Standard spoken English

Kooyeen

Some native speakers understand several varieties pretty easily, while others have trouble understanding very different dialects. It depends.

Yes; the most that Smith (1992) could reasonably conclude was that, interestingly, the native speakers (from Britain and the US) he had selected were not found to be the most easily understood, nor were they, the native speakers he had selected, as subjects, found to be the most able to understand the different varieties of English that he presented them with.

MrP

 

Anonymous

Why would it be false?

Because I can't be sure. First, I am not a native speaker. Second, I don't understand English the way I'd like to, not yet. Therefore, I can't know how a native speaker perceives English in general. It's something I've always wanted to know though. I wanted to post a video of a guy talking in the strongest southern accent I've ever heard, to see how natives speakers understood him, but there is too much inappropriate language in it, so I doubt I'll ever post it here. Then I remember seeing another video, Scottish accent this time. I basically didn't understand anything the first time I watched it, but later on, the second time, I was able to understand more. And what about songs? It's often impossible for me to understand, and I usually mishear a lot of things... especially in rock songs.

So my understanding is still limited, and I can't know how a native feels about their own language, and what they actually understand. I've never liked statistics very much, especially when they involve such subjective issues, so I usually never want to believe everything someone says, without at least a reasonable explanation. I would expect native speakers who travel a lot to be able to understand different accents better than those who have always lived in the same place, work in a field eight hours a day, and rarely watch TV... just as a sensible thought. But what could I say in general? Nothing...

Anonymous

So, looking towards an truly international lingua franca, many native speakers would be poorly equipped to deal with such, right?

I would say maybe native speakers will have to get used to Indian accents, and Chinglish.

Getting into the guts of so called "standard spoken British English dialect" would these examples fit the bill?

I'm going to have a glass of Merlot 82, me.
I'm having pie and chips, I am.
He complains all the time, he does.
It's not actually very good is it this play?
We're always getting it wrong, us?
She must be quite a good writer, you know.