a similar sound in the Irish language.
The RP diphthong [ʌɪ] is shared with local accents widely in Scotland, while the trad-RP [aɪ] is also found in Orkney and Shetland, Northern (often with a lengthened onset) and Midland England, Wales, and Southern Ireland. Higher onsets for the diphthong, giving [æɪ]~[ɛɪ], can be characteristic of rural Irish accents. Low-back onsets are also widely heard, as [ɑɪ] in Southern England and the Channel Islands, East Anglia, and in Ireland, especially in Dublin, and as [ɒɪ] in the West Country and West Midlands of England, and London (Cockney).
Originally the norm in the PRICE set was [iː]. This, like MOUTH [uː] above, a form dating from before the time of the medieval Great Vowel Shift, has become lexicalized, especially in the Yorkshire region of northern England. Here especially it operates restrictedly but significantly in a small set of words, most notably right and night, to signal local affiliation.
A feature now exhibiting quite restricted distribution is “velar nasal plus”, the insertion of the alveolar stop [g] following [ŋ]. This results in long being pronounced [lɒŋg], thing [ϴɪŋg]; singing, which is in many accents [ˈsɪŋɪŋ], becomes with this feature [ˈsɪŋgɪŋ] or even [ˈsɪŋgɪŋg]. Formerly widespread amongst English speakers, velar nasal plus is now a quite reliable indicator that a speaker comes from the north-west Midland region of England, and to be located somewhere between Birmingham and southern Lancashire/Yorkshire.
Like absence of [h-], [-n] in words with <-ing>, such as coming, is a socially stigmatized feature of pronunciation, and so is the subject of sociolinguistic study. It does not manifest geographical distribution, however, being found widely across the whole of the British Isles.
Like velar nasal plus a feature of the north-west Midlands, but restricted to its extreme northern edge, is Liverpool affrication of the voiceless stops /p/, /t/, and /k/, these becoming respectively [ts], [pf], and [kχ], and in final position sometimes realized as fricatives [ф, s, χ]. Seemingly as a consequence of this affrication, glottaling of /t/ to [ʔ], which is to be found in almost all British accents, is less usual in Liverpool than elsewhere.
Unlike the widespread /t/-glottaling, however, glottaling of /p/ and /k/ is particularly a feature of north-east England, this being increasingly heard from younger speakers to replace the glottalization (pre-glottaling) forms [ʔt, ʔp, ʔk], which were formerly ubiquitous and which are now typically heard from more elderly northern England speakers.
RP-like [ɑː] is found in south-east England and the Channel Islands, and in northern England alongside [ɒː] (also in the West Midlands) and [aː]. This [aː], incidentally the immediate ancestor of RP [ɑː], is the norm in south-west England and in Wales.
Most variation relating to START coincides with that for PALM. However, while PALM tends to be short [a] in Scotland, there exists a rule, the “Scottish Vowel Length Rule”, which states that Scottish vowels are long before fricatives, /r/, or at boundaries: this results in the Scottish [a] being lengthened to [aː] in the rhotic environment of START, which is sometimes retracted from low front or raised to [ɛː].
The most striking regional feature for NORTH and FORCE is the [ʊə] of north-east England, a historical feature that is declining in use but is characteristic of the most localized speech, speech that is sometimes rhoticized on [ʁ].
Otherwise distinctive for NORTH are [oː] in Scotland and this or [ɒː] in Northern England. In Ireland the range [ɔː~ɒː~ɑː] is found for NORTH. FORCE distinctions are to be heard in Ireland, where [oː~ɔː] are usual, with [ɒː] a Dublin feature.
THOUGHT exhibits a wide range of realizations. Principal exceptions to [ɔː] are the [ɔ] found in Scotland, [ɒː~aː] in northern England, and [oː~oʊ~ɔə] in the south-east of England. Irish speakers have a range of mainly back vowels, [ɔː~ɒː~ɑː], although [aː] is found in Dublin.
/i/ happY: While [i], generally with some element of lengthening, is particularly widespread, [ɪ~e~ɛ] are traditionally found in the North of England, [ɪ~e] in Ireland, and [e] in Scotland.
lettER: [ə] is generally found irrespective of the presence or absence of rhoticity. Rhotic Scotland also has [ɪ~ʌ]. Nonrhotic Wales can have [ʌ], and the Channel Islands [œ].
horsES: [ə], alongside [ɪ], is characteristic of northern England, and is usual in East Anglia and Ireland.
commA: Alternatives to the generally widespread [ə] here tend to involve lowering to [ɐ] in Shetland, Ireland (notably Dublin) and Northern England, and [ʌ] in Scotland and Wales.
