This thesis deals with rhythmic differences between Vietnamese English and the British Standard. As all the recorded speakers were originally from Northern Vietnam or lived there for an extensive period of time, it should be noted that the subject of analysis was in fact North Vietnamese English. The theoretical part describes the concept of rhythm in general and modern approaches to its analysing and measuring. Furthermore, the theoretical chapter describes the basics of phonetic characteristics of the Vietnamese language and the British standard of English. The last chapter of the theoretical part constitutes a bridge between theory and analysis as it explains selected features of Vietnamese English concerning mainly the realization of vowels and consonants. The next part is dedicated to methodology and it informs the reader about the criteria for selection of speakers and the means of gathering and processing material. At the end, a number of hypotheses regarding Vietnamese English are presented. In the analysis, values for rhythm metrics for Vietnamese English (%V, ΔV, ΔC, varcoV, varcoC, rPVI-V, rPVI-C, nPVI-V, nPVI-C) are calculated, compared to the rhythm metrics for British English and further evaluated in relation to gender, speakers and prosodic compactness. The results of the analysis...

<p>Institution: Halmstad University/School of Teacher Education (LUT)</p><p>Course: C-level paper, 15 credits</p><p>Term: Spring 2010</p><p>Title: Two Sides of the Same Coin - A study of EFL-teachers knowledge regarding the divergences between British and American English; and the challenges which arise from having more than one accepted variety of English in EFL teaching.</p><p>Pages: 41</p><p>Writer: Linda Jensen</p><p>Purpose: The purpose of this essay is to ascertain if Swedish EFL teachers have sufficient knowledge regarding the differences between BrE and AmE, the two major varieties of English. Furthermore, I aim to examine what challenges are created when two models of English, BrE and AmE, are accepted in upper secondary schools in Sweden.</p><p>Method: A quantitative web-based survey.Material: Questionnaire filled in by 59 EFL teachers in upper secondary schools in Halland, Sweden.</p><p>Main results: Upper secondary EFL teachers in Halland, Sweden do appear to have a basic knowledge of the differences between BrE and AmE and as such a majority placed themselves in the correct category. However, there is a lack of consistency and all the teachers mixed the two varieties to some extent. The challenges that arise from having two accepted varieties in Swedish schools are amongst other things the question of the consistency rule, dealing with the value system associated with British and American English and the question of whether Mid-Atlantic English should be accepted as a third educational standard.</p><p>Keywords: British English, American English, Mid-Atlantic English, divergence, EFL, consistency, challenges, value system.</p>

<p><strong>Abstract</strong></p><p>Many would agree that English has become a global language that has spread all over the world. English has been the primary foreign language in the Swedish school curriculum since the Second World War and most Swedes have some English language proficiency. Today, Swedes are not only subjected to English in school, but also come across English every day in media, in the streets or at work.</p><p>A number of studies have been done on how Swedish students use English and of their attitudes towards it, but not much on how Swedes that are no longer under school influence view the matter. This study has examined the attitudes and preferences towards English among 60 adults. Most of them have a positive attitude towards English and believe that the use of English in Sweden will increase in the future. Even so, they show little concern that English might be a future threat towards Swedish.</p><p>Both men and women find media as their primary source of English influence and there was only one minor difference to be noted when comparing attitudes between different age groups. The older female informants reported to use less English and have lower skills than the rest. No such trend was seen among the men belonging to the same age group. Besides this, some interesting gender differences were seen. The female informants reported to have a stronger preference for British English and the male informants showed preference for American English. These gender differences would be interesting to study further.</p>

<p>The aim of this paper is to find out what variety of English pupils in upper secondary schools are using, British English or American English, but also to see if there are any difference between boys and girls and if they are aware of their usage. British English used to be the only variety allowed in school, but now other varieties are taught as well and American English is gaining ground in Swedish schools. According to the curriculum, it is a part of the subject of English in upper secondary schools to study the different varieties and be aware of them. This study took place in Swedish upper secondary schools in the Stockholm area where 108 pupils in university preparing programs translated sentences with words that differ in British and American English, filled in a questionnaire which tested spelling and were also recorded when reading sentences. The survey showed that the tendency among these pupils is that they use American English more than British English in both vocabulary and pronunciation. The study also indicated that many pupils tend to mix their usage between the varieties, especially the girls. It was also seen that boys seem to be more aware of what variety they use.</p>

Institution: Halmstad University/School of Teacher Education (LUT) Course: C-level paper, 15 credits Term: Spring 2010 Title: Two Sides of the Same Coin - A study of EFL-teachers knowledge regarding the divergences between British and American English; and the challenges which arise from having more than one accepted variety of English in EFL teaching. Pages: 41 Writer: Linda Jensen Purpose: The purpose of this essay is to ascertain if Swedish EFL teachers have sufficient knowledge regarding the differences between BrE and AmE, the two major varieties of English. Furthermore, I aim to examine what challenges are created when two models of English, BrE and AmE, are accepted in upper secondary schools in Sweden. Method: A quantitative web-based survey.Material: Questionnaire filled in by 59 EFL teachers in upper secondary schools in Halland, Sweden. Main results: Upper secondary EFL teachers in Halland, Sweden do appear to have a basic knowledge of the differences between BrE and AmE and as such a majority placed themselves in the correct category. However, there is a lack of consistency and all the teachers mixed the two varieties to some extent. The challenges that arise from having two accepted varieties in Swedish schools are amongst other things the question of the consistency rule, dealing with the value system associated with British and American English and the question of whether Mid-Atlantic English should be accepted as a third educational standard. Keywords: British English, American English, Mid-Atlantic English, divergence, EFL, consistency, challenges, value system.

