Strong accents and dialects are dying out because of the world today needs standard clear communication where everyone speaks and writes in the same way. It is better not to reveal your wealth and status with your accent. Discuss with reference to your own regional voice. We all speak with an accent and we all speak a dialect these include both the Standard English dialect and the Modern Non-standard Dialects. There are variations of accents according to a speaker’s age, gender, ethnicity and social and educational background.
The difference between standard and non-standard English is now narrowing. Accents seem to be fading in England, mainly in the south-east of Britain where there has been a great loss of a variety of accents in different areas of London. The distinctive rural voices which were more common years ago are not heard anymore. N
...ow it seems much harder to distinguish where a person is from based on their accent. The influence of London, particularly due to commuting, has also changed accents in Britain. Other parts of England have a similar effect due to many factors.
Open networking is one of the factors influencing changes to accents and dialects. According to Milroy open and closed networks influence linguistic change. In society in Britain now there are a lot more open networks due to people commuting. People travel for work and study commitments where they meet a variety of people of different backgrounds from different areas of Britain which influence their speech. Closed networks are rarely found anymore especially since factories and mines where closed networks were predominately found have seized to exist as much in Britain.
Regional accents still do exist,
however they are fading. There are only a small amount of regional areas in Britain that now have closed networks therefore still have a strong accent. There is also the influence of immigrants on communities, which have settled in parts of Britain. The Jamaican and African accent has had a huge influence on the accent in London where more teenagers are using it as their main accent. Received Pronunciation was on top of the hierarchy years ago but as now seemed to die out.
One of the least spoken accents seems now to be Received Pronunciation. RP as also died out as in the past people from private schools, BBC new broadcasts on television and politicians; however children in private schools prefer to speak the regional accent or Standard English and news broadcasters do not necessarily have to speak RP anymore. “RP is probably the most widely studied and most frequently described variety of spoken English in the world, yet recent estimates suggest only 2% of the UK population speak it. ” (http://www. bl. k/learning/langlit/sounds/find-out-more/received-pronunciation/)
“Rural areas with much less population movement have seen the least change; northern Scotland and Northern Ireland have remained relatively unaltered over the centuries. While in urban areas there is continual evolution. ” (http://www. bl. uk/learning/langlit/sounds) As for my accent I would consider myself to still have an accent but it as definitely a lot less broad as the Salford accent probably was fifty years ago. My accent has continued to be less mild since being in the Bury area.
I would say my accent still comes through a little and I also tend to use quite a lot of Manchester slang words
when speaking. I have seen this in friends also and they also tend to use a use of more standard English when in educational environments or when speaking to a group of people with different accents. According to Honey, there are three factors that have helped accents gain their position in the social hierarchy. How well educated a person speaks and geographical location of an accent.
Also he says how regional accents are at the bottom of the hierarchy as these are said with people with less social class Standard English seems to becoming the national speech of England as according to Trudgill, who studied modern languages, believed that depending on someone’s social class would cause differences in their dialect. Kerswill also says how modern and urban dialects over time are starting to become more like Standard English. After each generation the dialects are changing to a different type of speech.
Another influence on today’s accents and dialects tend to come from media on TV, also radio and influential people in the media world. People watching so many different accents on television and listening to radio are exposed to a variety of accents which may influence their own. I believe that accents and dialects are dying out. Different slang words are making the way into vocabulary however, and people are being influenced by others.
Language may cause difficulties in many ‘educational’ situations: for example the teacher confronted with an essay written in text; school children doing GCSE presentations using technology and bits of the internet text from the USA; parents who are offended by a children’s TV programme which uses a great deal of slang. I think it would
be more beneficial if we encouraged children to use Standard English. Especially with changes in British accents and dialects it would be a benefit if in schools a universal accent was used making it easier to communicate to people of different backgrounds and teachers who may not understand the street speak.
The fear that the use of social networking websites and mobile phone text messaging is undermining children's literacy skills and language skills when in school and leading to poor understanding of grammar and differences in Standard English and colloquial language. Using text speech like brb and lol have made their way into the English language even in speech as well as text and more children and teenagers are starting to use them.
English Language is evolving however and it has moved on since thousands of years ago where certain words have now become extinct so maybe in years to come certain forms of text speech may end up in everyday speech and be known worldwide. So is it right to say what is “proper” English. Children using text speech when communicating on social networks and through text messages are having the influence of use of these words on children’s and teenagers school work in essays and general work.
Teachers find marking children’s work that using text speech hard to read and grade appropriately. Children are now not being able to distinguish between standard and non-standard English and colloquial speech is being mistaken for Standard English as they hear it all the time. In the Bill Cosby article even Bill Crosby says “if you don’t say it, you can’t write it. ” And this seems to be the
case in schools now as teachers and others have noticed it coming through in students work. Around a quarter of GCSE students failed to spot errors in the phrases "it wasn't me who done it", "couldn't hardly move", "Tom had gotten cold" and "three mile". ” Bill Cosby also argues that the use of slang and accents in the classroom is leading to poor academic performance and speaking patois in the classroom is not the right place as it is also influencing others to speak this way. Immigration also affects the way in which people speak.
