A "Welsh Accent" of English

[Kathryn Remlinger]

Hi all,

I received the following posting and thought you and students might be interested:

 ‘Welsh accent’ of English

I write  from the University of Glamorgan (in South Wales) to say that we have just made  freely available on the web a description of a ‘Welsh accent’ of English,  specifically a study of the phonology of Rhondda Valleys  English. Such ‘Valleys accents’ are heard across a large area of  South Wales and for outsiders form perhaps the  stereotypical ‘Welsh accent’. The study and its recordings can be accessed via  the University of  Glamorgan website www.glam.ac.uk/research (under  Research Areas A-Z), or directly at www.glam.ac.uk/rhondda-accent .

The study  comprises a condensed version of my 1999 doctoral thesis ‘A study of the segmental and  supra-segmental phonology of Rhondda Valleys English’. It contains sound-clips  illustrating the different sounds (consonants and vowels) and prosodic features  of the accent, together with an archive containing transcriptions and an entire  set of recordings. The study could be of interest to staff or students  researching into World Englishes, Celtic Englishes, phonology / phonetics, or  intonation / prosody.

The  archive of recordings might also interest students of Welsh social history,  since the coal-mining Valleys of South Wales used to be well known for their  close community life, characterised by strong trade-unionism and socialism, by  sporting prowess (producing a stream of famous boxers & rugby players) and  by chapel life and Welsh culture (eisteddfodau, choirs etc). The recordings were  made, sadly, not long after the last of the coal-mines had been shut down and  communities in the Rhondda were suffering the tragic  consequences of economic depression.

If there  is any ‘academic’ feedback from the research I would be glad to receive it via  email to my home rod at jrwalters.co.uk (I  have retired from full-time lecturing). For any technical queries *  difficulties in down-loading etc *  please contact the University direct as indicated on the web-site.

Please feel free to forward  this message on to any other people in  your university, or to people elsewhere in the  USA, that you  think might find the resource useful.


Yours  faithfully,

Rod  Walters

17 Avenue Crescent,  Abergavenny, Monmouthshire, South Wales NP7 7DE (Tel +44 (0)1873  854404)
School of Humanities,  University of Glamorgan, Pontypridd, CF37 1DL (jrwalter at glam.ac.uk

Kathryn Remlinger, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of English: Linguistics
Grand Valley State University
Allendale, Michigan
tel: 616-331-3122
fax: 616-331-3430

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org