A survey of accents of English in Britain and Ireland |
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This page gives
preliminary results of an on-line survey of accents of
English in Britain and Ireland. This survey, launched in March 2009, is
designed to determine whether this kind of questionnaire can be used to
reveal patterns of variation in English, what it can tell us about the
distribution of phonological distinctions and mergers in English
accents, and to test the efficacy of particular kinds of questions for
eliciting these patterns. |
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The survey can be
viewed at the following address: Note that the survey is primarily designed for native speakers of English from Britain and Ireland (and the islands around about), but anyone is welcome to take it. |
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The questionnaire
elicits speaker judgments using three kinds of questions:
In addition, a range of social data are gathered for each respondent in order to put the results in context. |
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Respondents
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A
majority of respondents to the questionnaire thus far have attended
university. As a consequence, it is unlikely that the results are
representative of the most localised forms of speech found in Britain and Ireland, and it is quite
possible that the degree of phonological variation revealed in this
survey under-estimates that which can be found in society at large. |
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Results |
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The following maps summarise responses to
four questions from natives
of Britain and Ireland. These results are only preliminary - not all
responses received so far have been included, and responses have not
been otherwise checked.
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References |
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Warren Maguire's Homepage |