I'm going to be away for a few days next week and won't likely have time to write an analytical essay on a pronunciation poll, so instead, what I've decided to do is put together a dialect survey so I can get a better sense of my respondents' spoken English regional dialects. Once upon a time when I had 40 respondents per poll, life was easy and I knew where most of my respondents lived and grew up. This is certainly no longer the case, and while some of you do have identifying information in your Livejournal profile, this isn't always reliable. My goal is to get as many respondents as possible to answer this, and I will be including a link to this poll on future posts to enable this. Please note that this post is public (like all the pronunciation polls); if you want to make comments about your family / linguistic history, keep that in mind.
HOW TO ANSWER THE POLL: There are really no trick questions! Just pick the answer that fits best for each question, and then reserve any additional comments or clarifications for the final open-ended question, or for the comments on the post. If you are American, click on the link in the poll question to see a
nifty little dialect map that is a composite of the work of several linguists, and which I have taken from
Linguistic Geography of the Mainland United States. Please note that this poll is exactly as fine-grained as I chose to make it, and no more. I am perfectly aware that these regions and dialects are fairly broad - for instance, that the Philadelphia region has its own peculiar accent apart from 'Midland' and that Scouse and Geordie each have their own rich history within the broad 'Northern England' category. I've also had to omit any discussion of class and age, for the sake of privacy and to avoid huge angry discussions.
Edit to add: In the final question, feel free to also enter any non-English languages to which you have been exposed, and which you think may affect your pronunciation of English words. Poll #1046168 Dialect survey
Open to:
All, results viewable to:
AllIs English your native language?
If you answered 'No', what is your native language?
In which of the following countries/regions did you first learn English?
If you answered 'Other' above, in what country/region did you first learn English?
If you answered 'United States' above, which of the following regions best describes your native dialect (click here for map)?
If you answered 'Canada' above, which of the following best describes the region where you learned English?
If you answered 'British Isles' above, which of the following best describes the region where you learned English?
(If relevant) To which other English dialects have you had significant, long-term exposure (e.g., through a spouse or long-term residence)?
Tags: language, word-polls, wp
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