Entry 12 videos

1- The Inspector needs "a flawless American accent": 

  The  French inspector was taking classes of English in order to impove his pronounciation to sound  more English like and in that way he would not allow suspicious. The teacher was teaching the  standard language which is the chosen one in educational centres  and for commercial issues. It is supposed to be the ideal grammar and  the ideal pronounciation to be undestood by anyone who speaks English. Despite he could not immitate the exact sounds since his mother accent was very strong, he could be interpreted anyhow. The teacher insisted on him to pick the standard sound by repeating once and again, and by chunking the sentence, but he could not make it; his  accent “describes the aspects of pronounciation that identify   where an individual speaker is from, regionally or socially” and it give him away.

2- Student 'dialects'?


  This group of students are sharing the same English classes and each of them has to deal with different difficulties, they are a speech community since they “share set of norms and expectations regarding the use of language”. This time , it is not the accent that gives  away the social background; instead, they encounter with troubles with grammar, spelling, placing the emphasis wrongly and the lack of vocabulary. They may probably have difficulties with certain issues  because of their background life (educational or social). The social markers mark them as a prticular member of a social group. However, they could manage to be comphensible by his partners that may not share the same socio-economic status.


 3- Speak English, please!


These group of people are from the  north of Irak. Although one of them was supposed to study in the right place –American University in Cairo- , he is  “being  translated” with subtitles in order to be understood by the audience. He may be bilingual since he is supposed to dominate the language perfectly well and since they are a minority group, however the audience may find difficulties to undertand him. The accent is what may interfere between the message and the inerlocutors. 



Yule G.( 2016). The Study of Language. UK.: CUP. Ch.18, 19, 20

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