Entry 12: Videos

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




What can be seen in this video is the inspector trying to learn the pronunciation of standard American English, which is called General American English (GenAm). Another characteristic that can be perceived in the video is the notorious French accent of the inpector's spoken English. This feature can be associated with what Yule (2006) states that each speaker of a language speaks with an accent. Apparently the inspector tries to learn the variety of standard American English, which is considered clean, flawless, without regional characteristics and which belongs to the variety used by the media and educational centers in the USA.

2- Students' Dialects??


In this video each people speaks a different English. Each of them speaks a type of English with peculiar characteristics. This feature reminds us of the definition of "dialect":

"The term dialect is used to describe characteristics of grammar and vocabulary, as well as aspects of pronunciation" (Yule, 2006)

This definition fits perfectly with the scenes of these people, since each of them speaks an English with a different characteristic. One of them has special characteristics in grammar, the other in pronunciation (accentuation, stress), the other in vocabulary and the other in spelling.

3- Speak English, please!




In this video we can see two types of English. On the one hand, we have the English of the reporter, a standard English, typical of the media. These are some characteristics of the standard pronunciation of the reporter:

-Post vocalic /r/ dropping (non-rhotic) (example: forces, members)
-Clean, without regional accents
-Clear

On the other hand, the English of the Iraqis has clear regional characteristics.