Accents in the Historical Period Drama Television Series Downton Abbey, Focusing on H-Dropping and T-Glottalisation

Seminar paper from the year 2017 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1,0, University of Augsburg, language: English, abstract: This paper will analyze the various accents in the historical period drama television series Downton Abbey created by Julian Fellowes. The main research question is whether the social class of the series’ characters is reflected in their accents and how these accents mirror their personality. To do so, this study will primarily analyze t-glottalization and h-dropping. I predict that a character’s social class will become apparent through their accent which also relates back to their personality. The paper will begin with a short theoretical background on how social class and language are linked before giving a brief overview of Downton Abbey and how social class plays a major role in this series. It will then give an overview of features that distinguish class accents, focusing on differences between Received Pronunciation and Northern English accents as Downton Abbey is set in the north. Afterwards, previous research on social class in film by Hodson will be illustrated. Next the methodology and the analysis will follow. First the accents of the two characters Daisy and Mary will be compared by counting the frequency of t-glottalization and h-dropping and the results will be examined. Afterwards, I will look at the same features in Mr. Carson’s pronunciation and interpret the results. Finally I will summarise the findings of this paper.