Search results for 'tag:Interviews tag:Dialects' matching tags 'Interviews' and 'Dialects'

Re: Legitimising dialect discrimination

Kooyeen — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 21:34:29 GMT

Hi,
two possible answers:

1) Some employers want to hire people who seem well educated, and well educated native speakers should usually be able to use a less "regionalized" variety at work, use a more formal register, and expressing their thoughts precisely, if the employer prefers you to do so.
I'm not saying those who say "hey, waddup y'all?" are uneducated. I'm saying educated people are usually able to change register if required to do so. Picking up the phone at home: "Yo, what do you want, Fred? - At work: "Hello Mr. Picky, may I help you?"

2) It is discriminated against because... why not? There's always a good excuse to discriminate against something. It's not different from sexual and racial discrimination, because those are all still present.

NOTE: sometimes it might be "standard" English the one that is discriminated against. For example if you have a job interview with Snoop Dogg as a producer and you want to get popular as a rapper. In that case talking white might sound too educated and would probably be unacceptable. You might even get shot by one of them gangsta, so you better watch out. LOL

Re: I WANT A SCOTTISH ACCENT

Anonymous — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 22:01:14 GMT

First off, can I just say: Lmao to that video- pretty much sums up the majority of Scots; in the 'words' of the 'great' Kenny Dal: 'It's good tae mumble'. < This was from a mock TV interview of him from 'Only An Excuse', I think it was, though don't hold me to that.Ok, first off, WHY has no one mentioned 'Finding Neverland' as a source. Johnny Depp's accent in that is possibly one the best Scottish accents I've ever heard. Trainspotting, sure it's good, but it's pretty slang-like to be honest.It depends how broad you want your accent to be and the area you're supposed to be from.Generally, Scottish people associate Edinburgh accents, no NOT with Sean Connery, with English accents; mainly because they sound quite 'posh' and 'upper crust', compared to other Scottish accents at least anyway.'Gonnae no dae that' is a typical phrase associated with Glasgow, but in truth, not THAT many people speak this way.
I have a mixed Glasgow accent. My dad speaks with quite a broad one, whereas my mum has a more refined accent.
For an example of a 'broad' Glasgow accent, look at Billy Connelly. Certain phrases I've read on here, even HE would've stoop to use, and that's because, like many other places in the world, they're only used by a select group of people.

I'm at uni in Aberdeen and they have an accent wholly unto themselves, not to mention what seems like another language. Though the same could be said of Dundee, where one of my best friends is from, and many other places.In Aberdeen, the normal stereotype is 'fit like?' as in 'how are you doing?' or just 'fit?' in place of what?
In Fife, it is 'you ken what I mean, like?' basically meaning 'do you understand what I mean?'

If you want a stereotypical Scottish accent, copy Mel Gibson in Braveheart, sure it was on the whole pretty shabby, but in some parts he sounded ok.
Don't be surprised, however, if you don't get rave reviews from natives.If you want what most people on this board seem to term a 'Glasgow/Glaswegian accent' then slant your words.
i.e. 'dae' - 'day' instead of 'do'
Also, use words like 'heed' instead of 'head' and 'deed' instead of 'dead'.
Also, use 'aye' ALOT. My friends and I use the term, 'eh wit?' when we're taking the ***. It basically means, 'what are you on about?'
I've been told people from Glasgow use terms like, 'What you doin' jus' now?', instead of saying, 'Hey, what are you up to?', apparently we like knowing what others are doing right that instant. *shrugs* We also apparently use 'pure' and 'proper' alot, as in 'that was proper amazing' or 'that was pure dead brilliant' - note: this is slightly exaggerated as in normal every-day-use, it's not said or used THAT often.
Like most other cities here though, we have our own words for things, slang or just simple local references. They can range from the widely used 'bawbag' - literally meaning '***', and generally used in name-calling to 'ginger' in reference to our 'national' drink: Irn Bru.

The key to picking up a Scottish accent is probably to pick a place you want to be 'from'. That way it'll be far easier to pick up the phrases and dialect of the place.
Not to be prejudice or whatever, but generally the Edinburgh accent does sound more English than Scottish so if you're not too good at the Scottish accent or don't want to be ridiculed or whatever, you're probably best to try to master that; also, it's most likely one of the most easily understood Scottish accents due to it's crispness.

Listen to the accents of Scottish actors during interviews, though many get to 'keep' their accents in films nowadays (YASS! :P ) or people like Craig Ferguson - Scottish television host on American TV.
Shows recommended such as 'Chewin' the Fat' stereotype the Glasgow accent, and even the actors don't really speak like that; I should know, I've met them more than once on occasion walking down the road near me.

