VOCALIC SYSTEM OF THE NORTH-EASTERN DIALECT OF ENGLAND WITHIN THE PERIOD OF 1990-2000

The article presents the experimental study results of the specificity of the deviations in the vocalic system registered in the pronunciation of the English north-eastern dialect speakers within the period of 1990-2000 years. With the regard to the current tendencies of including dialect not only to the scope of geographic dialectology but also to the scope of sociolinguistics, as well as aiming to provide the detailed study of functionality characteristics of any dialect and the north-eastern dialect of England as a such it was decided to analyse the vocalic system present in the speech of the local men and women who represent different socio-cultural level within the period of 1990-2000. Moreover, it was proven that the period of 1990-2000 is crucial for the development of the dialect under study, since the end of the XXth century witnessed major changes in the development of the society.The nomenclature of segmental units of the north-eastern dialect vocalic system was determined by means of auditory and comparative analyses of segmental phonetic units’ deviations from the orthoepic norm of the English language. The article also presents the percentage rates of the mentioned deviations actualizations as well as gives a graphical interpretation of the quantitative relation between the specific types of deviations in the vowel system and the speakers’ socio-cultural level (high, middle, low) and their sex (the speakers were represented by females and males in the age from 16 to 80 years old). The formed frequency rate matrixes of such deviations show that the social changes which took place in the Northern East of England within the period of 1990-2000 strongly influence the tendency shift of speech standardization among speakers with high and middle socio-cultural levels.