English Controlled Assessment spoken language
English Controlled Assessment
The English language, although used by almost all across the United Kingdom, has been mutated and altered in so many ways that sometimes we cannot even understand it ourselves.
One of the main factors that affects our understanding of the language is one’s regional accent. Although most words and phrases will be comprehensible some phonetics may have changed so much that all we can do is hope that the context of what has been said makes sense in order for us to ‘fill in the gaps’.
My paternal grandmother, as related to me by my father, spoke with a West Country accent. ‘West Country’ refers to a large band of accents heard in the South of England, starting about fifty miles West of London and extending to the Welsh border. The accent is not set in stone, as people are linguistically diverse within the accent. Families have their own spin on the language and towns have even more of a differentiation in their pronunciation. One main difference between her accent and that of my family in the south-east of England would be that of her use of Rhoticity, meaning that the letter ‘R’ is pronounced after vowels. So, for example, whereas somebody from London would pronounce mother as “muthah,” somebody from Bristol would say “mutherrr“.I do not think that there is any prejudice towards those with the aforementioned accent. It does not strike me, personally, as resembling someone with a lower social class or a lower level of intelligence. Although this may not be the case with everyone’s opinions, I have never heard someone discredit another person who happens to have a West Country accent. Recent studies have shown that people from Devon – with a West Country accent – are perceived to be the friendliest people in the UK. Therefore there are positive notions towards this accent.
Another variation between Britons is our idiolect and choice of vocabulary. This can largely depend on our social class, and education. There is a huge amount of
The English language, although used by almost all across the United Kingdom, has been mutated and altered in so many ways that sometimes we cannot even understand it ourselves.
One of the main factors that affects our understanding of the language is one’s regional accent. Although most words and phrases will be comprehensible some phonetics may have changed so much that all we can do is hope that the context of what has been said makes sense in order for us to ‘fill in the gaps’.
My paternal grandmother, as related to me by my father, spoke with a West Country accent. ‘West Country’ refers to a large band of accents heard in the South of England, starting about fifty miles West of London and extending to the Welsh border. The accent is not set in stone, as people are linguistically diverse within the accent. Families have their own spin on the language and towns have even more of a differentiation in their pronunciation. One main difference between her accent and that of my family in the south-east of England would be that of her use of Rhoticity, meaning that the letter ‘R’ is pronounced after vowels. So, for example, whereas somebody from London would pronounce mother as “muthah,” somebody from Bristol would say “mutherrr“.I do not think that there is any prejudice towards those with the aforementioned accent. It does not strike me, personally, as resembling someone with a lower social class or a lower level of intelligence. Although this may not be the case with everyone’s opinions, I have never heard someone discredit another person who happens to have a West Country accent. Recent studies have shown that people from Devon – with a West Country accent – are perceived to be the friendliest people in the UK. Therefore there are positive notions towards this accent.
Another variation between Britons is our idiolect and choice of vocabulary. This can largely depend on our social class, and education. There is a huge amount of