<p>The aim of this essay is to investigate what English teachers’ attitudes are towards British English, American English and Mid-Atlantic English. What variety of English do teachers use in Swedish upper secondary schools today and what are their reasons for using that variety? Do upper secondary school teachers think it is important to expose students to several varieties of English and do they teach differences (e.g. vocabulary and spelling) between varieties? The material is based on a questionnaire, which 20 participating teachers from five different upper secondary schools in Gävleborg answered. The study showed that there is an even distribution between the varieties used and taught. British English was preferred by teachers working the longest time while both AmE and MAE seemed to be growing in popularity among the younger teachers. Of the 20 teachers, 18 considered teaching differences to students since it gives them a chance to communicate effectively with people from other English speaking countries.</p>

Orientador: Gladis Massini-Cagliari / Banca: Vera Pacheco / Banca: Flaviane R. F. Svartman / Banca: Antonio S. Abreu / Banca: Renata M. F. Marchezan / Resumo: Esta tese tem como principal objetivo identificar as adaptações fonético-fonológicas realizadas por falantes brasileiros ao pronunciarem antropônimos estrangeiros, sobretudo os provenientes da língua inglesa. Argumenta-se que a temática discutida vincula-se diretamente com a definição de "identidade fonológica" do português. O estudo abrange questões de ordem linguística e extralinguística, o que permite dois olhares sobre o tema. O primeiro, de caráter sócio-histórico, retoma reflexões anteriores a respeito dos antropônimos e sua relevância para diferentes povos e culturas desde a antiguidade. Abordam-se, por este viés, aspectos de cunho discursivo que permeiam o processo de designação de pessoas. A segunda perspectiva, de caráter linguístico-estrutural, constitui o cerne desta investigação científica, que se desenvolve, essencialmente, à luz dos modelos fonológicos nãolineares. Nessa direção, por meio de análise contrastiva, destacam-se semelhanças e diferenças entre os sistemas fonológicos da língua-fonte, o inglês americano (IA), e da língua-alvo, o português do Brasil (PB). O corpus do trabalho é constituído por prenomes advindos do inglês, bem como por aqueles cuja grafia remete a essa língua. A seleção dos prenomes foi realizada a partir de listas de frequência de escolas públicas da cidade de São Luís-MA. Foram realizadas gravações com falantes nativos do IA e falantes nativos do PB, com o propósito de identificar os principais processos fonológicos desencadeados por esses informantes ao produzirem prenomes tipicamente derivados da língua inglesa. Por meio de entrevistas, investigam-se questões de ordem subjetiva, como fatos que motivaram a escolha do nome, satisfação do usuário com o nome e admiração pela língua inglesa. Após as transcrições dos dados, foram mapeadas as principais adaptações... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: The primary purpose of this thesis is to outline phonetic and phonological adaptations made by Brazilian speakers while pronouncing foreign anthroponyms, especially those derived from English. The topic discussed is straightly linked to the determination of a phonological identity of Portuguese. The study focuses on linguistic and extralinguistic aspects, which allow two different views on the subject. The first, based on social-historical grounds, retakes previous reflections on anthroponyms and their relevance to different people and cultures since ancient times. Under this perspective, the survey deals with discursive issues related to the act of naming people. The second view, based on structural linguistic grounds, is the main focus of the study, which is essentially conducted in the light of non-linear phonological models. By means of phonological contrastive analysis, similarities and differences are highlighted concerning the source language, American English (AE) and the target language, Brazilian Portuguese (BP). The corpus comprises anthroponyms typical of the English language as well as proper names whose spelling refer to this idiom. The names selection was based on attendance sheets from State Schools in the city of São Luís, MA. Recordings were carried out with both native English and Portuguese speakers, aiming at mapping the main phonological processes employed by these subjects when producing the foreign anthroponyms. Subjective matters were investigated through interviews that point out motivational reasons parents had for choosing foreign athroponyms; users satisfaction with their own name, as well as their appreciation for the English language. Following data transcriptions, the research presents the main observed adaptations motivated by speakers' native phonological system, such as: a) addition of the epenthetic vowel [i], resulting... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Doutor

