Job Discussion Forums

[sheeba]

http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/sounds/

I came accross this site today and thought it may be of interest to any who are researching UK dialects or have an interest in dialects in the UK.

I find it quite warming to listen to some warming dialects from Northamptonshire, Wales,Glasgow and the North of the Uk whilst also listening to those ranting 'cor blimey guvner' in Hackney.

There is also information for linguists about the dialects. I find it useful to read this as I listen. It points out pronunciation(Leeds -play in t'road) and grammar differences(for example the Leeds 'it were lovely')

[sheeba]

And don't some of the accents from the 50's sound just the same as many today? I think so!

[dmb]

A Glaswegian accent warming?????

A study of Language by George Yule(Cambridge) is a good read.

[sheeba]

Yeah I quite like the Glasweigen accent. Maybe I'm strange.

I'm quite liking this Middlesbrough recording too. Bit of character. RP sucks.

I'll look out for Yule. Cheers.

Trudgill is OK but he misses a lot in 'International English'

[jwbhomer]

If only there were some surgical procedure which could cure the glottal stop.

[Justin Trullinger]

Wha' are ya trayin t' saiy?

[SueH]

I think sometimes people from outside the UK think our accents are all homogenous. I once phoned my electricity company's call centre and couldn't understand the operative. Not Bangalore but Liverpool, and I really struggled to understand the guy. As an ESOL teacher I thought I was used to understanding mangled English, but this was far worst than anything in class!

My accent's a bit neutral as I grew up abroad, but a bit of 'Ampshire can come out in the right circumstances. I sometimes introduce a bit of Brum, or northern vowels into classes just to keep students on their toes. They get too much in their comfort zone if they just hear one teacher's accent, in spite of the improvement and variety in available recordings these days.

[gaijinalways]

Interesting site. Thanx for the info.

[11:59]

It's interesting to note that for the US release version of Trainspotting, Robert Carlyle's monologue for the (in)famous 'And after that, the game was mine' pub scene (see URL below) was re-dubbed with Carlyle speaking much more slowly, with clearer pronunciation, and with fewer UK (or perhaps, Scots, or even Glaswegian) specific colloquialisms. The following is the original UK version, and what is funny is that even though my Dutch, German, Swedish, Finnish, and Icelandic friends can understand it, very few Yanks appear able to do so.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0wRRiMZEEQ

[dmb]