Harry Potter and the Different Accents

104 Pages·2013·1.3 MB·English

by  Lene Lundervold

Harry Potter and the Different
Accents
A sociolinguistic study of language attitudes in Harry
Potter and Game of Thrones.

By
Lene Lundervold

Department of Foreign Languages
University of Bergen
May 2013
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SUMMARY IN NORWEGIAN

Målet for denne oppgaven har vært å se på hvorvidt språkholdninger fremtrer i Harry Potter-
filmene og i den første sesongen av TV-serien Game of Thrones. De åtte Harry Potter-
filmene er alle adaptasjoner av J.K. Rowlings syv bøker i serien med samme navn. Den første
sesongen av Game of Thrones er en adaptasjon av den første boken i George R.R. Martins,
ikke fullførte, serie A Song of Ice and Fire. Oppgavens undertittel kan oversettes på følgene
måte: ”En sosiolingvistisk studie av språkholdninger i Harry Potter og Game of Thrones”.
Oppgaven går ut på å undersøke om det finnes et systematisk mønster mellom
karaktertrekk og uttalevarianter (”accents”) i filmene. Et av delmålene er å se om disse
mønstrene eventuelt samsvarer for både filmene og TV-serien, og om disse igjen samsvarer
med tidligere forskning på språkholdninger.
Av de underliggende hypotesene var det forventet å finne lignende språkholdninger i
både Harry Potter og i Game of Thrones med tanke på kjønn, om karakterene var sofistikerte
og sympatiske, og om de var gode eller onde. Det var også forventet å finne forskjeller
mellom de to, fordi de har forskjellige målgrupper. Harry Potter er i hovedsak rettet mot barn,
mens Game of Thrones rettet mot et mer voksent publikum. Det var også forventet å finne en
viss sammenheng mellom uttalevarianter brukt i Game of Thrones og karakterenes
geografiske tilhørighet.
Det kommer frem av resultatene at språkholdninger i stor grad er tilstede i
datamaterialet, og man ser et systematisk mønster. Når man går i detalj blir det klart at det er
forskjeller mellom menn og kvinner, og man ser at kvinner har en tendens til å bruke en mer
standardisert dialekt (Received Pronunciation). Et annet funn er at majoriteten av karakterene
som er sett på som mer sofistikerte, også snakker en standardisert britisk dialekt. En studie
som denne oppgaven i stor grad er basert på, er Rosina Lippi-Greens (1997) studie av
språkholdninger i animerte Disney-filmer. Selv om hennes studie er basert på amerikanske
aksenter, er det mulig å sammenligne noen av hovedresultatene. I Lippi-Greens studie
kommer det frem at mange av hovedkarakterene og heltene snakker en mer standardisert
dialekt enn de andre karakterene. I denne studien er vinklingen en litt annet siden ”Received
Pronunciation” er representert i alle karakterroller. Lippi-Green fant også at engelsk med
utenlandsk aksent i hovedsak ble brukt av karakterer med negative trekk. Igjen er bildet mer
nyansert i denne studien ettersom flere sofistikerte og sympatiske karakterer snakker med en
utenlandsk aksent.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost I would like to express my gratitude to my supervisor Stephanie Hazel
Wold, for taking on the project and for guiding and inspiring me throughout the course of this
year. I would also like to thank my fellow students and friends for supporting me and for
keeping me sane the last couple of months. Special thanks are due to Birte Myklebust, Espen
Morland, Maria Lima and Lars Myklebust for taking the time to read through and comment
on my paper. And also thank you to Maria Kolnes Lie and Marthe Morland for cheering me
on. I would like to thank Musikselskabet Larmonien, you are all the best group of friends I
could ask for. And last but not least, I want to thank my family for always supporting me. I
am especially thankful to my grandmother Kari Lundervold, whose advice and positive
energy mean the world to me.

Lene Lundervold, May 2013

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‘Differences of habit and language are nothing at all if our
aims are identical and our hearts are open’

- J.K Rowling, Goblet of Fire -

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TABLE OF CONTENT
SUMMARY IN NORWEGIAN ............................................................................................ iii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................................................... iv
LIST OF FIGURES: ............................................................................................................... ix
LIST OF TABLES: ................................................................................................................. ix
1 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................. 2
1.1 Aim and Scope ...................................................................................................................... 2
1.2 Why films and television series? .......................................................................................... 2
1.3 Research questions and hypotheses ...................................................................................... 3
1.4 Harry Potter and A Game of Thrones .................................................................................. 4
1.4.1 Harry Potter .................................................................................................................. 4
1.4.2 A Game of Thrones ........................................................................................................ 5
1.5 The categories studied .......................................................................................................... 6
1.6 Previous Research ................................................................................................................. 6
1.7 The structure of the thesis ..................................................................................................... 7
2 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND ..................................................................................... 9
2.1 Attitudes ................................................................................................................................ 9
2.1.1What is an attitude? ...................................................................................................... 10
2.1.2 Attitude structure ......................................................................................................... 11
2.1.3 Attitudes and behaviour ............................................................................................... 12
2.2 Attitudes to Language ......................................................................................................... 13
2.2.1 Language attitudes ...................................................................................................... 14
2.2.2 Stereotypes ................................................................................................................... 16
2.2.3 Standard language ideology ........................................................................................ 17
2.2.4 The Media .................................................................................................................... 22
2.3 Methodology ....................................................................................................................... 23
2.4 Attitudinal studies ............................................................................................................... 27
2.4.1 Societal Treatment Studies .......................................................................................... 27
2.4.2 Attitudes towards English ............................................................................................ 32
3 DATA AND METHOD ....................................................................................................... 40
3.1 Data collection .................................................................................................................... 40