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:32:13Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2011-03-30Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T19:42:38Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 souza_smls_dr_arafcl.pdf: 2613619 bytes, checksum: 83a0861850573336a552ef8ada2ef87b (MD5) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / Esta tese tem como principal objetivo identificar as adaptações fonético-fonológicas realizadas por falantes brasileiros ao pronunciarem antropônimos estrangeiros, sobretudo os provenientes da língua inglesa. Argumenta-se que a temática discutida vincula-se diretamente com a definição de “identidade fonológica” do português. O estudo abrange questões de ordem linguística e extralinguística, o que permite dois olhares sobre o tema. O primeiro, de caráter sócio-histórico, retoma reflexões anteriores a respeito dos antropônimos e sua relevância para diferentes povos e culturas desde a antiguidade. Abordam-se, por este viés, aspectos de cunho discursivo que permeiam o processo de designação de pessoas. A segunda perspectiva, de caráter linguístico-estrutural, constitui o cerne desta investigação científica, que se desenvolve, essencialmente, à luz dos modelos fonológicos nãolineares. Nessa direção, por meio de análise contrastiva, destacam-se semelhanças e diferenças entre os sistemas fonológicos da língua-fonte, o inglês americano (IA), e da língua-alvo, o português do Brasil (PB). O corpus do trabalho é constituído por prenomes advindos do inglês, bem como por aqueles cuja grafia remete a essa língua. A seleção dos prenomes foi realizada a partir de listas de frequência de escolas públicas da cidade de São Luís-MA. Foram realizadas gravações com falantes nativos do IA e falantes nativos do PB, com o propósito de identificar os principais processos fonológicos desencadeados por esses informantes ao produzirem prenomes tipicamente derivados da língua inglesa. Por meio de entrevistas, investigam-se questões de ordem subjetiva, como fatos que motivaram a escolha do nome, satisfação do usuário com o nome e admiração pela língua inglesa. Após as transcrições dos dados, foram mapeadas as principais adaptações... / The primary purpose of this thesis is to outline phonetic and phonological adaptations made by Brazilian speakers while pronouncing foreign anthroponyms, especially those derived from English. The topic discussed is straightly linked to the determination of a phonological identity of Portuguese. The study focuses on linguistic and extralinguistic aspects, which allow two different views on the subject. The first, based on social-historical grounds, retakes previous reflections on anthroponyms and their relevance to different people and cultures since ancient times. Under this perspective, the survey deals with discursive issues related to the act of naming people. The second view, based on structural linguistic grounds, is the main focus of the study, which is essentially conducted in the light of non-linear phonological models. By means of phonological contrastive analysis, similarities and differences are highlighted concerning the source language, American English (AE) and the target language, Brazilian Portuguese (BP). The corpus comprises anthroponyms typical of the English language as well as proper names whose spelling refer to this idiom. The names selection was based on attendance sheets from State Schools in the city of São Luís, MA. Recordings were carried out with both native English and Portuguese speakers, aiming at mapping the main phonological processes employed by these subjects when producing the foreign anthroponyms. Subjective matters were investigated through interviews that point out motivational reasons parents had for choosing foreign athroponyms; users satisfaction with their own name, as well as their appreciation for the English language. Following data transcriptions, the research presents the main observed adaptations motivated by speakers’ native phonological system, such as: a) addition of the epenthetic vowel [i], resulting... (Complete abstract click electronic access below)

The aim of this essay is to investigate what English teachers’ attitudes are towards British English, American English and Mid-Atlantic English. What variety of English do teachers use in Swedish upper secondary schools today and what are their reasons for using that variety? Do upper secondary school teachers think it is important to expose students to several varieties of English and do they teach differences (e.g. vocabulary and spelling) between varieties? The material is based on a questionnaire, which 20 participating teachers from five different upper secondary schools in Gävleborg answered. The study showed that there is an even distribution between the varieties used and taught. British English was preferred by teachers working the longest time while both AmE and MAE seemed to be growing in popularity among the younger teachers. Of the 20 teachers, 18 considered teaching differences to students since it gives them a chance to communicate effectively with people from other English speaking countries.

This quantitative corpus study discusses and compares the distribution of the inflected genitive (’s- or zero-genitive) with that of the of-construction in East African, Indian, American and British English using data collected from the ICE-EA, ICE-IND, Frown and FLOB corpora. This study also discusses the semantic categories of the inflected genitive in the varieties mentioned. The first conclusion of the study is that the distribution of tokens according to semantic categories is similar in all varieties examined. Furthermore, it is concluded for the modifier classes that animateness-biased classes are more common with the inflected genitive, while inanimateness-biased classes are more common with the of-construction; this distribution is similar in all varieties.

