The UK music scene

The UK music scene

In current years, a group of British pop singers with substandard accents has appeared on the UK music scene. Whereas there has been a lot of research that has been carried out on British singers that emulated the American accent, there is less debate regarding British music as well as the shift in music dialects from the optimistic to pessimistic prestige. The British and American English have several differences, and the most obvious difference is the vocabulary. Many words are very different. For instance, the front of a car in the British is referred to as bonnet and whereas in American, it is called hood. Brits in London reside in flats, whereas Americans in New York live in apartments. There is also a difference between Brit’s and American’s English in the usage of collective nouns. For the Americans, collective nouns are used in a singular form. For instance, a group of workers is called staff.

However, the collective nouns in British English can be used in either in plural or else singular forms. For instance, Brits say the team is playing now. There exist a difference between American’s and Brit’s English in terms of auxiliary verbs. For example, Brits utilize the word shall when expressing the future. Americans know the meaning of shall, but they rarely use the word during their conversations. Another difference between the American and the Brits English is in terms of the use of verbs in the past tense. For example, Americans use learned, which is the past tense of the word master. The Brits use either learned or else learned. Also, Americans tend to utilize –ed endings, whereas the Brits use –t ending. There are also some differences in terms of spelling. For example, Americans spell the word color from the word colour, labor from labor. Americans do not use letter u from the above words to make spelling match their pronunciation.

The middle part of the 20th century saw artists sing in an American accent. With the materialization of the music genre indie, various artists started singing in their home accents, indexing accuracy, position, and autonomy from big record labels. Kate Nash is the top example of a person who adopted Cockney to start her music profession and gain supporters. Kate Nash was born in a middle-class family in London by an English father and an Irish mother. Having studied at the BRIT School in south London, she learned the RP accent. Living in London made her proverbial with the cockney pronunciation and adopted it at the commencement of her career. Kate Nash was motivated by the achievement of Lily Allen, who had taken the same accent. Despite her efforts to articulate Cockney throughout, it is not the same accent in London. Specifically, Nash uses a combination of RP, Estuary English, and Cockney. Lots of people think that she is extra poshy and that her efforts to take on proper Cockney failed. By deploying numerous instances of youth language, Nash addresses young people and indexes accuracy and resistance to the consistency of popular music. This way, it is easy to acknowledge that a change of approach towards nonstandard diversity of English is happening. Besides, sociolinguistic indexically of class may become inferior and cause a geographic and communal spread of various features.

The characteristic features of cockney pronunciation in the speech of Nash are; g-dropping such as in words like talkin, enjoyin and trying as well as the glottal stops in expressions like li?e, Star?ed and recent?ly. However, Nash fails to use h-dropping, and she articulates /h/ sound in lots of terms such as head and has among others. Besides, Nash uses monophthongization partially and occasionally pronounce words in a new estuary words English way like ara?nd, aba?t a?tside among others. The same cockney features are evident in terms such as somehae, fae:nd. On the other hand, her pronunciation seems to show inconsistency in name such as whenev? And numb. Things, however, become different in enquiring about her accent on an interview.

Kate Nash is a London song writer and artist. In the year 2005, Kate Nash uploaded her first song onto MySpace and later signed to an independent label called Moshi Moshi which is based in London where she released her first song called ” Caroline is a victim”. In her first song, Nash Cockney English accent stood out and fitted very well with British artist’s wave singing with the mock dialects. Kate Nash used to be called a ‘chav’ by the British press due to her accent, but she claimed being raised well by her parents and it was too articulate for her to be called a shav. In her song called “Foundations” Nash Kate uses several phonetic characteristics in her lyrics and are distinctive of Cockney. She utilizes many vowels in her song and the vowels are mostly lowered. For example, the last –er in terms such as ‘bitter’ and ‘fitter “are pronounced with a broad Cockney that is lowered as [ɐ].

