This paper investigates the use of local accent and dialect features in the performance of Arctic Monkeys, a very successful indie band from Sheffield in the north of England. Previous work on variation in the sung pronunciation of British pop musicians by Trudgill (1983) and Simpson (1999) is reviewed. A qualitative analysis of an Arctic Monkeys performance is carried out to determine the extent to which features of northern and/or more specifically Sheffield English are used by Arctic Monkeys. The results are then discussed within a language-ideological framework, where it is argued that Arctic Monkeys are using features of local accent and dialect to index values such as authenticity and independence from the corporate machine.
Agha, Asif.2003. The social life of cultural value. Language and Communication23. 231-273.
2.
Barton, Laura.2005. The question: Have the Arctic Monkeys changed the music business?Guardian, 25 October. http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2005/oct/25/popandrock.arcticmonkeys (13 January, 2009).
3.
Beal, Joan C.2008. English dialects in the North of England: Morphology and syntax. In Bernd Kortmann & Clive Upton (eds.), Varieties of English 1: The British Isles, 373-403. Berlin, Germany: Mouton de Gruyter
4.
Bell, Allan.1984. Language style as audience design. Language in Society13(2). 145-204.
5.
Coupland, Nikolas.1988. Dialect in use: Sociolinguistic variation in Cardiff English . Cardiff, UK: University of Wales Press.
6.
Coupland, Nikolas.2007. Style: Language variation and identity. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press .
7.
Coupland, Nikolas.2008. The discursive framing of phonological acts of identity: Welshness through English. In Janina Brutt-Griffler & Catherine Evans Davies (eds.), English and ethnicity, 19-48. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
8.
Giles, Howard & Philip Smith.1979. Accommodation theory: Optimal levels of convergence . In Howard Giles & Robert N.St. Clair (eds.), Language and social psychology, 45-65. Oxford , UK: Blackwell.
9.
Habeshaw, Trevor.2006. Letters. Guardian, 22 April, Weekend comment & features, 14. http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2006/apr/22/weekend7.weekend1 (18 May 2009).
10.
Jones, Mark.2002. The origin of definite article reduction in northern English dialects. English Language and Linguistics6. 325-346.
11.
Kerswill, Paul.2003. Dialect levelling and geographical diffusion in British English. In David Britain & Jenny Cheshire (eds.), Social dialectology: In honour of Peter Trudgill, 223-243. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
12.
Le Page, Robert B. & Andrée Tabouret-Keller.1985. Acts of identity: Creole-based approaches to language and ethnicity. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
13.
Milroy, Lesley.2000. Two nations divided by the same language (and different language ideologies). Journal of Linguistic Anthropology9(1). 1-34.
14.
Milroy, Lesley.2004. Language ideologies and linguistic change. In Carmen Fought (ed.), Sociolinguistic variation: Critical reflections, 161-177. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
15.
Morrissey, Franz A.2008. Liverpool to Louisiana in one lyrical line: Style choice in British rock, pop and folk singing. In Miriam A. Locker & Jürg Strässler (eds.), Standards and norms in the English language, 195-218 . Berlin, Germany: Mouton de Gruyter .
16.
Oxford EnglishDictionary, 2d edn. 1989. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
17.
Petridis, Alex.2006. Review of Arctic Monkeys Whatever you say I am, that’s what I’m not. Guardian, 13 January, 10.
18.
Silverstein, Michael.1976. Shifters, linguistic categories and cultural description . In Keith H. Basso & Henry A. Selby (eds.), Meaning in anthropology, 11-55. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.
19.
Simpson, Paul.1999. Language, culture and identity: With (another) look at accents in pop and rock singing. Multilingua18(4). 343-367.
20.
Stoddart, Jana, Clive Upton & John D. A. Widdowson.1999. Sheffield dialect in the 1990s: Revisiting the concept of NORMS. In Paul Foulkes & Gerard Docherty (eds.) Urban voices: Accent studies in the British Isles, 72-89. London: Arnold.
21.
Trudgill, Peter.1983. Acts of conflicting identity: The sociolinguistics of British pop-song performance. In Peter Trudgill (ed.), On dialect: Social and geographical perspectives , 141-160. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.
22.
Wales, Katie.2000. North and South: An English linguistic divide? English Today16(1). 4-15.
23.
Wales, Katie.2006. Northern English: a social and cultural history . Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
24.
Watt, Dominic & Lesley Milroy.1999. Patterns of variation in Newcastle vowels: Is this dialect levelling? In Paul Foulkes & Gerard Docherty (eds.), Urban voices: Accent studies in the British Isles, 25-46. London: Arnold.
25.
Whomersley, Derek.1981. Sheffieldish: A beginner’s phrase-book. Sheffield, UK: City of Sheffield Publicity Department .
