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Talk: ‘You’ve changed your tune: ‘introducing’ a traditional feature of the York(shire) dialect’

Posted on 6 May 2022

Linguistics talk at the Pint of Science Festival 2022

Prof. Sam Hellmuth (Department of Language and Linguistic Science) will take part in this year’s Pint of Science Festival (9-11 May 2022)’s The World As We Know It session, presenting a lecture entitled ‘You’ve changed your tune: ‘introducing’ a traditional feature of the York(shire) dialect’.

Pint of Science is a grassroots non-profit organisation that has grown astronomically over the last few years. The event series aims to provide a space for researchers and members of the public alike to come together, be curious, and chat about research in a relaxed environment outside of mysterious laboratories or daunting dark lecture theatres.

You’ve changed your tune: ‘introducing’ a traditional feature of the York(shire) dialect by Prof Sam Hellmuth

Intonation patterns form a large part of how we characterise regional accents and dialects, and it is not hard to think of dialects that meet the description of having ‘special’ or ‘sing song’ intonation. In this talk my goal is to persuade you that there is a distinctive rise-fall intonation pattern which is used in consistent ways by some York speakers, but not all. I’ll be looking for some audience participation in a mini-experiment to help work out who uses the rise-fall, and why.

To read more about this year’s Pint of Science Festival and to book your place: Pint of Science Festival (9-11 May 2022)’s The World As We Know It