If people need help on Northern Irish accents, though again these vary wildly, some of my best friends are from there so I'm sure I could russle up some help. Though, again, it much depends on where you're from how strong an accent you have and how you pronounce certain words.
If people need any advice/help on how to pronounce certain phrases/words I'll try my best to be of assistance, and the same goes for anyone trying to pull of being a Glaswegian ;)

Hope this helped somewhat :)
Steph
***

P.S. Sean Connery is not a good example of someone from Scotland or Edinburgh, he's claimed more than once that he's made his accent up, while this isn't ENTIRELY true to the quote, he has exaggerated his accent an awful lot to make it so... unique as it is. ;)

Re: Canadians and their English

Anonymous — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 21:56:02 GMT

Well, you are supposed to write about the *new* trends in Canadian English. Not the history of CE. I think that the Canadian Shift would probably be your best bet--it is a very recent innovation, and thus is one of the few features of CE that could be considered new. It also has many interesting Sociolinguistic variables associated with it--for example, young women are leading the change, whereas males, older women, and young children are much more conservative. You could include information on the early interviews--e.g. where they first discovered it. It is also interesting because this shift moves the vowels in the opposite direction from that of the Inland North dialect in the US. The Canadian Shift also affects some speakers in the Western US. There is also a related shift in California as well that contains many of the same features. The Canadian shift is thought to be triggered by the cot-caught merger. This is because, the merger of "cot" and "caught" leaves a hole in the vowel system, and many other vowels have to move around to maximize the difference between them. The cot-caught merger is an innovation in certain North American dialects. What is does is to cause speakers that have it to make no distinction between the vowels in words such as "cot" and "caught", or "bot" and "bought" or "tot" and "taught". They still have both vowels, but they apply them indiscriminately to those words: so if they were speaking to someone without the merger, and they said the word "cot" the non-merged individual would sometimes think that they were saying "cot" and at other times think they were saying "caught". Fortunately this rarely causes confusion, because most of the words are not able to be confused: e.g. because of context, it's impossible to confuse the words "cot" and "caught". The c-c merger is one of the mergers that is an innovation in North American English. It affects all of Canada. It is unknown exactly why. One hypothosis was that it was imported from Pennsylvania (which also has some c-c merged individuals). The merger is also universal in the Western US. The Midwest however, is predominately unmerged--most Midwesterners still have a distinction between those vowels. Several decades ago, there was no such thing as the c-c merger, but since then it has spread to cover a large section of North America. However, due to the configuration of vowels in other dialects, such as in much of the Midwest, it is unlikely to spread to those areas. This means, that crossing the border in many places between the US and Canada will immediately change dialects. The most extreme case is that between Detroit (US), and Windsor (Canada). Although they are so close geographically, the accent changes immediately, with no transitional area right at the border. Detroit is affected by the Northern Cities vowel shift, which is triggered by the fact that the "a" in "cat" is raised and is diphthongized. Detroit is completely c-c unmerged as well. Windsor is completely merged. The Northern Cities vowel shift (US) shifts many vowels in opposite directions as that of the Canadian shift. Thus the word "mop" in Detroit, sounds like how someone from Windsor would say "map". I even remember reading someones blog (that was from Windsor), and what happened when they asked for a "map" in Detroit. Just a few decades ago, when neither shift existed, this confusion would be impossible. You can read more about the Canadian shift, by going to Wikipedia. Go the the article on the English Wikipedia entitled "Canadian English", and find the section called the Canadian Shift. It then links to an article that contains a technical description of the shift. In fact this is one of the only places on the internet that contains info on the shift. And because it is such a recent innovation there are very few books on it. Then check out the Bibliography in that Wikipedia article. Then if you go to scholar.google.com you can type in the Bibliography items and in many case read the full text of the actual studies on the CVS!

Re: lower-class accent

Tam Sadek — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 13:23:52 GMT

Well CJ...

When asked, during an interview at the height of Beatlemania, why he sang in a transatlantic accent, but spoke in broad scouse*, John Lennon replied:

"It sells better!"

(*the accent/dialect of Liverpool)

Re: The Best English Accent

Tam Sadek — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 21:53:02 GMT

What exactly is a British accent?

Geordie? Glaswegian? Scouse? Cockney? Brummie? Northern? Southern? RP? Estuary? Welsh? Irish?

According to an online BBC article from 2005:

"Sean Connery's Scottish lilt is the nation's favourite accent, a survey of people for a BBC project suggests. Sir Sean (Scottish) and the broadcasters Sir Trevor McDonald (English, but with a tinge of Caribbean) and Terry Wogan (Irish) have the most pleasant voices, according to 5,000 people questioned. It is part of a project to create an online "accent map" of the UK.

The least popular accents were those from Birmingham, Liverpool and Glasgow and the most unpopular voice was that of DUP leader Ian Paisley.

The Queen and Scottish comedian Billy Connolly appeared in both the 10 most and 10 least pleasant lists.

The BBC Voices project is recording interviews with 1,000 people from around the UK and is inviting others to participate through its website. The project's director Mick Ord said there had not been a "mapping" project for at least 30 years, so information about regional accents and dialects was out of date."

Here's a link to the BBC Voices project so you can decide what a British accent is yourselves, as it's fairly clear that we (from the UK) don't know (or is that care?)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/voices/

Personally I'm from the North West of England and I like my accent, even though it's definitely not RP! Then again, I wouldn't want it any other way