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James Howard
Lives: Splott, Cardiff
Time lived in area: More than 10 years
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James tells us what influenced him to use strong language and why he trys not to swear now.
Language of interview: English
Duration: 01:30 (mins/secs)
The participants were asked to describe how they spoke in their own words.
How do you describe your accent: "Good."
Have there been other influences on the way you speak: Not Given
Do you have skills in languages other than English?: No
Other languages: None
JAMES: I don't think, I don't think that swearing is really appropriate, do you know what I mean? I used to live on my own for a while, and I was into all hip-hop and crime and drugs and all that stuff, and I moved back into my parent's house after a while, a good while, and when I moved back in I stopped, I stopped doing the things I was doing. And I can see now the people I used to mix with, and who I used to associate with and I just think, where are they going - they got all this ghetto gangster wannabes an' that and I just think, I think, what are they doing with their lives an' that, do you know what I mean? I think it's pathetic, I really do. I think the American influence especially an' it's not racist, but the Black American influence is just, is just taking over with all the influence of the music, it's all drugs and crime and everything and I know that it used to influence me. And now I've sorted myself out, I feel much better with myself now, there I'm much happier. Because I do, I don't try to swear, it used to come out natural - she was saying, like it would come out in a sentence, every other word and I wouldn't think about it, now i don't swear now - I don't try, I try not to swear, I think it's... I just gotta say like my Nan she's like 76, 77 years old and she swears a lot more than most of the teenagers, like the boys that I used to mess around with, she's really, really bad like. CATHERINE: Is she the Cockney one? JAMES: Yeah, and I got most of my swear words off her - her vocabulary, as you said, she hasn't got many words - she fills in the gaps with her swearing!
Jonnie Robinson, Curator, English accents and dialects, British Library Sound Archive, writes
James's accent is an intriguing combination of traditional and modern Cardiff features. Listen, for instance, to the way he pronounces the vowel sounds in words in the following four sets: I, while, crime, lives, myself, try and like; don't, appropriate, know, own, associate, going, ghetto, over, know, old and most; drugs, stuff and come and pointless and boys. These sounds can be heard among speakers of all ages in Cardiff and indeed unite many speakers across south-east Wales.
He also uses a number of traditional features associated with connected speech that are typical of many speakers in this part of the country. Listen, for instance, to the way he omits the <t> sound in the words that, not, lot and got in the following statements: all that stuff; it's not racist; she swears a lot more than most of the teenagers; I, like, got most of my swear words off her and she hasn't got many words. This deletion of <t> occurs in a number of other cases, such as can't and don't and phrases like it's not and that's right.
On the other hand his speech is also characterised by two features that have only recently been noted in Cardiff speech and thus restricted to younger speakers: T-glottaling and TH-fronting. T-glottaling refers to the substitution of a glottal stop for a <t> sound between vowels or at the end of a word. Listen to the way James pronounces the words ghetto and the phrase better, for instance. This is a feature that's age-specific, rather than characteristic of a particular accent and it can be heard among younger speakers the length and breadth of the UK. Intriguingly it seems to arouse widespread disapproval in some circles, 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.
TH-fronting - the pronunciation of <th> as a sound in words like thing or as a sound in words like brother - currently also receives a great deal of comment. Listen to the way James pronounces the words think, things, with, everything and other here. TH-fronting has been a feature of London speech for a long time but it certainly appears to be on the increase among younger speakers in a number of urban areas across Great Britain - it hasn't yet been reported in Ireland - and rather like T-glottaling, it's an extremely stigmatised feature.
Some people suggest the spread of features such as T-glottaling and TH-fronting is evidence that younger speakers are beginning to sound identical across the whole of the UK. This is, of course, exaggerated, as James clearly uses sufficient localised pronunciations for us to be able to identify him as a speaker from south-east Wales. Just as many speakers with a variety of English accents are united by their shared tendency to drop the 's in words like house and happy, some features may eventually be national rather than local characteristics, but other aspects of accent - particularly perhaps vowel sounds, intonation and rhythm - will remain specific to a particular geographic location.
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