LINGUIST List 7.231

Mon Feb 12 1996

Qs: American Accents, BUT & OR, Intro Synchronic Text

Editor for this issue: Annemarie Valdez <avaldezemunix.emich.edu>

Directory

1. Ian Watering) (Ian Watering, Recordings of American accents
2. Alistair Knott, BUT and OR in different languages
3. EAWILLIAMSCENTER.COLGATE.EDU, Good intro text

I am an EFL teacher in Norway. As a native speaker of British English
I am able to give my students some idea of the variety of accents to
be found in the British Isles, but I feel less than confident with
respect to accents of American English. Could anyone tell me how to
get hold of some recordings of regional American accents?

Transcribing and analysing taped language is a very time-consuming
procedure, and it is often difficult to find passages which are
suitable for the average student. What I am looking for is short but
revealing recordings of some of the major categories of into which
American accents are sometimes divided, such as Eastern New England,
New York, and the South. Higher education here is undergoing a period
of austerity, so it would be appreciated if the recordings were
relatively inexpensive!

Ian Watering, Hamar College of Education, Norway

Does anyone know if there are any languages where the same word is
used to translate both BUT and OR?

I'm studying the relationships between the sets of sentence/clause
connectives that are found in different languages. The mapping is not
always one-to-one. (For instance, the German phrase WENN is a possible
translation for both IF and WHEN in English.) I'm hoping that
many-to-one mappings such as this one will provide an insight into the
possible dimensions of variation amongst interclausal/intersentential
relations. I'd be interested to hear about any such many-to-one
mappings, particularly between unrelated languages.

If there is sufficient interest, I'll be glad to post a summary.

Thanks for your help,

Ali

Can anyone recommend an intro to to synchronic linguistics textbook that
has a section on phonology/phonetics, syntax/semantics, pragmatics, and
sociolinguistics. It would be preferrable if it were not too
theoretically dogmatic. Thanks to all

adger Williams

eawilliamscenter.colgate.edu