A Sociophonetic Analysis of American Theater Speech as Exemplified by Katherine Hepburn's Filmography
Date
2014
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Swarthmore College. Dept. of Linguistics
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Thesis (B.A.)
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en_US
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Abstract
This thesis focuses on the phonetic features of the so-called Theater Speech, a cultivated accent
that was considered standard for North American actors in the 1930s and 1940s. While there has
been extensive research on the phonetics of many regional dialects of English, the accents used
in performances are often overlooked by linguists. As an accent designed for the purpose of
performances, Theater Speech presents an excellent opportunity for linguists to study the
phonetic features of a cultivated accent and the sociolinguistic influences that shaped it.
I will begin this thesis with an exploration of the history, usage, perception of Theater
Speech and related research. I will also provide a brief introduction of Katharine Hepburn, the
speaker whose speech exemplifies Theater Speech, as well as the films I chose for the analysis.
Then, I will describe my methods for data collection and analysis. In the results section, I will
examine the phonetic features of Hepburn's pronunciation and analyze Theater Speech's
relationship with General American English, with cultivated speech in New England, and with
the British Received Pronunciation at the time. My findings show that Theater Speech has many
similarities to Received Pronunciation and the cultivated Eastern New England dialects. I will
conclude the thesis by offering some explanations to the development and perception of Theater Speech from a sociolinguistic perspective, and try to make a case that the changes in the
perceived prestige status of the cultivated speech of Eastern New England caused the changed perception of Theater Speech.