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3.1.1 Written material ........................................................................................................... 40
3.1.2 Spoken material ........................................................................................................... 41
3.1.3 Character selection .......................................................................................................... 42
3.1.4 Selecting the data ......................................................................................................... 42
3.2 Linguistic categories ........................................................................................................... 43
3.2.1 Received Pronunciation (RP) ...................................................................................... 44
3.2.2 London English – Cockney .......................................................................................... 45
3.2.3 Estuary English ........................................................................................................... 45
3.2.4 West Country English .................................................................................................. 45
3.2.5. Northern English ........................................................................................................ 46
3.2.6 Scottish English ........................................................................................................... 46
3.2.7 Irish English ................................................................................................................ 47
3.2.8 Welsh English .............................................................................................................. 47
3.2.9 English with foreign accents ........................................................................................ 47
3.3 Non-linguistic categories .............................................................................................. 48
3.3.1 Character role ............................................................................................................. 48
3.3.2 Maturity ....................................................................................................................... 49
3.3.3 Gender ......................................................................................................................... 50
3.3.4 Level of sophistication ................................................................................................. 50
3.3.5 Other character traits .................................................................................................. 51
3.4 Analysis .............................................................................................................................. 52
3.4.1 Quality, not quantity .................................................................................................... 52
3.4.2 Limitations ................................................................................................................... 52
4 ANALYSIS ........................................................................................................................... 54
4.1 General overview ................................................................................................................ 54
4.1.1 Accents ......................................................................................................................... 54
4.1.2 Gender ......................................................................................................................... 55
4.1.3 Maturity ....................................................................................................................... 60
4.1.4 Level of sophistication ................................................................................................. 62
4.1.5 Other character traits .................................................................................................. 65
4.1.6 Character role ............................................................................................................. 70
4.2. Received Pronunciation ..................................................................................................... 71
4.3 Cockney .............................................................................................................................. 74

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4.4 Estuary English ................................................................................................................... 75
4.5 Northern English ................................................................................................................. 76
4.6 Scottish English .................................................................................................................. 78
4.7 Irish English ........................................................................................................................ 78
4.8 Foreign English ................................................................................................................... 79
4.9 West Country and Welsh English ....................................................................................... 81
4.10 Unidentifiable ................................................................................................................... 82
4.11 Food for thought ............................................................................................................... 82
5 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS .................................................................................. 84
5.1 Summary ............................................................................................................................. 84
5.2 Conclusions – Is there a Game of Attitudes? ..................................................................... 86
5.3 Limitations .......................................................................................................................... 90
5.4 Future research ................................................................................................................... 91
LIST OF REFERENCES ....................................................................................................... 92
FILMOGRAPHY ................................................................................................................... 95

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LIST OF FIGURES:

Figure 2.1 Status and solidarity table from Hiraga’s (2005) study……………………..33
Figure 2.2 Table with main results from Coupland and Bishop’s (2007) study………..35
Figure 2.3 The main results from Ladegaard’s (1998) verbal guise test……………….37
Figure 4.1 General overview, accents…………………………………………………..54
Figure 4.2 General accent distributions within gender…………………………………55
Figure 4.3 Gender distribution………………………………………………………….58
Figure 4.4 A comparison between children and adults in Harry Potter and
Game of Thrones...................................................................................................61
Figure 4.5 Distribution, level of sophistication………………………………………...63
Figure 4.6 Distribution of sympathetic and unsympathetic characters,
Harry Potter and Game of Thrones……………………………………………..66
Figure 4.7 Comparison of good and evil in Harry Potter and Game of Thrones………69
Figure 4.8 Distribution of character roles in Harry Potter and Game of Thrones……..70

LIST OF TABLES:

Table 4.1 General overview, accents…………………………………………………….54
Table 4.2 General gender distributions…………………………………………………..55
Table 4.3 Gender distribution, Harry Potter…………………………………………….56
Table 4.4 Gender distribution, Game of Thrones………………………………………..57
Table 4.5 Distribution, children………………………………………………………….59
Table 4.6 Distribution, adults………………………………………………………….....60
Table 4.7 Distribution, level of sophistication, Harry Potter……………………………62
Table 4.8 Distribution, level of sophistication, Game of Thrones……………………….63
Table 4.9 Distribution of sympathetic and unsympathetic characters, Harry Potter…….64
Table 4.10 Distribution of sympathetic, unsympathetic characters, Game of Thrones......65
Table 4.11 General distribution of good and evil, Harry Potter…………………………67
Table 4.12 General distribution of good and evil, Game of Thrones…………………….68

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