LINGUIST List 12.2449

Wed Oct 3 2001

FYI: Formal/Functional Ling, English Accents Website

Editor for this issue: Marie Klopfenstein <marielinguistlist.org>

Directory

  • Summer School, LSA / DGfS Summer School 2002
  • Donn Bayard, Anthropology Department, Evaluating English Accents Worldwide website: new results

    Message 1: LSA / DGfS Summer School 2002

     Date: Tue, 02 Oct 2001 09:44:32 +0200
    From: Summer School <sschoolmail.phil-fak.uni-duesseldorf.de>
    Subject: LSA / DGfS Summer School 2002


    First Special Linguistic Summer Program hosted by the Deutsche Gesellschaft fuer Sprachwissenschaft and co-sponsored by the Linguistic Society of America

    FORMAL AND FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS at Heinrich-Heine-Universitaet Duesseldorf 14 July - 3 August 2002

    The event will offer basic and advanced specialized credit courses on the model of the Summer Schools of the Deutsche Gesellschaft f�r Sprachwissenschaft and the Linguistic Institutes of the LSA. There will be a range of special events on the state of the art in formal and functional lines of inquiry that have dominated general linguistics, as well as on the relevance of these two approaches to specialized disciplines like language acquisition, language change, and language contact.

    An optional program in German language and culture, focusing on the Rhinelands (the Duesseldorf and Cologne area) will be offered for foreign participants.

    Director: Dieter Stein, Heinrich-Heine-Universitaet Duesseldorf Associate Director: Ellen Prince, University of Pennsylvania

    Contact: Summer Program Anglistik III Heinrich-Heine-Universitaet Duesseldorf Universitaetsstr. 1 D-40225 D�sseldorf Germany email: summerschoolphil-fak.uni-duesseldorf.de http://www.phil-fak.uni-duesseldorf.de/summerschool2002/ Fon: +49 211 81-12963 Fax: +49 211 81-15292

    Message 2: Evaluating English Accents Worldwide website: new results

     Date: Wed, 3 Oct 2001 17:26:34 +1200
    From: Donn Bayard, Anthropology Department <donn.bayardstonebow.otago.ac.nz>
    Subject: Evaluating English Accents Worldwide website: new results


    EVALUATING ENGLISH ACCENTS WORLDWIDE WEBSITE: NEW DATA

    The website of the EEAWW project has recently been updated, with the results section in particular featuring much more legible graphs and tables. Four new results pages based on new samples have also been added. These feature:

    * 67 Singapore boys' high school students (collected by Niti Pawakapan) * 156 USP students, including 60 Fijians, 56 Indo-Fijians, and a sample of students from 10 Pacific Island nations (collected by France Mugler) * 60 Fijian students from the University of the South Pacific, Fiji (collected by France Mugler) * 56 Indo-Fijian students from the University of the South Pacific, Fiji (collected by France Mugler)

    URL: http://www.otago.ac.nz/anthropology/Linguistic/Accents.html

    NOTE: As a result of general upgrading of the Otago Anthropology Department website this URL will probably change slightly in the future. A redirection notice will be added.

    Other data currently being collected or processed for posting include: * 50 students at York University, UK (collected by Dominic Watt) * 46 students at Hong Kong Baptist University (collected by Vicky Man; sample currently being enlarged)

    Plans are also well under way for data collecting from: * Luoyang, China (Cai Jinting) * France and Ireland (Rachel Hoare) * Nigeria (Rachel Reynolds) * University of Bergen, Norway (Bjarne Vandeskog) * Poland (Michal Remiszewski) * Alabama, USA (for comparison with Cleveland sample; Rachel Shuttlesworth)

    We still badly need researchers/collectors from South Asia, Latin America, and East and South Africa.

    One final note about our stimulus voices. These have been available as audio clips on our website for some time, but these are not to be downloaded for distribution as "standard" or "benchmark" examples of the accents for teaching, or for any other purpose without prior permission from the EEAWW project. To do so is in conflict with the ethical principles of most of our universities, and we ask you to respect this. *The samples are meant for on-site listening purposes only.*

    These voices were chosen to elicit already-held stereotypes, rather than to encourage the development of new stereotypes based on using them as representative accents. The voices contain considerable variation, not only paralinguistically (e.g., the NZE male voice vs. the NAm female voice), but even phonologically in the same accent pair (e.g., the male and female EE voices). As we said in a recent publication based on these voices, "the search for a perfect stimulus tape is perhaps futile" (Bayard et al. 2001: 24). This is even more the case when it comes to single "standard" examples of accents.

    Donn Bayard, Coordinator EEAWW project -

    *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***

    Donn Bayard Associate Professor Anthropology Department Te Tari Matauranga Tikanga Tangata University of Otago Te Whare Wananga o Otakou Dunedin, New Zealand Otepoti, Aotearoa

    Phone +64 -3-479-8738 Fax +64 -3-479-9095 e-mail: DONN.BAYARDSTONEBOW.OTAGO.AC.NZ