“My Fair Lady”に見る 20世紀の英国英語発音の変遷tamasaki/My_Fair_Lady_and_the_Twentieth... · My Fair Lady and the Twentieth-century Changes in British English Pronunciation

My Fair Lady and the Twentieth-century Changes in British

English Pronunciation

“My Fair Lady”に見る

２０世紀の英国英語発音の変遷

Masaki Taniguchi

谷口雅基 Kochi University

高知大学





References: Jack Windsor Lewis “Twentieth-century Changes

in British English Pronunciation” at http://www.yek.me.uk/changestwe.html

John C. Wells (1982) Accents of English (CUP) “Estuary English” at

http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/estuary

http://www.yek.me.uk/changestwe.html


Professor John Wells Professor Jack Windsor Lewis

(Prof Emeritus, UCL) (formerly of University of Leeds)

giving a speech giving a group lesson at SCEP

Dr Beverly

Collins, author of

The Real

Professor Higgins:

The life and career of

Daniel Jones

My Fair Lady and the Twentieth-Century Changes in British




More References:

My Fair Lady Story of English

BBC The Learning Zone

ロンドン市内の劇場

Story of English より



“I could say that Cockney is the most important source of the new pronunciations coming in, and this is something that isn’t just today but has been the case for five hundred years. What typically seems to happen is that some new pronunciation arises in Cockney, it’s condemned as vulgar, but then after a time, it comes up-market, people start imitating it, and in due course it becomes Received Pronunciation, and then a bit later it becomes old-fashioned and disappears. And so we have a constant change going on over the centuries. I think there’s evidence, for example, that the [eI] vowel in “face” was [fA:s] and there was the Great Vowel Shift and it became [fe:s], and that monophthong, [fe:s], which you’ve still got in Scotland and places gave way to a diphthong [eI], [feIs]. And I think that was originally a Cockney vulgarism, but meanwhile it’s become posh and it’s now the RP form. Cockney has had another innovation and moved on to [fVIs], and that’s today’s vulgarism. Maybe in another two hundred years the posh form would be [fVIs], and the Cockney vulgarism would be something else again, I don’t know,[fQIs].”



FACE

Cockney RP* (Daniel Jones) GB** (Jack Windsor Lewis)

fe:s fA:s feIs fe:s fVIs feIs ************************* fQIs fVIs

*RP=Received Pronunciation

**GB=General British



My Fair Lady より



Eliza: Oh, we are proud! He [VIn?] above ["gIvIn] lessons, [nQ?] him; I heard him [sVI] so. Well, I [VIn?] come here to ask for any complimen[?], and if my money's [nQ?] good enough I can go elsewhere.

Higgins: Good enough for what?

Eliza: Good enough for you. Now you know, don't [j@]?

I've come to [{v] lessons, I have. And to [pVI] for them, too, [mVIk] no [mI"stVIk]. Higgins: Well! What do you expect me to [seI]? Eliza: If you was a ["dZen?om@n], you [mQI?] ask me to [sI?] down, I [fINk]. Don' I tell you I'm bringing you business?

Higgins: Pickering, shall we ask this baggage to [sIt] down, or shall we throw her out of the window?

Eliza: Aoooow! I won'[?] be called a baggage when I've offered to [pVI] [lQIk] any ["lVIdi]. Pickering: But what is it you want?

Eliza: I want to be a ["lVIdi] in a [fla:] shop instead of ["selIn "fla:z] at the corner of ["tQ?n@m] Court Road. But then won't [tVIk] me unless I can talk more genteel.



Cockney

H-dropping

hammer ["{m@] hedge [edZ] heart [A:?] art [A:?]



Cockney

So-called “G”-dropping

talking ["tO:kIn] singing ["sINIn]

RP/GB

talking ["tO:kIN] singing ["sININ]



Cockney

TH-fronting

think [fINk] father ["fA:v@]

RP/GB

think [TINk] father ["fA:D@]



Cockney

TH-stopping

(D becomes d in initial position)

the [d@] with this [wIv dIs]

RP/GB

the [D@] with this [wID DIs]



Cockney

Yod-dropping

new [nu:] tune [tu:n]

RP/GB

new [nju:] tune [tju:n]



Cockney

Yod-coalescence

tune [tSu:n] reduce [rI"dZu:s]

RP/GB

tune [tju:n] reduce [rI"dju:s]



Cockney

Diphthong shift

face [fVIs] I [QI]

RP/GB

face [feIs] I [aI]



Cockney

L-vocalization

milk [mIok] wall [wO:o]

RP/GB

milk [mIk] wall [wO:]



Cockney

T-glottaling

hot [hQ?] butterfly ["bV?@flQI]

RP/GB

hot [hQt] butterfly ["bVt@flaI]



Cockney

Weak forms

See you! ["si: j@]

RP/GB

See you! ["si: ju]



Cockney

NT-reduction

twenty ["tweni] want to ["wQn@]

RP/GB twenty ["twenti] want to ["wQnt@]

“RP, Received Pronunciation, is the pronunciation that is generally accepted as being the standard, as being correct as many people would see it. The idea is that within England, someone who’s speaking RP doesn’t give you a clue as to what part of England they come from.”

