Bristol English (BE) is a linguistic variety perceived anecdotally by its speakers as sounding different from north to south Bristol (Cork, 2021), but variation in BE over geographical space remains under researched. This thesis combines a perceptual dialectology approach (Preston, 1999a) with quantitative acoustic and dialect recognition methods to provide an empirical account of the accuracy of BE speakers’ folk perceptions. To identify perceptual linguistic divisions within Bristol, informants drew on a landmark map (Lameli et al., 2009) the areas where they perceived variations of BE (Preston, 1999a). A resultant composite map elaborated with ArcGIS (Montgomery & Stoeckle, 2013), suggests a hierarchical dialect division within Bristol (Inoue, 1996; Long, 1993; Montgomery, 2007). To pinpoint vocalic acoustic cues for sub-dialect identification within BE, voice samples of sixteen speakers from these areas were analysed acoustically and statistically (Mooney, 2016) via PRAAT (Boersma & Weenink, 2018) and Rbrul (Johnson, 2009). The results indicate that place of origin of the voice samples is a significant predictor of duration, height and backing for a group of seven monophthongal and eight diphthongal vowels, distributed in close-front, central, open-mid-back, and open-back positions. To determine whether listeners could really identify the provenance of the foregoing phonetic cues (Montgomery, 2007), a multiple-choice online survey was conducted, which features the vowels that differed the most between areas according to sub-study 2. The results reveal that levels of identification were low (between 15-20%), when the correct identification was measured using specific speech from the four perceptual dialect areas as a parameter. Whereas rates of correct identification increased significantly (between 41-45%), when a north and south Bristol speech parameter was used. Thus, providing some factual basis for the hierarchical dialect division argument mentioned above, and for the locals' claims that they can distinguish between BE speakers from north and south Bristol.
Linguistic Variation in Bristol English: Folk Perception, Production, and Recognition
Ferrer Portillo, K. M. (Author). 18 Mar 2025
Student thesis: Doctoral Thesis › Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)