Sunday, 15 November 2015

The continuous change to dialect and accents

The continuous change to dialect and accents

From the top of the Scottish isles to the very bottom of Cornwall there are on average 56 different accents, all in one very small island. For people who don’t live in the UK this is very surprising as stereotypically they assume we all talk in one monotone central London accent which is prim and proper (estuary English). However, within the United Kingdom dialect and accent both vary depending on your religion, social group and culture, this benefits people within the island to identify who lives in what region and gives them a culture identity.

Although these are unique to certain people there is still changes constantly occurring between the dialects, this could happen because of people from outside the region or even the country travelling to the UK and giving us a taste of their accent and dialect, which has an impact on us if we are around it for a duration of time, leading to us adapting our language and picking up some of their sounds/words and adding them to our language. For example, if an American citizen visit a shop in London and ask for a ‘trash can’ the sales assistant could pick up on this and unconsciously refer to a bin as a trash can in the future to this customer or one they deal with in the future. Social media can also affect your dialect in the same way as we are constantly spoken to by a television, radio and more.


2 comments:

  1. This is short and sweet. The opening sentence has an effective hook - work harder even before that with a title that demands a click or, if this is an article, a clear headline/strapline and more journalistic conventions like facts and quotes; you are capable of more ambitious types like broadsheet articles. Grammatically, work on singular/plural agreement e.g. "there is still changes" needs to be 'there are still changes'. Make a distinction between RP wich is seen as "prim and proper" and Estuary English which is more casual. Could you have developed this piece further by talking about your own accent or giving an anecdote about how accent/dialect uses or changes have affected someone you know? You could certainly have developed the idea you started on social media's effects, so start set work early and give yourself time to do your best work.

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  2. targets: expand my ideas on the social media topic
    - grammatically correct mistakes I have made throughout the text.
    - how accent and dialect has changed in my opinion or affected someone i know

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