| Budget Amount *help |
¥3,440,000 (Direct Cost: ¥3,200,000、Indirect Cost: ¥240,000)
Fiscal Year 2007: ¥1,040,000 (Direct Cost: ¥800,000、Indirect Cost: ¥240,000)
Fiscal Year 2006: ¥800,000 (Direct Cost: ¥800,000)
Fiscal Year 2005: ¥1,600,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,600,000)
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| Research Abstract |
This three years' research into Estuary English in the UK has looked at EE from the phonological, phonetic and sociolinguistic points of view, as well as under the aspects of prescriptivism and the social psychology of RP, which is still regarded as the standard of British English pronunciation in many environments.
Discussions of the new variety Estuary English (whose existence as a distinct variety is suggested by the existence of the popular name) and its status and significance have led to the conclusion that EE exists between RP and Cockney and is serving as a bridge between the various classes in SE England. So, for instance, upper class speakers can move 'down market' from RP towards Cockney (by adopting some, but not all the features of Cockney) and Cockney speakers can move 'upmarket' towards RP, discarding certain Cockney features and retaining ers.
An interesting aspect is that EE seems to be pushing out the traditional accents (of Kent, Surrey, Sussex, Hampshire, Essex etc). It is shown that most young people in the SE now speak a version of EE-presumably because it is an urban and not a rural accent and lends them 'street cred'. As the regional accents of the Southeast indeed reveal a weaker presence of old regional variants, it is plausible that the levelling tendencies are at work.
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