Lauren Waring's English Language Blog

Neulip & Speten-Hansen (2013) James Neuliep and Kendall Speten-Hansen hypothesised that there would be significant negative correlations between ethnocentrism and the way speakers with non-native accents are socially perceived. To test this, they recruited 93 male and female undergraduate students and randomly assigned 46 of them to an experimental group and 47 to a control group. All participants were native speakers of English. In the experiment, participants in both groups completed a Generalized Ethnocentrism scale test to see how ethnocentric they were. Then, both groups watched a video of the same male speaker talking for 12 minutes about a non-controversial topic – the benefits of exercise. The videos were identical in every way except for the accent of the speaker. In the film viewed by the experimental group, the speaker had a non-native accent, and in order to try and reduce stereotypical judgments, this accent was left ambiguous, with no detectable regiona...

Howard Giles Researched a range of situations and speakers focusing on perceptions of and attitudes to accents. ‘Matched-guise’ technique = Giles often asked participants to listen to the same speaker using a range of different accents and then pass judgement on each one. 1973 – British teenagers presented with the same speech arguing against the death penalty, in different accents. They were more likely to value the argument and the content if the speaker used a more prestigious accent. 1975 – perception of RP and the Birmingham accent by two groups of 17 year olds. Same speaker spoke about psychology: once in RP and once in the Birmingham accent. The teenagers rated the RP speaker higher in terms of competence and intelligence Possible criticisms of this technique: Listeners could realise that the various speakers are all the same person Dolisteners express their true feelings or what they think they should say Encourages stereotyp...

Elements of an opinion article Controversial headlines Colloquial Statistics (sound credible) First person Link to news story Higher order lexical choices (unequivocally) Anaphora Minor sentenes for impact (not so)

Rating the accent 1. RP Trustworthy:3 Educated?:8 Friendliness:4 2.Somerset Trustworthy:9 Educated?:5 Friendliness:10 3.Birmingham Trustworthy:5 Educated?:4 Friendliness:4 4.Newcastle Trustworthy:6 Educated?:6 Friendliness:8

come from migration Bradford Asian English, Multicultural London English Multi cultural London English swept across the country. Most common in East London South Asian, Cockney and Estuary roots Used by people with fewer opertunities They don't see it as slang its just how they speak Picked up from young age Popular with people with English as their second language Like an identity

Rhyming Slang: U.K.'s Poetry of the Proletariat Goes Pop https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/04/0414_040414_britneyspears.html 1. Evaluate the idea in the article that the media has played an important role. The media has played a large role in spreading the popularity of cockney rhyming slang with TV shows such as "Only Fools and Horses" and "Minder" using said language and making it popular with the audience therefore influencing people to use it in their day to day language. 2. The article refers to people becoming more 'mobile'. Why do you think this could be a contributory factor? People become more mobile contributes to the spreading of cockney rhyming slang as people moving from the East End to other parts of the country will continue to use that language and use it when talking to people who will then start to use it and spread it and so forth. 3. The article states that teenagers use language to give them 'a sense of be...

Londoners baffled by Cockney rhyming slang http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/9172137/Londoners-baffled-by-Cockney-rhyming-slang.html This article from the Telegraph details the recent studies that revealed most Londoners are now unaware of many of the most common cockney rhyming slang phrases such as "donkeys ears" (which means years) and apples and pears (stairs). The author of the article suggests that this is because when cockney rhyming slang first came around it was a way of discussing private topics but now that everyone knows what the slang means they no longer need top use it.

Discourse structure is shown in the four bullet points at the top of the advert, the noun phrases "Helpful staff" and "Community information" makes the library feel friendly an puts a positive outlook on it making people want to visit. The adjective "free" makes it appear accessible to everyone, including the elderly which is shown in the graphology of the image of the old man. The image also appears to match the target audience who are elderly people looking to find infomation.