Northern England English

These are the accents and dialect spoken north of the midlands, in cities like Manchester, Leeds, and Liverpool. Related accents also found in rural Yorkshire, although there are some unique dialect features there that I won’t get into now.

Features:

• The foot-stut merger: (see the Midlands description above).

• Non-rhoticity, except in some rural areas.

• The dipthong in words like kite and ride is lengthened so that kite can become something like IPA ka:ɪt (i.e. it sounds a bit like “kaaaait”)

• Unique vocab includes use of the word mam to mean mother, similar to Irish English.

Speech Samples:

http://dialectblog.com/british-accents/

Scottish English

The Scottish variant of English differs from RP……. Internetic

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_English

phoneticayi tetra mej

http://www.scots-online.org/grammar/sse.htm or

http://www.scots-online.org/index.asp?Title=Wir%20Ain%20Leed&Nav=contents&Folder=wir%20ain%20leed&File=sse

ogtvel es texeric

Jenkins, J. 2007. English as a Lingua Franca: Attitude and Identity. Oxford: OUP

Crystal, D.2003. English as a Global Language. 2^nd edn. Cambridge: CUP

 

English as a Global Language

English is a West German language that was first spoken in England and is now the most widely used language in the world. When the human population grew, their need for certain things grew also. Which made them create a means of communication and this has led to the language being formed and has been transmitted from generation to generation. This essay shall critically discuss the way in which English as a world spoken language could be seen as a killer language in the context of South Africa. There are theories which could explain when language first appeared. Firstly, language appeared through anthropological remains, and evidence could be deduced from abrupt technological changes which was explored by Noam Chomsky (1986). Secondly the evolution of speech apparatus, gestural mode and the brain could be the second study. This study explored further by Corballis (2002). Everything people do when they come together, whether they play or fight, they talk. Welive in a world of language; however the English language has become a global language used to connect the world on a global scale. Because English is so widely spoken, it has often been referred to as a "world language", the lingua Franca of the modern era (Graddol, 1997). Lingua Franca is an existing common language used for communication between speakers of different languages, but speaking one common language which is the case in South Africa. English is also one of the 11 official languages that are given equal status in South Africa Many people claim

that “English was systematically spread by the British and the Americans with the

help of language planning policies, in order to maintain a certain indirect control over postcolonial

countries” (Mair, 2002:165). Therefore English becomes a language of the

 colonizers and has thepossibility to make other languages become extinct if everyone was to speak it. The English languagecould also prevent South Africa from independent political and cultural development which in turn

threatens people‟s local culture,

 life and identity.However, many people may dispute that when one fully knows the English language, they can speakand be understood by others who know the language. However the English writing system is illogicalGeorge Bernard Shaw deduced the notion that there is no one to one relationship between speechand written form in English. Therefore, this makes it very hard for many second language speakers tofully grasp the language. Psycholinguistics explore the relationship between the human mind andlanguage. For example, how the individual speaker acquires language and the patterns of linguisticbehavior across large groups of speakers. There are two central goals in this field, firstly one needsto understand the processes underlying the system that we call language and secondly to examinelanguage as a product of the human mind.

There are many varieties of the language because of its spread “this worldwide expansion of English

means that it is now one of the most widely spoken languages in the world, with well over four

hundred million native speakers, and roughly the same number who speak it as a second language”

(Barber, 1993:2

36). While it‟s possible that

miscommunication due to ignorance of people learning

other people‟s languages has been a

 driving force of wars. However, having an internationallanguage is not the solution. The entire concept of everyday reality is shaped around language. IfEnglish is the world language, it could destroy the cultural differences that make the world sointeresting, reducing the vibrant inheritance of South African cultures. This means that this

“increasing use of the English language globally has had a large impact on many other languages,

 

leading to language shift and even language death” (Crystal, 2000). I

f one speaks multiple languages,they tend to see things in many angles. The different languages have shaped who we are, ourhistory, our heritage, our culture, our identity as South Africans. Therefore, we do not need onelanguage when we can have many.Although languages differ in their colour words, speakers can readily perceive colours that are notnamed in their language. In many South African languages there are a few colour words, namely forblack and white or dark and light. However, in English there is a name for almost all colors in the

universe. In experimental studies “speakers of a language were able to learn to recognize the colour

red. This would not be possible if their colour perceptions were fixed by their language. Ourperception of colour is determined by the structure of the human eye, not by the structure of

language” (Fromkin, 2007:27). This could also show that English is not the only language of

communication and that people that speak different language are able to understand each other byusing other methods. The language one speaks does not determine their thinking abilities. One could

deduce that there are no primitive languages “all languages are equally complex and equally capable

of expressing any idea. The vocabulary of any language can be expanded to include new words for

new concepts” (Fromkin, 2007:28). Therefore the English language is not unique from otherlanguages. The problem with English is that many „people abandon their language in favour of some

other language seen a

s more prestigious or more useful‟ (Trask, 1994:69).

