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Job Discussion Forums
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| Which dialect/accent? |
| UK |
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30% |
[ 12 ] |
| US |
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35% |
[ 14 ] |
| AU |
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10% |
[ 4 ] |
| CA |
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22% |
[ 9 ] |
| NZ |
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0% |
[ 0 ] |
| SA |
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2% |
[ 1 ] |
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| Total Votes : 40 |
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Message |
wulfrun
Joined: 12 May 2008
Posts: 167
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 Posted: Wed May 21, 2008 1:34 am Post subject: |
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| Kram wrote: |
| wulfrun wrote: |
fine, but that's history. over the next 30 years, most people are going to be learning english by listening to americans - when they think of 'english', they'll think of the american accent and american lexis |
If we're giving opinions, in my experience that doesn't appear to be the case. In China, as one example, I haven�t noticed an abundance of �VOA� teachers as compared to other nationalities. So how are the Chinese going to �be learning English by listening to Americans,�?
One of my students, who went to study broadcasting in Beijing, said that RP English was mandatory as part of her university course (I�d presume RP Chinglish). An example of this can be found by watching CCTV 9 (Kram shudders). Finally, I�d presume that Indians primarily learn RP, and there's a fair hunk of 'most people' in China and India. |
teaching for two years in hebei and beijing, these guys are all watching friends and prison break, listening to backstreet boys and avril lavigne (canadian, but still North American). world pop culture is dominated by the US. VOA has also been more popular than BBC.
and the US accent is just far far more prevalent among the students here.
the textbooks more often use American listening tracks and AmE spellings (NEw Concept English being a notable BrE exception). students all spell 'center' and 'organize'.
that's my experience. i'd be interested to hear if it's different elsewhere.
looking through job advertisements for China - and elsewhere - there's a sizeable minority which specify 'North American accents preferred'. haven't seen the smae for BrE.
you talk about watching cctv-9, but the US accent is certainly notable there - the lady who does Dialogue when Yang Rui isnt there, the lady who does Up Close, the guy who does Culture Express. james chau is audibly BrE, but BrE certainly doesnt seem to account for the majority.
this is how it seems from my perspective. i'm interested to hear about these examples of BrE loyalty, like the student doing the broadcasting training; but they just seem like minority cases. |
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lumber Jack
Joined: 09 May 2005
Posts: 91
Location: UK/ROK
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| Posted: Wed May 21, 2008 1:48 am Post subject: |
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Yes, I'd say China was British English in text book theory, US in practice, for the most part. (Like Canada...). RP British English in theory, mind you!
(or maybe it should be R.I.P British English) |
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arioch36
Joined: 21 Jan 2003
Posts: 3589
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| Posted: Wed May 21, 2008 1:08 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| or maybe it should be R.I.P British English) |
Though my younger, more hip friends detest New Concept, I find the first books still to be the standard.
But every i student I know is aware that it uses British spelling, and they work at using American spelling (You go Mr. Webster)The vast majority of my students use American English.
I couldn't care less
I can't think of any organization, except maybe Hollywood, that works at making a standard accent in America. Any group that tried would be labeled as very un P.C.[/quote] |
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lumber Jack
Joined: 09 May 2005
Posts: 91
Location: UK/ROK
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| Posted: Fri May 23, 2008 6:50 am Post subject: |
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I'm not doing much for my own argument putting this here, but this is a map from wikipedia of Mandarin dialects.
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandarin_zhongyuan
The French information is much better than the English information on this topic, which is very unusual for a non-Frenchified topic.
According to this standard Mandarin is based on Henan accents, though that is new to me. The map shows what a complex situation it is, but according to linguistic criteria, all these different dialect speakers should be able to hold a conversation.
Last edited by lumber Jack on Fri May 23, 2008 7:26 am; edited 1 time in total |
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lumber Jack
Joined: 09 May 2005
Posts: 91
Location: UK/ROK
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| Posted: Fri May 23, 2008 7:21 am Post subject: |
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As to Harbin, if you learn standard Mandarin you shouldn't have too much trouble
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harbin_dialect
If you learn a dialect/language from the south, then maybe you will.
Just as you might have a more than average number of communication problems during international travel if you learn your English in Hyderabad. |
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Pelican_Wrath
Joined: 19 May 2008
Posts: 490
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| Posted: Fri May 23, 2008 8:27 am Post subject: |
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| lumber Jack wrote: |
Yes, I'd say China was British English in text book theory, US in practice, for the most part. (Like Canada...). RP British English in theory, mind you!
(or maybe it should be R.I.P British English) |
I agree with this. I've always found it odd how schools favour North American teachers (or is it that most Britons bugger off down south to Thailand in search of bars, sun, sea, sand, et al?) yet use books with British English in. |
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guruengerish
Joined: 28 Mar 2004
Posts: 424
Location: Australia
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| Posted: Mon May 26, 2008 11:00 am Post subject: English dialects and accents |
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Just had to put my two penneworth into this discussion.
Firstly, a comment on this statement:
Indian English is not well known outside India, and is not used by a large percentage of the population within. However, it is growing in importance, and in an ideal world it is one of the accents a learner would probably want to spend a little time on. However, you wouldn't want to have that kind of input and only that.
not well known! where do you think we get all those annoying marketing phone calls from? India. At all times of the day and night. If you're not getting them outside of Australia, good luck.
While their accents may take a little getting used to, who is it teaching them to use present continuous out of context? "I am having a good time last night" etc.
As regards accents, I found that the English books with tapes of mixed world English accents were great, for the simple reason that I could explain to the students that every English speaking country has its own accent/s.
The best accent? IMHO, Irish. Not the bog Irish, but the pleasant, lilting Irish, which I cannot put down to a particular place. No, I'm not Irish
Which reminds me of the story of a rather pompous British officer in WWI, talking down to two Aussie soldiers in the trenches. "Did you men come here to die?"
"Nah mate, we came here yesterday".
If you don't get it, ask a Londoner or an Aussie. |
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