Comparison of the Welsh Accent in Comedy and Real Life

Our study identified differences between the Welsh accent in real life and comedy, studying Welsh actor Rob Brydon’s spontaneous speech in an informal interview, and scripted speech for his Welsh character Bryn West in a comedic television series; allowing us to explore differences between the conventional features of the Welsh accent.After carrying out background research, we decided to investigate voiced alveolar taps and trills, the use of the /i:/ phoneme as a final vowel in words which end with the /j/ phoneme, omitting of /h/ at the start of words and /g/ at the end, and elongating of vowels. We then transcribed both clips multiple times, identifying features of the Welsh accent we found in our research. As expected, our results found that when playing character Bryn,Brydon emphasised conventional Welsh features of spoken language. When pronouncing ‘r’, Brydon trilled and tapped the sound 73% of times in the scripted speech, but 0% of times in the spontaneous speech. Similarly, in the comedic context, Brydon elongated 15 vowels, and in spontaneous speech only 5 vowels. However, when acting as Bryn, Brydon omitted 33% of /h/ phonemes, and 75% of /g/, but interestingly in his natural speech he /h/ dropped 80%, and /g/ dropped 100% of times. Arguably, this could be due to the informal nature of the interview, however as he tended to exaggerate his Welsh accent in the comedy show, it can be concluded that regional accents can be found essentially, as funny. 

As a group we all worked together with enthusiasm and interest, resulting in few problems arising. In our first meeting members volunteered to take on responsibilities. Anouschka researched and selected the appropriate clip of Brydon’s spontaneous speech, and transcribed the script. Thus, Anouschka took responsibility of the researcher and transcriber, according to Belbin’s team role descriptions contributed as the ‘coordinator’, clarifying what the team should accomplish by set deadlines and delegating work effectively. Sophie also acted as researcher, finding the clip of Brydon’s scripted character to analyse, contributing qualities of the ‘plant’, gathering group ideas and results and creating the presentation. I also transcribed, listening to the clip of scripted speech to make an initial, then more detailed transcription, recording features found in the clip. I served as ‘Monitor Evaluator’, accurately judging which feature Brydon was using in the transcript. Jen also took role of researcher, exploring the background research we needed to carry out our study, therefore took role of ‘Resource Investigator’, exploring the best research materials to base our study upon, and effectively communicating this to the group. Eloise upheld both responsibilities of secretary and manager, organizing group meetings and contributing to the production of our presentation. Every member of the group acted as implementers and team-workers, taking action of the transcribing, and practicalities of how we used our time as a group. We sometimes struggled to meet due to uncontrollable circumstances, however we created a group conversation which solved this issue and kept the group informed.