Faculty of Education, Masaryk University Department English Language and Literature Intelligibility of lesser-known dialects Bachelor’s Diploma Thesis Veronika Baranová Supervisor: Mgr. Irena Kalischová, Ph.D Brno 2015 Declaration “I hereby declare that I have worked on this thesis independently and the information used in the thesis has been acknowledged in the text and included in the list of references.” Brno, 20 April 2015 .................................................... Veronika Baranová Acknowledgement I would like to thank my supervisor Mgr. Irena Headlandová Kalischová, Ph.D. for her valuable advice, friendly guidance and patience during her supervision over this bachelor thesis. Furthermore, I would like to thank Ailsa Marion Randall, M.A. and Mgr. Jana Chocholatá for enabling me to conduct the research in their Practical language classes and their kind attitude. Abstract The bachelor thesis approaches the topic of intelligibility of lesser-known dialects among high level students of English. Scouse and Geordie, two of the northern English dialects have been chosen to represent the sample of dialects the Czech students are commonly not familiar with. The aim of the thesis is to show the discrepancy between such dialects and what is perceived as Standard English to which the students are generally exposed. The thesis is divided into two parts. The theoretical part provides definitions of the terms connected to this topic as well as a description of the dialects mentioned above. The practical part is based on presenting a recording of each dialect to students of the first and third year of Lower Secondary School Teacher Training in English Language and Literature and by means of the questionnaire eliciting the data and impact of variables which directly influence better understanding of lesser-known dialects of English. Anotace Tato práce pojednává o tématu srozumitelnosti méně známých anglických dialektů mezi studenty s výbornou úrovní anglického jazyka. Byly vybrány dva dialekty severní Anglie, Scouse a Geordie, se kterými studenti obecně nemají příliš zkušeností. Cílem této práce je ukázat rozdíly mezi těmito dialekty a standardní angličtinou, které jsou studenti běžně vystaveni. Práce je rozdělena do dvou částí. Teoretická část poskytuje definice termínů spojených s touto problematikou společně s popisem dialektů zmíněných výše. Praktická část je založena na prezentaci nahrávek studentům prvního a třetího ročníku studia oboru Pedagogické asistentství anglického jazyka a literatury pro základní školy a získání dat prostřednictvím dotazníku sloužící k posouzení proměnných, které ovlivňují lepší porozumění méně známých dialektů anglického jazyka. Key Words dialect, Scouse, Geordie, intelligibility, familiarity, distinctive features, Standard English, recordings, questionnaire, variation Klíčová slova dialekt, srozumitelnost, obeznámenost, charakteristické znaky, standardní angličtina, nahrávky, dotazník, variace Table of Contents 1. Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 8 2. Theoretical Part .................................................................................................................. 10 2.1 Basic terminology ......................................................................................................... 10 2.2.1 Accent versus dialect ............................................................................................ 10 2.2.2 Standard English ................................................................................................... 11 2.2 Scouse ............................................................................................................................ 14 2.2.1 The term, location and a brief history ................................................................ 14 2.2.2 Phonological features ............................................................................................ 15 2.2.3 Grammatical features ............................................................................................ 17 2.2.4 Lexical features ...................................................................................................... 19 2.3 Geordie .......................................................................................................................... 21 2.3.1 The term, location, anecdote and a brief history .............................................. 21 2.3.2 Phonological features ............................................................................................ 23 2.3.3 Grammatical features ............................................................................................ 24 2.3.4 Lexical features ...................................................................................................... 26 3. Practical Part ....................................................................................................................... 29 3.1 Research ......................................................................................................................... 29 3.1.1 Respondents ........................................................................................................... 29 3.1.2 Questionnaires ....................................................................................................... 31 3.2 Recordings .................................................................................................................... 33 3.2.1 Scouse recording .................................................................................................... 33 3.2.2 Geordie recording ................................................................................................. 37 3.3 Results ............................................................................................................................ 40 3.3.1 Survey ..................................................................................................................... 41 3.3.2 Gap filling results .................................................................................................. 46 3.3.3 Results from listening for a certain phrase ........................................................ 48 3.3.4 Listening for the gist results ................................................................................ 49 3.3.5 The general success rate ....................................................................................... 51 3.3.6 The most problematic words ............................................................................... 52 4. Conclusion .......................................................................................................................... 54 List of references .................................................................................................................... 56 Appendices ............................................................................................................................. 59 Appendix I. ......................................................................................................................... 59 The Questionnaire .......................................................................................................... 59 Appendix II. ........................................................................................................................ 65 The original version of Scouse recording ................................................................... 65 The abridged version of Scouse recording ................................................................. 67 The original version of Geordie recording ................................................................. 68 The abridged version of Geordie recording ............................................................... 71 1. Introduction Fundamentally, teachers of English as a second language ought to aim to know as much as possible about the language they teach including the increased awareness of dialect variation. Even though the language used in the classroom should be accurate and consistent to sustain the quality of language education, the students’ exposure to a variety of dialects is regarded as highly beneficial for ensuring their future ability to communicate with different native speakers of various parts of the world. Unfortunately, once leaving a safe environment of a homogenous classroom, a large number of learners are alarmed to realise that despite having rather high level of English and sufficient knowledge of grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation, their ability to understand spoken interaction within an unknown dialect is highly impaired. In Czech language education, it is a regrettable fact that teaching pronunciation is being significantly neglected, many teachers fail to be good role models when it comes to passing on satisfactory speaking skills. On the other hand, there are teachers who, in the pursuit of hypercorrect pronunciation, tend to overarticulate or reduce the speed of their speech in order for students to understand. By doing so, they might be diminishing the chances of the students to experience and to get accustomed to “real world” English, which is recognisably different from textbook English with archaic listening activities. Once students acquire a level of English which enables them to communicate without major difficulties, teachers should help them to achieve moderate efficiency in the language