Glasgow University researcher Dr Jane Stuart-Smith and Research Fellow Claire Timmins have revealed that watching television is linked to changes in the accents of inner-city Glaswegians. Dr Stuart-Smith found clear correlations between watching and enjoying London-situated programmes, particularly EastEnders, and certain pronunciation features appearing in the Glaswegian accent.

It has previously been assumed that face-to-face interaction is a main cause of accent change, however, the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)-funded project showed that individuals who had relatively little contact with people outside Glasgow still had pronunciation features found in London accents. The project therefore highlighted that accent changes are linked with television as well as with dialect contact.

Southern English features were noticed in consonant pronunciations but not vowels, for example, the pronunciation of 'bruvver' instead of 'brother' or 'fink' instead of 'think'.

At the same time, Glasgwegian adolescents were generally not aware that the adopted language features are used in Cockney accents on TV. Nor did watching London-based programmes necessarily mean that they liked the Cockney accent.

Dr Stuart-Smith said: "It was previously considered a 'language myth' that television had any impact on an individual's accent but this research shows that we have to treat television as a possible influence on how people speak. Watching even a very short clip of London-based programmes caused subtle alterations to the accents of some individuals."

Claire Timmins added: "Our study found that the children do have a lot of exposure to these Cockney TV programmes, and this, together with other influences, may have a bearing on fine-grained changes to their accents."

Kate Richardson (K.richardson@admin.gla.ac.uk)

For more information or to speak to Dr Stuart-Smith please contact the University of Glasgow Media Relations Office on 0141 330 3683 or email K.Richardson@admin.gla.ac.uk

ESRC:
The ESRC is the UK's largest funding agency for research and postgraduate training relating to social and economic issues. It provides independent, high-quality, relevant research to business, the public sector and Government. The ESRC invests more than ?135 million every year in social science and at any time is supporting some 2,000 researchers in academic institutions and research policy institutes. It also funds postgraduate training within the social sciences to nurture the researchers of tomorrow. More at http://www.esrcsocietytoday.ac.uk

First published: 26 June 2006