Regional accents of British broadcast media

(SCOTTISH, WELSH, IRISH)

British broadcast media discourse reflects regional accents of British English, spoken in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. These accents are determined by the influence of the Scottish and Irish Gaelic, as well as Celtic (Welsh) language. These languages are taught at school and used on a daily basis by a large section of the population in Scotland, Ireland and Wales.

British broadcasting policy in those areas of the country reflects the multilingual diversity of its inhabitants. For example, BBC Alba is a television channel broadcast in Scottish Gaelic, the numerous BBC radio channels list BBC Cymru (broadcast in Welsh), BBC Gaelic and others. Sky News and BBC News television channels employ plenty of journalists speaking with distinct Scottish or Irish accent while reporting for their news channel.

With respect to phonology, Scottish English has the following characteristics:

- Scottish English is a rhotic accent, meaning [r] is pronounced in the syllable coda. As with Received Pronunciation, [ r] may be an alveolar approximant [ɹ], although it is also common that a speaker will use an alveolar tap [ɾ];

- for most speakers, the short vowels [ʌ ], [ɛ ], [ɪ] are kept distinct before [r], so that burn, earth, and bird have three different vowels, unlike in most other accents;

- the contrast between [o: ] and [ɔ] before [ r] (as in hoarse vs horse) is preserved;

- the contrast between [hw] (as in which) and [w] (as in witch) is preserved;

- Scottish English has no [ʊ], instead transferring Scots [u]. Phonetically, this vowel may be pronounced [ʉ] or even [ʏ]. Thus pull and pool are homophones;

- for many speakers, the vowel of cot and that of caught are merged, usually to [ɔ];

- for many speakers, there is no short A-broad A distinction, so that palm, trap and bath have the same vowel, typically [a].

- [l] is dark in all positions (the palatalisation of [l] occurs, [l] is usually velarised).

WelshEnglish is strongly influenced by the phonology of the Welsh language, which more than 20 % of the population of Wales speak as their first or second language. The Welsh accent has distinct intonation pattern of a falling-rising tone of the affirmative sentences (thereby the rhythmical pattern of a sentence becomes uneven). It makes that accent different from the Scottish and Irish accents.

Other phonetic peculiarities of the Welsh accent list:

- the substitution of [iə] by [ø]: here ([hiə]) is pronounced as [(h)jø] in the broader form;

- a more open pronunciation of [ʌ] as in love and other;

- [ æ] is widely realised as [a:];

- the vowel of cat [æ] is pronounced as a more central near-open front unrounded vowel [æ];

- a strong tendency (shared with Scottish English) towards using an alveolar tap [ɾ] (a tapped r) in place of an approximant [ɹ] (the r used in most accents in England);

- some gemination between vowels is often encountered, e.g. money is pronounced [mɜ:ni];

- also in northern accents, [l] is frequently strongly velarised. In much of the south-east, clear and dark [l] alternate much like they do in Received Pronunciation.

Some wide spread characteristics of the Ulster accent include:

- with some local exceptions, [r] occurs postvocally;

- [t] is not pronounced as a plosive where it does not occur word-initially in some Irish accents; instead, it is often pronounced as a slit fricative [θ̠];

- as in Scotland, the vowels [ʊ] and [u] are merged, so that look and Luke are homophonous;

- the distinction between w [w] and wh [hw], as in wine vs. whine, is preserved;

- the diphthong [aʊ] is pronounced approximately [əʉ];

- in words like took where oo usually represents [ʊ], speakers may use [u];

- the alveolar stops [t, d] become dental before [r], [ər], e.g. t ree and spi d er;

- [eɪ] often becomes [ɛ] in words such as gave and came (becoming [gev] and [kem]);

- [t] often undergoes flapping to [ɾ] before an unstressed syllable, e.g. eighty [eəɾi];

- Irish English also always uses the alveolar or light L sound, as opposed to other English dialects which use a velar or dark L in word-final position.

British radio and television discourse also embraces social accents that are characteristic of the people with a rather low educational level. The social accent can be found in interviews as a constituent part of the report. In essence such accent is characterised by the following features:

- indistinct articulation;

- the omission of initial or final sounds in pronunciation of some words;

- the break (deviation) from the standard phonetic pattern of a phrase;

- a wide use of reduced words and elliptical grammatical structures.

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