Not liked by all

Like T-glottaling, the use of high rising terminals seems to provoke intense disapproval in some quarters. They are often attributed to the popularity of Australian soaps, as high rising terminals are a feature of an Australian accent, but they have also been present for a considerable time in a number of UK accents – in the West Country, the North East, South Wales and Northern Ireland, for instance. Most serious research suggests television has very little influence at all on the way people pronounce English, although it has arguably had much greater impact on our vocabulary. There is, however, no consensus on why high rising terminals have become so common among young female speakers. Using a rising pitch to ask a question is a signal a speaker wants the listener to respond with an answer – to join in the conversation. Some commentators have suggested young female speakers use a high rising terminal on a declarative sentence to signal they want some form of contribution – even if only a nod of agreement, a sympathetic hmm or a sign that their audience has understood or is following their train of thought. In that case, high rising terminals are actually a symbol of a willingness to share the floor and thus a supportive, inclusive conversational tool and, as such, do not deserve to be viewed negatively.

Case study 2: Estuary English

T he “estuary” in question is that of the river Thames. The term was coined in the 1980sto identify the way features of London regional speech seemed to be rapidly spreading throughout the counties adjoining the river (especially Essex and Kent) and beyond. It is something of a misnomer, for the influence of London speech has for some time been evident well beyond the Thames estuary, notably in the Oxford- Cambridge – London triangle and in the area to the south and east of London as far as the coast. Nonetheless, the phrase “estuary English” caught the public imagination, and received considerable publicity. London-influenced speech can now be heard around three other estuaries – the Humber in the north-east, the Dee in the north-west, and the Severn in the west – at least partly because of the relatively easy rail and motorway commuting networks. With Hull, Chester and Bristol now only just over two hours from London, the morning and evening transport routes to and from the capital carry many people who speak with an accent which shows the influence of their place of work. The factors governing the spread of this variety are only partly explained by social mobility and new patterns of settlement. For example, there is the influence of radio and television, and of English media personalities who use a modified form of Cockney, after World War 2, thousands of London speakers did move to outside the city, and to the new towns which were being bui1t around the capital. Their move will have caused many to modify their accents, and their numerical presence (as well as their economic standing) may even have influenced the original residents to accommodate in their direction. Estuary English may therefore be the result of a confluence of two social trends: an up market movement of originally Cockney speakers, and a down-market trend towards “ordinary” (as opposed to “posh”) speech by the middle class.

The phenomenon, as identified in the press, has been perceived as more to do with accent than with dialect, and has been described as a continuum of pronunciation possibilities, with Cockney at one end and Received Pronunciation at the other. But the variety is distinctive as a dialect, not just as an accent, as can be seen from the following selection of features which are becoming increasingly widespread.