Another feature that is prominent in Nash Kate lyrics is utilization of [aʊ] in terms such as Know as well as go which is in addition a Cockney alternative. The constants that Nash Kate uses in hers song are also distinctive for Cockney intonation. For example, there exist typical T-glottalization in approximately each word in her lyrics having an intervocalic as well as ending ‘t’ such as ‘got ‘as well as ‘humiliate’, G-dropping for most phrases that conclude with the /ɪŋ/. Moreover, Kate Nash in her song also vocalizes dark/1/ in the word call and also utilizes R-labialization; for example she uses [ʋ] as alternative to /r/ in ‘boring’ as well as aggressive. Moreover, Kate does not utilize Cockney grammar in her song and in addition the term trainer and there exist no particularly Cockney terms in her lyrics “foundations”. Kate Nash intonation is very consistent, for instance, the last –er in the word bitter turns into lower [ɐ], though letter /t/ is pronounced as letter [t] as an alternative of [ʔ]. Kate Nash does not utilize h-dropping in her lyrics and she usually pronounces letter /h/ in several words she uses. For example, head and have. Kate also uses monophthongisation just partly and from time to time she pronounces the words in an estuary English manner for example ara?nd and a?tside among many others. She also uses Cockney characteristics such as somehae as well as fae:nd.

How British pop or indie music has been shown to resist American pronunciation for several sounds

There are some reasons why pronunciation is disappearing in songs and why those singing accents appear to evade to American. Mostly, the reasons are rooted in phonetics, the speed at which artist sing and articulate and the air pressure from ones vocal chords. The American pronunciation is moderately neutral. For the last 50 years, English has turned out to be extensively used in the world. One of the most distinct features of the popular culture is the materialization of pop or indie music which came from the U.S as well as the UK and still has a huge demand up to date. The youths often create and articulate identity in accordance to genres repeatedly attributed to their societal backdrop and surrounding.

British pop or indie music has been shown to resist American pronunciation for several sounds. Despite the fact that most British artists sound American, some still refuse to completely adopt the American accent. For the British, general American English was the leading range in pop music for years. America has been dominant and many British artists like Beatles and the rolling stones took on their accent in their signing. With time, the British music accent changed and there was surfacing of new British music genres such as punk and indie-rock which became grittier as compared to the pop that was dominant in the charts and repeatedly associated with lower classes. In particular, the culture of the youth saw an increasingly positive status became attributed to both local and urban language often linked to the lower lass. The change in expression of identity In British music that came after was obvious in more British accents. This to a great extent caused a peculiar occurrence. The British artist started to integrate a fake working class or local accent into their music and in so doing resulted in an overstated and sometimes false British lower-class character. With adoption of the new shift, it became hard to go back to the dominant American accent. British artists became knowledgeable and thought that singing in their own accent could as well be great and that they could as well gain fans if they expressed their feelings or songs in their own accents.

Mock accents in the British pop music come back with every new decade. However, globalization plays a most important role in the change among youths in acceptance of local accents and integration of dialect local features in RP. With the emergence of technology, it was quite easy to incorporate regional dialect into the British use of RP. Concerning indie music, the reputation of hip-hop remained constant even with emergence of many other sub-genres. The conventional achievement had an unusual outcome on these genres. This way, artists started to differentiate themselves by combination of diverse music genres but more artists. In this case the artists used class accents which were not constantly their own. This was a shift towards resisting American pronunciation for several sounds British. Pop music obtained a legality of its own which was recognized in their linguistic behavior.

Another aspect that has made the British pop or indie music resist American pronunciation for several sounds is language and class. Often with development of a certain class especially upper class, a culture is likely to shift from their traditional way of doing things to a more modern one that can distinguish them from the middle or lower classes. For instance, the British thoughts towards RP have altered over the last few years. RP was subject to change and begun to spread by the start of the 20th century when it displayed various differences. The older generation called the shift conservative and the young upper class and proficient people called it highly developed. In the same way, every British accent has been characterized in the media in current years including city, civil service and academic world. As some young speakers with local accents consider it obligatory to adapt their speech, the American one becomes extinct among the British singers. Without a doubt, many analysts propose that younger RP speakers time and again g to the level of disguising their middle-class pronunciation by integrating local features into their language.

Conclusion

Globalization along with the ensuing homogeneity of rock as well as pop music has resulted to disintegration of style, where many band attempt to curve out their identity as well as to be more different and exceptional. Artists such as Nash are advertised as indie in an era where digital insurgency has permitted indie pop and rock groups to accomplish conventional victory. Kate Nash songs are more relatable for many youthful women and that is the reason why prestige intonation low could be alleged as easily available. Mock accents found in Brits pop songs are not new and they appear to return each decade. Conversely, globalization has become the latest phenomenon, and I think it plays a very crucial role in the current change among the youth. Acceptance of local accents and occasionally evens incorporation of local dialect characteristics in rock and pop music and the reason behind this because of the call for to diversify in this globalized world, where the way of life is ever more homogenized.