Professor

John Wells

BBC

Learning

Zone

“When you couldn’t easily travel, the conditions didn’t exist for the creation of a standard pronunciation. I think the big change really came at the end of the 18th century, The Industrial Revolution, and then in the 19th century with the coming of the railways, which meant that people were able to move about the country in the way that they couldn’t do previously.”

Professor

John Wells

BBC

Learning

Zone

“Public schools are very important, because they were geographically decentralized and they took their pupils from all different parts of the country under the circumstances that caused them to adopt something uniform.”

The accent that developed didn’t only affect people in England. “Although RP is essentially English of England, it has an influence that’s much wider. The Scots and the Irish don’t on the whole look to RP as their standard. Nevertheless, England is so big and powerful in influence on them in speech as in other things that you can often see Scottish people who have modified their speech in the direction of English, which means usually RP.”

Professor

John Wells

BBC

Learning

Zone

“On BBC radio in the 1930’s, and therefore also in the very earliest television, we get Received Pronunciation of the old-fashioned type.”

Professor

John Wells

BBC

Learning

Zone

“Take Sylvia Peters, for example. You can hear her using [I] in a word like “television” ["telIvIZn], where nowadays we might say ["tel@vIZn], or “witnessed” ["wItnIst] where we might now say ["wItn@st], or “Majesty” ["m{dZIsti] where we might now say ["m{dZ@sti].”

Professor

John Wells

BBC

Learning

Zone

“You should turn to contemporary RP speaking television announcers. You can see they have not so much smoothing “fire” /"faI@/ rather than /fa:/, some /l/s perhaps vocalized “shelf” /Seof/ rather than /Self/, certainly some glottal stops “Scotland” /"skQ?l@nd/ on occasion rather than /"skQtl@nd/. Jenny Bond says “charity” /"tS{r@ti/ rather than /"tS{rIti /.”

Professor

John Wells

BBC

Learning

Zone

A closer look at the archetypal RP speakers shows clearly how RP has changed. “You can think about the very earliest clips we have of the Queen when she was a girl. You can see her pronunciation was very antiquated by today’s standards. She says “happier” /"h{(closer)pI@/ where nowadays we would expect /"ha(opener)pi@/. She says “Good night” /"gUd "naI(more front)t/ where nowadays we have the form /"gUd "naI(more back)t/, a change in the quality of /aI/.”

Professor

John Wells

BBC

Learning

Zone

“In more recent examples, you can see that the Queen has herself changed her pronunciation over the time. She says things like “mass” /ma(opener)s/ and “ban” /ba(opener)n/ nowadays rather than the /m{(closer)s/ and /b{(closer)n/ you might have had from the earlier time. It’s often claimed actually, you see, that the Royal Family don’t say /aU/, they say /aI/, and they go /daIn"taIn/ rather than /daUn"taUn/. You’ve only got to examine their speech very carefully. You’ll see that this is not really true.

Professor

John Wells

BBC

Learning

Zone

On the other hand, she clearly reflects the generation that is different from the sort of speech we see in the generation of Prince Charles. He’s often held up as a kind of example of upper class, noticeably upper class speech, which I suppose is fair enough, but again I think it’s true to say that he has been gradually updating his speech and his pronunciation. You can hear every now and then he does use /i/ rather than /I/ at the end of a word. We’ve got “opportunity” /%Qp@"tju:n@ti/ rather than /%Qp@"tju:n@tI/.”

Professor

John Wells

BBC

Learning

Zone

“On the other hand, he smoothes. He doesn’t say “hour” /"aU@/ for “60 minutes”; he says “hour” /a@/, and as we’ve seen, the tendency seems to be more and more to move away from that and to go back to the earlier, slower, more careful pronunciation /"aU@/ (“hour”).”

Professor

John Wells

BBC

Learning

Zone

“If we take a word like ‘department’, I must say I’m using a glottal stop before the /m/. I didn’t say /dI"pA:tm@nt/ but as most people normally do, /dI"pA:?m@nt/. That’s a glottal stop. If I were even more relying on the current trend, perhaps I would be saying /dI"pA:?m@n?/ with another glottal stop at the end as well. And what we see is this glottal stop gradually extending its range of positions in words where it occurs.

The other one is the /l/ consonant. What’s happening to the consonant, /l/, is that it’s ceasing to be made again with the tongue tip and turning it into a vowel rather like a /w/, so that in a word like “shelf”, you get people saying /Seof/, in a word like “milk”, you get /mIok/. That’s this vocalization of /l/, which is now spreading out very widely, ceasing to be a stigmatized Cockney vulgarism, becoming a general pronunciation.”

Again don’t forget that this only in the last hundred years we’ve had, or less than that we’ve had this and that, we’ve got telephones and other ways of talking directly to people in other parts of the country. Now of course, it’s not just a matter of the country but the world, and we’re exposed to American English, Australian English, West Indian English and so on, in a way that previous generations couldn’t dream of. This means that everybody perhaps is tending to leave aside very special peculiarities of their own accent and move towards something that is more general and perhaps more bland.

