The conference, hosted by Dr. Manfred Krug of the
University of Bamberg, Germany, was about his research into the lexicon, or
vocabulary. Based specifically into variants of native English regions, with
the United States and Britain which were two islands: Malta and Puerto Rico.
Krug collected a sample of one million words through their questionnaires,
which measured the nationality if they were monolingual English, bilingual, trialing and that greatly influenced the kind of English that they would
produce. He showed the results on graphs explaining the different samples of
different speakers, how some are more close to the United Kingdom variant and
other to the United States.
This was more focused on English in Malta and
Puerto Rico. What could find was that the variant of Malta was more similar to
the United Kingdom, yet the Italian influence is still perceived in the English
spoken in Malta and counting the influence of their native language. Regarding
variant Puerto Rico clearly was more similar to that produced in the United
States. Another issue on which he was focused was on phrases or words that
Puerto Ricans use in spanish. Where we can call it as loans rather than English
or anglicized English that reflects the influence of American English on the
island.
The talk usually was very interesting
although I wish more interaction and participation from the public. Another
issue was that this did not talk about the accent or pronunciation but only
focused on the topic lexicon.
If you are interested in this topic you will find more information here -
http://download.e-bookshelf.de/download/0002/5629/60/L-G-0002562960-0003846724.pdf
Personally, I wasn't looking for more interaction with and participation from the public since he asked the public what they thought about the data collected on some words. What I did wish for was that he would've talked more freely as opposed to simply reading and exposing all the data collected; that made it more impersonal and hard for the public to follow.
ResponderEliminarI think the point you bring on talking about the accent and pronunciation of words wasn't talked about because it wasn't a variable in the study. However, it's a very interesting subject, and his next study should consist of that!
I agree with what you said about interacting with the public. It's logical that Q&A sections are usually left for last, but I think it would've been more engaging if his dynamic with the audience had been different.
ResponderEliminarThat being said, I never considered thinking about pronunciation. When talking about language, pronunciation is an extremely important variable and looking back, I'm surprised he didn't at least mention it at some point throughout his presentation.