Giles' matched guise technique research

Giles matched guise technique

The matched guise test is a sociolinguistic experimental technique used to determine the views and feelings of people towards a certain dialect or accent.

The experiment revolves around a procedure of a variety of different students, acting as ‘judges’, listening to what they believe are different people’s accents and dialects (social and regional), and then evaluating their personal qualities solely based on their voice.       

However, they do not know that the ‘different people’ is just a single person speaking in the different accents heard. The test was executed by the listeners not able to see the speaker, therefore allowing them not to know it was the same person. This focuses on the findings that the judges solely judge the person by their accent, as the way of speaking and everything else is the same bar the accent. The topic talked about in the different accents were arguments against capital punishment – the arguments were completely identical; this allowed Giles to understand how persuasive the listeners found the speakers, despite the fact each argument was identical.

Findings

The students listening concluded that Received Pronunciation was the most impressive and influential, and the Brummie accent was the least imposing and convincing.

The information found from this technique closely matches similar research done in recent times; in 2014 a survey found that the Brummie accent was the least attractive, showing similar results are found over 40 years on.

Limitations

The judges may eventually understand midway through the recording that the ‘different speakers’ are only in fact the single person. This may lead to their results being untrue and therefore unreliable.

https://quizlet.com/5883513/english-accents-and-dialects-flash-cards/