Bi-accentism, translanguaging, or just a costume? Margaret Thatcher’s pronunciation and its portrayal in films as a case of sociolinguistic boundaries and ideologies

Abstract

This paper discusses the extent to which some well-known traditional notions of English language studies, above all Received Pronunciation (RP), can be considered valid in light of present-day sociolinguistics. Language and superdiversity, translanguaging and related concepts are recent approaches to the variations that can be found in speech communities. Arguably, most speakers are not static but dynamic in that their linguistic repertoires consist of many styles and registers, as well as dialects, accents and/or separate languages. Terms such as monolingual speakers, homogeneous speech communities, separate named languages and dialects, even the names of accents, can only be considered as convenient approximations. Some of the most rigidly defined concepts seem to be those related to codified or standard dialects and accents. In this article, the example analyzed to illustrate the point is a comparison of the way in which the British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, pronounced English in a Thames TV interview of 1987 and how her pronunciation was represented by two American actors: Meryl Streep in The Iron Lady (2011) and Gillian Anderson in Season 4 of The Crown (2020). The material aims to demonstrate the transcending of borders: those of RP and of individual bi- or multiaccentism.