A plea for help to British English speakers
(Note to self: no getting distracted by shiny tags until you've finished your homework.)
LJ, I need help. I DESPERATELY need help. And you're the only one I can turn to.
I'm studying English at the University of Amsterdam, and am currently working on a Phonology project. My research group needs to interview native speakers of British English, and we ( Read more... )
LJ, I need help. I DESPERATELY need help. And you're the only one I can turn to.
I'm studying English at the University of Amsterdam, and am currently working on a Phonology project. My research group needs to interview native speakers of British English, and we ( Read more... )
Sex: Female
Place of residence (current and past): Currently Oldenburg, in Niedersachsen, in Germany, previously Sheffield, and Worcestershire, and Oxfordshire, and Essex (all in the UK)
Age/Age range (10-15/15-20/20-25 etc): I'm 20
Family situation (married/involved/single, living alone/with parents, children/childless, etc): Living alone, no children
Work situation (occupation, status within company; boss/employee): I'm a language assistant (English language) in a secondary school.
Have you ever heard of the terms... RP English; Oxford English; BBC pronunciation; the Queen’s English?
Yep, I've heard of all of them.
How would you describe your own accent? (e.g. rural/urban, specific to a certain geographical region, posh/coarse, formal/slang-y, etc) And if you had to point it out on a map, where would you say your accent comes from?
I'd describe it as standard English with not very much slang, although I wouldn't go so far as to say posh. It's been slightly influenced by northern English, with my pronounciation of castle, bath, grass, etc.
Do you always use the same accent? Has the way you pronounce English change at all in the course of your life?
I don't think so. I speak more slowly and use fewer colloquial expressions when talking to German students, but that's normal, I think.
Do you often use ‘tags’ at the end of a sentence (like “Heather arrived, didn't she?” “You didn’t close the door, did you?”)? And if so, why do you think you use them a lot?
I do use them a lot, probably because it sounds a bit blunt and direct just to say "Heather arrived". It opens up the possibility that I could be wrong. And that's always a strong possibility!
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Do you feel you talk different when speaking to a man than speaking to a woman? If so, why do you think this is?
Not really, to be honest. I speak to men and women in the same way, I think.
Do you/Would you ‘clean up’ your pronunciation when speaking to... (your) children? ...(your) boss? ...(your) employees/subordinates? And if so, why?
Not with my children- I'd be more likely to use slang expressions/regionalisms in that case. But in a workplace, I'd speak standard English with more careful pronounciation.
Do you/Would you ‘clean up’ your pronunciation when addressing or being addressed by a random person on the street (e.g. about the time)? Do you think you would be more conscientious about your pronuniation when this person were a man, or when this person were a woman? And why?
I would clean up my pronouncation in that case, but whether they were a man or a woman would make no difference to me.
Do you feel that a person’s accent influences other people’s judgement of that person? Do you think this is more important for men or women?
I think it does, certainly in Britain, because accent is often associated with social class and/or intelligence. I think it's more acceptable for men to speak with a strong regional accent- people are generally less inclined to make judgements about them based on their accents, whereas women often have to speak more standard English, with fewer slang terms, so that people will take them seriously.
Do you think there are different attitudes toward ‘correct’ pronunciation between men and women?
Yes, see above.
Do you feel that the pronuniation of British English has deteriorated any over the course of your life? If so, less/worse among which gender?
Depends what you mean by deteriorted, I suppose. Some Americanisms are slipping in, especially among younger people, but I haven't noticed a gender difference.
Is the dominant speaker in groups (i.e. friends, family, colleagues) more often male or female?
In my family and among my friends, it's almost always a female. Especially in my family. The men keep quiet!
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Women. I think it's less acceptable for us to swear, for example.
Do you feel any assymetry of labels and names applied to women and men? (i.e. swear words, nicknames, off-hand characterisations, when repeating the person’s name over and over again gets tiresome)
Men sometimes get called by their surname, or a variation of their surname, but that hardly ever happens with women. And there are a lot of abusive terms for a promiscious woman, but while there are terms of that kind for men, they're usually quite positive. Most insults for women seem to be based on gender (on the fact that they're women), whereas insults for men are a bit broader.
When someone says: “A child goes to school when he is six years old.”, do you think of a boy or a girl?
A boy. I'd consider that sentence quite old-fashioned.
Similarly, when someone says: “Man should not eat too many chocolate cakes.”, do you think of a woman or man?
A man. I'd only use 'man' in the sense of 'humankind' in a very restricted context- 'since the beginning of time, man has...', and so on.
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‘He’ or ‘man/’men’ often gets used to refer to people in general, or mixed groups which include women. Animals are also standardly referred to as ‘he’. What would you think of introducing a new word for people, creatures or groups the gender of which is either unknown, ambiguous or mixed? (e.g. gender-neutral pronouns, like ‘hir’, ‘ze’, ‘xe’)
I'm not a fan of it, although I support the reasons behind it. I don't think you can do that to language- force a pronoun into everyday speech. I've never heard anyone use those words in spoken English, and although I've seen them in written English, it always sounds quite awkward to me.
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Theoretically speaking, the links should work now... wanna give those a go?
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1 A
2 D
3 E
4 C
5 B
I had some trouble understanding the Cornish one- I'd never heard anything like it and it sounded a bit American to me! I still liked it because I found it interesting. Also had some trouble understanding the Northumberland one, partly due to the accent itself, and partly as the recording was a little quiet. The Harrow one was my least favourite- he sounded quite bored and a little arrogant.
1 C
2 D
3 B
4 F
5 E
6 A
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