Word list for Liverpool accent (source: Hughes et al. 2005)
Key for comparison with RP
(1) Phoneme system difference
(2) Distribution difference (different phonetic context)
(3) Incidence difference (phoneme found in different words)
(4) Realisation difference (only significant differences are flagged)
Word / RP / Liverpool / Notes1 / pit / /
2 / pet / /
3 / pat / /
4 / put / / / (1), as is typical of northern accents
5 / putt / /
6 / pot / /
7 / bee / /
8 / bay / /
9 / buy / /
10 / boy / /
11 / boot / /
12 / boat / /
13 / bout / /
14 / beer / /
15 / bear / / / (1) no distinction ~ . Realisation varies between the two. Cf working 0:37, work 0:47
16 / bird / /
17 / bard / /
18 / board / /
19 / city / /
20 / seedy / /
21 / hat / /
22 / dance / / / (3) Typical Northern front A
23 / daft / /
24 / half / / / // phoneme longer and more open/front for some speakers, so /a/~// distinction purely question of length
25 / father / /
26 / farther / /
27 / pull / /
28 / pool / / / Diphthongal for some speakers: []
29 / pole / /
30 / Paul / /
31 / doll / /
32 / cot / /
33 / caught / /
34 / fir / /
35 / fern / /
36 / fur / /
37 / fair / / / Slightly different from 36, because of juxtaposition?
38 / nose / /
39 / knows / /
40 / plate / /
41 / weight / /
42 / poor / /
43 / pour / /
44 / pore / /
45 / paw / /
46 / tide / /
47 / tied / /
48 / pause / /
49 / paws / /
50 / meet / /
51 / meat / /
52 / mate / /
Recording
Speaker: female, middle-aged, has lived in Liverpool all her life. Items in italics spoken by others.
0:00 Yeah, she’s gone to America for three weeks, so we all go sad … dead sad again next week.
0:04 She comes over … I’ll go polishing everything next week.
0:07 Oh yeah, that’s the difference.
0:09 She’s a good manager, like, isn’t she? But, er,
0:12 She’s a real Annie Walker, you know. Everything’s got to be so. She’s …
0:16 Once you get to know her, she’s great.
0:18 But you can’t drink, and you can’t have a smoke. We’re all walking round with [indistinct] and having a drink off everyone that gives us one.
0:25 [indistinct]
0:25 Yeah, we’re in charge, yeah. Oh yeah.
0:28 At least he’s, er, in charge of them all, and I’m the monitor.
0:31 I’m, er, when he’s not there, I’m in charge.
0:33 But, er, it’s… I tell you what, if she left I wouldn’t go out there.
0:37 No? Cos, you know, I do really like working for her. She’s straight, yeah,
0:40 And she trusts you, and that’s imp… that’s the main thing, like, isn’t it, you know?
0:44 That’s right yeah.
0:45 She is … she’s great. I don’t think she’s ever laughed till I went there. Yeah.
0:47 Cos as I say, when you do your work you don’t need, erm, a boss, do you? That’s what I say.
0:52 Uh uh.
0:54 You know, this … this manager’s made up.
0:56 He said, erm, he’s never co… he’ll give us the tills,
0:59 then he comes back about four o’clock, and we’ve all locked up and gone, everything for him.
1:04 He says, one thing about it, he says, “I haven’t got to stand over youse.” Only the night time, you know.
1:08 Course, where it is, on a night they have a lot of, er,
1:11 you know, some that’ll come a couple of nights, all these part-time students, and some of them, er,
1:15 got a job, and going to Spain, and,
1:18 they’ll want a few bob extra and then they just leave.
1:21 I don’t know whether they tap her till or what they do, but …
1:23 he … he has to be there for them of a night time.
1:26 Yeah, yeah.
1:27 Yeah, but it is, it’s, er,
1:29 And it’s a pub that you wouldn’t be frightened to bring anybody into, isn’t it?
1:32 Oh no.
1:33 Even from there, yeah.
1:34 We might go in tonight if we’re in town.
1:35… er yeah.
1:37 We’d be just as well in there as anywhere, wouldn’t we?
1:38 Oh well you … you say … I say “bye bye” in there, we say “tara” up here.
Things to listen out for:
Affricated stops: [x] in America, weeks (0:00), like (0:09), Walker (0:12), can’t drink, can’t smoke (0:18), walking (0:18), working (0:38), work (0:47), back (0:59) etc
[s] in great (0:16), monitor (0:28), straight [] (0:38), extra [] (1:18)
Realisation of /r/: flap medially America (0:00); for her (0:37), for him (0:59), where it (1:08);
tap or roll in great (0:16), drink (0:18), straight (0:38)
Medial /t/ realised as tap: what if (0:33), lot of (1:08), got a job (1:15), tara (1:38) (= ta-ta)
/h/ usually dropped: her (0:16), he’s (0:28), him (0:59)
From A. Hughes, P. Trudgill and D. Watt, English Accents and Dialects: An introduction to social and regional varieties of English in the British Isles. (4th edition) London (2005) Hodder Arnold