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Jonnie Robinson, Curator, English accents and dialects, British Library Sound Archive, writes:
Intriguingly we all freely admit that certain words, individual grammatical constructions or particular pronunciations cause us to shudder - stigmatised forms that we not only avoid ourselves, but actively seek to discourage our children from using for fear that they will be viewed negatively as a consequence. These speakers here draw attention to certain instantly recognisable features, such as T-glottaling - that is, the substitution of a glottal stop for a <t> sound between vowels or at the end of a word, as demonstrated here in the words water, photo and butter. T-glottaling currently receives a great deal of critical comment, although it's been a feature of popular speech in a number of areas of the UK for some time - notably in London and in several urban areas in the north of England and indeed throughout Scotland. Interestingly many people share the view espoused here that it's to be avoided if at all possible and yet it's something that's a distinctively British innovation - it's not, for instance, a feature of any US accent and thus one of many examples that British English and American English, in terms of pronunciation at least, are diverging rather than converging.
Nonetheless, total avoidance of such socially loaded features of speech can in some situations also provoke disapproval among an audience, as is confirmed here. It's a perfectly natural human desire to conform - be it in our dress sense, our musical tastes, or indeed in our linguistic behaviour and there's a great deal of evidence to confirm the impression stated here that we might on occasions wish to avoid sounding 'stupid' as one speaker puts it, if we resist using a particular linguistic form. Linguists commonly refer to certain features of speech as having either overt or covert prestige. Linguistic forms that are universally acknowledged by a whole community to be desirable features, such as in Scotland, articulating all our <t>'s or avoiding non-standard grammar, such as multiple negation, are considered to have overt prestige. In other contexts, use of the very same vernacular features might be considered to have covert prestige - although they are widely stigmatised, they are an essential marker of group membership among a particular social circle. Thus, it might seem desirable for the same English speaker to replace their <t>'s liberally with glottal stops when attending a match at the local football stadium, but studiously to avoid doing so in a job interview.
In fact all native speakers adjust their speech patterns according to context and situation: from relaxed conversation in familiar surroundings to more formal settings. We all have a range of different 'voices' - for talking to children, talking to friends in the pub, making a presentation or talking to a foreigner. In most cases this process is subconscious and a perfectly natural reaction as we all tend to adapt our speech to a certain degree in order to fit in with the people around us. The changes we make are extremely subtle, but nonetheless noticeable and adopting a particular way of speaking can communicate a great sense of shared identity or solidarity with other speakers, although it can, of course, also emphasise differences. An individual speaker's choice - such as avoiding T-glottaling or not is often prompted by their environment. In some circumstances it's perceived to be appropriate, in others less so, depending on the specific image a speaker wishes to convey.
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