“It’s not just RP that

is not localizable,

but speech in

general, the rough

edges have been

worn smooth by the

fact that we all travel

around, we all

contact people, we

all talk to people

from other parts of

the country.

Jack Windsor Lewis http://www.yek.me.uk/vowels.html

Vowels i

e

a

o

u


i:

I

e 3:

@

V

{ A: Q

O:

U

u: i:

e

{

I 3:

@

V

A: Q

O:

U

u: Vowels

http://www.yek.me.uk/png/British-English.png


Vowels


Vowels


Vowels

Early twentieth century


Vowels

[oU > @U]

goat,

over the road,

oh no

oU


i:

I

e 3:

@

V

{ A: Q

O:

U

u: i:

e

{

I 3:

@

V

A: Q

O:

U

u: Vowels

/O: > Q/ cloth,

cough,

cross,

lost,

off,

often…



i:

I

e 3:

@

V

{ A: Q

O:

U

u: i:

e

{

I 3:

@

V

A: Q

O:

U

u: Vowels

loss of /O@/ (> /O:/) floor = flaw,

four = for,

source = sauce

O@



i:

I

e 3:

@

V

{ A: Q

O:

U

u: i:

e

{

I 3:

@

V

A: Q

O:

U

u: Vowels

opening

of /{/ that bad man

{


Mid twentieth century


Vowels

O:

/U@/ (> preference for /O:/)

poor,

sure,

your(s),

you’re


i:

I

e 3:

@

V

{ A: Q

O:

U

u: i:

e

{

I 3:

@

V

A: Q

U

u: Vowels

drift from weak /I/ to /@/ possible,

visible,

sanity,

carelessness

O:


plosive epenthesis

fence, instance, emphasis

fence [fens] [fents]

instance ["Inst@ns] ["Inst@nts]

emphasis ["emf@sIs] ["empf@sIs]

yod coalescence

before weak V

actual, perceptual, gradual actual ["{ktju@l] ["{ktSu@l]

perceptual

[p@"septju@l] [p@"septSu@l]

gradual ["gr{dju@l]["gr{dZu@l]

glottalling of /t/ _C, _#C

football, witness, atlas,

network, quite C football ["fUtbO:l] ["fU?bO:l]

witness ["wItnIs] ["wI?n@s]

network ["netw3:k]["ne?w3:k]

quite nice

["kwaIt "naIs]["kwaI? "naIs]

Late twentieth century


i:

I

e 3:

@

V

{ A: Q

O:

U

u: i:

e

{

I 3:

@

V

A: Q

U

u: Vowels

weak final [I] > [i] (“/i/”)

happy,

coffee;

various,

radiate

O:


backing of /@U/ before []

told, cold, goal, whole QU

told [t@U5d] [tQU5d]

cold [k@U5d] [kQU5d]

goal [g@U5] [gQU5]

whole [h@U5] [hQU5]

unrounding, fronting of /u:, U/ spoon, you, good

spoon [spu:n] [spu:n]

you [ju:] [ju:]

good [gUd] [gUd]

glottalling of /t/ in envrionments. _#V, _|| quite easy, not only, right

quite easy

["kwaIt "i:zi] ["kwaI? "i:zi]

not only

["nQt "@Unli] ["nQ? "@Unli]

right [raIt] [raI?]

vocalization of /l/ ([ > o])

milk, shelf, feel, table, middle

milk [mIlk] [miok]

shelf [Self] [Seof]

feel [fi:l] [fi:o]

table ["teIbl] ["teIbo]

middle ["mIdl] ["mIdo]

yod coalescence before strong V

Tuesday, tune, reduce, duke

Tuesday ["tju:zdeI] ["tSu:zdeI]

tune [tju:n] [tSu:n]

reduce [rI"dju:s] [rI"dZu:s]

duke [dju:k] [dZu:k]

monophthonging of /e@/ [> E:] fair and square, Mary

fair [fe@] [fE:]

square [skwe@] [skwE:]

Mary ["me@ri] ["mE:ri]

“uptalk” (上昇調)

My name’s Mary /Smith.

s-affricate assimilation (s>S) _tr: strong _tS: student

strong [strQN] [StrQN]

student ["stju:d@nt] ["StSu:d@nt]

T-voicing butter, get off

butter ["bVt@] ["bV@]

get off ["get "Qf] ["ge "Qf]

Intrusive R idea of, law and order

idea of

[aI"dI@ @v] [aI"dI@r@v]

law and order

["lO: @n "O:d@] ["lO:r @n "O:d@]





Taniguchi Masaki

Acknowledgements



Sincerest gratitude is due to Professor Jack Windsor Lewis and

Professor John Wells for their kind advice and help.





References: Jack Windsor Lewis “Twentieth-century Changes

in British English Pronunciation” at http://www.yek.me.uk/changestwe.html

John C. Wells (1982) Accents of English (CUP) “Estuary English” at


http://www.yek.me.uk/changestwe.html


Documents

“My Fair Lady”に見る 20世紀の英国英語発音の変遷tamasaki/My_Fair_Lady_and_the_Twentieth... · My Fair Lady and the Twentieth-century Changes in British English Pronunciation