Linguistic insecurity is when people are insecure and conscious of the way they speak. They often tryto improve their accents and pronunciation. Many are conscious of being observed or analyzed. Thisis often present in the English language and it becomes a problem when people strive to suchextents due to the stereotypes around English. It is often associated with power, status and beingthe language of the elite class. Many people may judge one's intelligence or make speculations

about a person from the way they speak, for example “

what's one and one and one and one and one

and one and one and one and one and one?” “I don‟t know” said Alice. “I lost count”. “She can‟t doaddition,” the Red Queen interrupted” (Carrol,L).

In the South African English language, there is a constant monophonization of consonants, forexample, one

may say „Ranbear‟ instead of „Randburg‟ or an „I‟ is pronounced as „Ah‟. South

African English speakers have many different accents, which often signal the speaker's home or

mother tongue language. Mother tongue languages are an important part of an individual‟s sense

of self. There is a huge influence of mother tongue languages in South African English. Many peopletend to grossly exaggerate and emphasize on the last words in a sentence. Therefore, there shouldbe exceptions to the English language because not everybody speaks the way they write. One needsto be flexible and dynamic with language. Pronunciation and accents are a few problems in theEnglish language. Everybody should be free to speak English without the fear of being judged,misunderstood or ridiculed, because everybody has a threshold of tolerance and not everyone canspeak the same.A second language is beneficial. It has been shown that learning a second language improvesacademic performance across all subjects. Also, it provides broader cultural literacy in addition toaccess to a better variety of people. If English becomes the only global language, it puts a threat tomany other languages which are not recognized on the same scale. There are many endangeredlanguages in the world which are becoming extinct because of English. Many languages in South

 

Africa are undergoing gradual death, extinction for example TshiVenda, SeTsonga, the Nguni, KhoiSan and Sesotho languages. They are being replaced by English. Many South Africans do not want tobe heard speaking their African languages. They do not engage in general conversation, even in theirhomes using their mother tongue languages. We are living in a society where grandchildren cannothave a proper conversation with their grandparents because none of them speak the same

language. Many South Africans typically remain monolingual and the “children are only taug

ht the

dominant language at school and no longer are instructed how to speak their native tongue”

(McMahon, 1994:391). Their grandparents probably speak a pure African language and do notunderstand much of the Standard English spoken by the monolingual ge

neration. However “it‟s

dangerous to extrapolate or to prophesy, and none of us can guess what the English language will be

like in a hundred years‟ time. The changes of recent decades suggest what forces are at work in the

language today and the likely shape of things in the next few decades, but the history of the

language in the coming century will depend on the history of the community itself” (Barber,

1993:277).Lastly linguists do not make judgement, they describe. Therefore the English language was sociallychosen to become a world standard language. It is a codified form of a language accepted by mostcommunities. South Africa does not have a standard language. One cannot ignore the fact thatEnglish as a global language is able to connect human beings to work and understand each otherbetter. Even though English is a superstrate language, it puts a major threat on the dying languagesin South Africa and many other countries in the world. In conclusion a child enters the world with aclean slate and contains no ideas about the world or language. The child is then slowly conditionedby the environment. Many parents in South Africa speak English and therefore their children acquirethe same language as they grow up. However, one may realize that every South African home needsto aim to teach their children a minimum of two languages, so that we could preserve the beautiful

and many languages in our country. Therefore English shouldn‟t be the global language. Neithershould any other language. The world doesn‟t n

eed a global language but needs more culturalexchange and less cultural imperialism. English should be considered a neutral language whichenables different societies to communicate with each other without assimilating the secondlanguage or any other languages.

Written By: Zukiswa Mashigo

http://www.academia.edu/7605779/English_as_a_Global_Language_-_Essay

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingua_franca

choose what I need for bibliography

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scots_language

http://grammar.about.com/od/rs/g/ScottishEnglishterm.htm

http://www.clan-duncan.co.uk/lingo.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_English

http://www.fonetiks.org/notessco.html

http://www.scots-online.org/grammar/sse.asp

(Jim Miller, "Scottish English: Morphology and Syntax." http://www.atlas.mouton-content.com/secure/generalmodules/varieties/unit0000/virtualsession/vslessons/miller.pdf