This study investigates teachers' attitudes towards aural recordings and written English from different English varieties in the Swedish upper primary school EFL-classroom. Data from 27 online surveys and four semi-structured interviews are analyzed. The results show that British and American English are the most accepted varitetis. Australian English is accepted in audio, though not necessarily recognized in writing. Indian English, while mostly recognized, is not as accepted. Swedish English, though still accepted by most, is the least approved of the studied varieties.

This study investigates which English variety teachers in Sweden learned, which they use now and whether this has changed over time. The study included the two major varieties of English, namely British English and American English.  The hypothesis for this paper is that British English will have played an important part in the teachers’ schooling but American English will have had a strong influence in their day-to-day lives and will likely have hanged how they use English. Data was collected in the form of questionnaires filled in by 294 teachers who teach English at primary, secondary and upper secondary schools in Sweden.  The results support the thesis of the paper that teachers mainly learned British English at school while American English becomes more common for teachers under the age of 40. However, the majority of participants were found to use a variety which has features of both British and American English - it is referred to as Mid-Atlantic English in this paper.

English is today a vast world language, and the foremost important business and cross-border language in the world. The two predominant English varieties in the Swedish educational system are British English and American English. A third variety, Mid-Atlantic English, is however on the up-rise, and many researchers expect this to be the future educational standard variety due to escalating globalization. British English is the variety which traditionally has been taught in the Swedish school, but the last couple of decades American English have been gaining ground because of popular media. Today both varieties are referred to in the Swedish National Curriculum, and teachers as well as students face a multifaceted choice. The aim of this paper is to investigate attitudes among upper-secondary level teachers and students; on what grounds they have chosen their personal variety and to what extent they are aware of what English variety they use. What we have seen is that resolute attitudes can be perceived towards the two Englishes. Furthermore, our investigation shows that students mix British and American English, and even though British English still is held in academic esteem, American English characteristics predominate in the mix. British English is recurrently described as “snobbish” and in a more positive fashion as “high-class”, whereas American English is perceived either as “youthful and cool” or “dim and uneducated”. Even students who prefer and think they use British English, to a large extent use American orthography and spelling.

La tesi fornisce uno studio empirico relativo agli elementi linguistici caratterizzanti il parlato faccia-a-faccia e il parlato filmico americano, due domini conversazionali solitamente detti differire in termini di spontaneità, essendo il primo generalmente descritto come la quintessenza del linguaggio parlato (in quanto totalmente spontaneo) e il secondo come non-spontaneo (essendo scritto-per-essere-parlato) e, quindi, non adatto a rappresentare l'uso generale della conversazione. Entrambe le analisi (i.e. quella multi-dimensionale, che offre una panoramica generale dei due domini presi in considerazione, e quella più specifica relativa al comportamento linguistico dell’espressione you know) basate su esempi autentici tratti da corpora dimostrano che, nonostante quanto venga generalmente descritto dalla letteratura a riguardo, conversazione faccia-a-faccia e conversazione filmica hanno molti tratti in comune e confutano l’idea che il linguaggio filmico non possa essere rappresentativo dell'uso generale della conversazione. / The present dissertation examines empirically the linguistic features characterizing American face-to-face and movie conversation, two domains which are usually claimed to differ especially in terms of spontaneity. Natural conversation is, indeed, considered the quintessence of the spoken language for it is totally spontaneous, whereas movie conversation is usually described as non-spontaneous, being artificially written-to-be spoken and, thus, not likely to represent the general usage of conversation. In spite of what is generally maintained by the literature, both the Multi-Dimensional analysis and the micro-analysis of the functions of you know based on authentic data retrieved from corpora show that the two conversational domains do not differ to a great extent and thus confutes the claim that movie language has “a very limited value” in that it does not reflect natural conversation and, consequently, is “not likely to be representative of the general usage of conversation”.

The purpose of this project was to find out what varieties of English that Swedish upper secondary school students are exposed to in the classroom and to what extent they are exposed to different varieties. This was conducted by looking at preparation exercises for the listening part of the Swedish National Tests. These exercises are created by Göteborgs Universitet and are available online for everyone and show how the real national test will be done. By listening and analyzing every speaker’s variety they were sorted into British, American, Mid-Atlantic, Australian or New Zealand varieties. A total of 91 speakers were analyzed and the results showed that Students are exposed to mostly British English with half of the speakers using a British variety. One fourth of the speakers used American English while the rest were divided into Mid-Atlantic, Australian or New Zealand varieties.