Northern English speakers exhibit a tendency to give full value to vowels in unaccented syllables, so that, for example, condition might be rendered as [kɒnˈdɪʃn].
The present shortage of phonological research data beyond the segmental renders the making of detailed regional distinctions impossible. It is, however, possible to make some general observations in this area, using data from the contributors to Kortmann and Upton (2008).
Scottish intonation study has observed a high-rising pattern for statements and questions in Glasgow and a falling one in Edinburgh and elsewhere. The Glasgow phenomenon might be influenced by Northern Irish speech. Distinct from a high-rising pattern is a level high-rise intonation terminal that has been detected in north-east England. The South Wales valleys have attracted attention because of notable variation in pitch movement, with possible influence from Welsh, and this has been likened to a similar, though of course unconnected, feature in Orkney (though not apparently Shetland) English. East Anglia is notable for intonational movement from low to high levels during the asking of yes–no questions especially.
Salient in north-east England is a tendency to level stress or heavier second-element stress in compounds, so that the city of Newcastle (upon Tyne) is pronounced by many inhabitants [njʊˈkasl] (as opposed to [ˈnjuːkasl]). A similar feature of regular stressing in Channel Islands English seems likely to be explained by historical and continuing French influence. There is a tendency towards stress-shifting to long final vowels in polysyllabic verbs in Irish English, as in testify [tɛstɪˈfaɪ]. The lengthening of stressed vowels and the loss rather than reduction of unstressed vowels is a feature of East Anglian prosody, lending the variety a distinctive rhythm: have you got a light? [hæːjə gɑʔ lɐɪʔ]. Disyllabic words in Scotland show some tendency to have a short-long pattern of rhythm.
It has been asserted that variability is the inevitable state of accents. We cannot identify a set of sounds that can be easily allocated to one model of accent or to one particular territory. In consequence, even such a seemingly obvious institution as RP warrants discussion as regards variation. In its BATH-distinction discussed above, this supposedly regionless variety exhibits at least a small amount of location-based distinction. There also exists a range of tolerances between the most conservative trad-RP and the most progressive (or speculative) features, among which we should identify especially variants in the TRAP, PRICE, and SQUARE vowels. No one form of this “model” accent is “better” or “correct”. Rather, its varieties are a decided sign of the vibrancy of the language of which it is representative.
Further to this theme of striking variability, it is impossible to identify a distinctive set of pronunciations that, together, ties a population uniquely to a place. It is the contention here that, in a very complex situation such as that which has arisen in the British Isles, where accents have had opportunity and cause to fragment over time, different variables have evolved uniquely in terms of their geographical distribution. It is indeed quite often possible for a listener to place a speaker as regards their region of origin, and also to detect in their speech other regional features to which they have been exposed and by which they have been influenced. However, it will be particular variants, used to realize just a few salient variables, that the listener will most often rely on when forming their judgments. A speaker will be placed as coming from Scotland, Ireland, or certain parts of England (the West Country, the lower north-west, the north-east) by the presence in their accent of post-vocalic /r/. The type of /r/ – fricative, retroflex, uvular – will determine matters more narrowly on this one feature alone.
It is not on a single feature that people are located, of course, but on an amalgam of those around which speakers cluster. Nevertheless, the more features that are aggregated the looser the community bonds become. A speaker from the central part of the English Midlands around Birmingham is likely to share “velar nasal plus” with a speaker from its Liverpool-centred northern edge. However, they are most unlikely to display any tendency to that stop-affrication that is so characteristic of Liverpudlian speech: rather, they will in some considerable numbers at least use BATH [ɑː], tying them firmly to their neighbors further south. Most significantly, there is no identifiable point between Birmingham and Liverpool where the affrication feature is or is not solidly entrenched. Rather, its espousal as an accent feature will vary according to a complex of historical and present-day social factors, which affect each of the speakers across the north-west Midlands differently.
We have, then, in this one small example from within England, an important lesson, that accents, and indeed dialects, blur into one another.2 We can place people roughly by their use of certain major accent identifiers. We can then spot pointers to smaller regions. But even speakers firmly rooted in one spot will not share all variants in the same proportions, and in societies that are increasingly mobile the combination of possible variants to which people have access multiplies. The detective work of narrowing down a speaker’s origin in the British Isles is enthralling – just as long as one does not get frustrated when this proves elusive.