The goal of this dissertation was to investigate experimentally the phonetic qualities of the palatalized consonants of Standard Bulgarian. The term ‘palatalized’ refers to consonants (e.g., [tʲ, dʲ]) which are articulated with a secondary palatal gesture superimposed on the primary gesture associated with their plain counterparts (e.g., [t, d]). An acoustic study investigated the claim (Horálek, 1950; Choi, 1998; Ignateva-Tsoneva, 2008) that the palatalized consonants of Standard Bulgarian have undergone depalatalization, which was defined as the decomposition of a secondary palatal [ ʲ ] gesture into a palatal glide [j]. A cross-language comparison was performed. Russian (e.g., [tʲulʲ], ‘silk net’) and British English (e.g., [tju:lip], ‘tulip’) data served as a baseline against which the Bulgarian data (e.g., [tʲul], ‘silk net’) was evaluated. Subjects’ productions of words were recorded for acoustic analyses. The F1, F2 and F3 frequencies of the critical segments were analyzed with a Smoothing Spline ANOVA (Gu, 2002). The analyses indicated that Bulgarian palatalized consonants were identical to those of the Russian palatalized consonants, but different from the consonant-palatal glide sequences of British English. It was concluded that Bulgarian palatalized consonants have not undergone depalatalization. A perception study employed two variations of the gating task (Grosjean, 1980): audio-only and audio-visual. The results of the audio-only experiment indicated that Bulgarian and Russian listeners needed only the information associated with the palatalization portion of the consonant to identify it as palatalized. Bulgarian subjects did not need the transitions with the following vowel (Tilkov, 1983) to identify a consonant as palatalized. The Russian subjects of Richey’s (2000) experiment did not need the formant transitions either to identify the secondary palatal gesture. These findings provide further evidence that the palatalized consonants of the Standard Bulgarian have not undergone depalatalization. The purpose of the audio-visual experiment was to investigate if Bulgarian and Russian listeners use visual information to identify palatalized consonants. The results from this experiment were not as clear cut as those from the audio-only experiment. Factors such as insufficient visual information at earlier gates, as well as attentional load are being considered as possible confounds. In addition, an improved methodology for an audio-visual perception study is outlined. Experimental evidence from the acoustic and perception studies points to similarities in the phonetic shape of the palatalized consonants of Bulgarian and Russian. However, the phonological distribution of these segments is very different in the respective languages. I argue against a one-to-one mapping between the phonetic and phonological representations of the Bulgarian palatalized consonants. Based on distributional evidence, I propose that at the level of phonology they consist of a sequence of /CjV/.

Abstract Many would agree that English has become a global language that has spread all over the world. English has been the primary foreign language in the Swedish school curriculum since the Second World War and most Swedes have some English language proficiency. Today, Swedes are not only subjected to English in school, but also come across English every day in media, in the streets or at work. A number of studies have been done on how Swedish students use English and of their attitudes towards it, but not much on how Swedes that are no longer under school influence view the matter. This study has examined the attitudes and preferences towards English among 60 adults. Most of them have a positive attitude towards English and believe that the use of English in Sweden will increase in the future. Even so, they show little concern that English might be a future threat towards Swedish. Both men and women find media as their primary source of English influence and there was only one minor difference to be noted when comparing attitudes between different age groups. The older female informants reported to use less English and have lower skills than the rest. No such trend was seen among the men belonging to the same age group. Besides this, some interesting gender differences were seen. The female informants reported to have a stronger preference for British English and the male informants showed preference for American English. These gender differences would be interesting to study further.

The goal of this dissertation was to investigate experimentally the phonetic qualities of the palatalized consonants of Standard Bulgarian. The term ‘palatalized’ refers to consonants (e.g., [tʲ, dʲ]) which are articulated with a secondary palatal gesture superimposed on the primary gesture associated with their plain counterparts (e.g., [t, d]). An acoustic study investigated the claim (Horálek, 1950; Choi, 1998; Ignateva-Tsoneva, 2008) that the palatalized consonants of Standard Bulgarian have undergone depalatalization, which was defined as the decomposition of a secondary palatal [ ʲ ] gesture into a palatal glide [j]. A cross-language comparison was performed. Russian (e.g., [tʲulʲ], ‘silk net’) and British English (e.g., [tju:lip], ‘tulip’) data served as a baseline against which the Bulgarian data (e.g., [tʲul], ‘silk net’) was evaluated. Subjects’ productions of words were recorded for acoustic analyses. The F1, F2 and F3 frequencies of the critical segments were analyzed with a Smoothing Spline ANOVA (Gu, 2002). The analyses indicated that Bulgarian palatalized consonants were identical to those of the Russian palatalized consonants, but different from the consonant-palatal glide sequences of British English. It was concluded that Bulgarian palatalized consonants have not undergone depalatalization. A perception study employed two variations of the gating task (Grosjean, 1980): audio-only and audio-visual. The results of the audio-only experiment indicated that Bulgarian and Russian listeners needed only the information associated with the palatalization portion of the consonant to identify it as palatalized. Bulgarian subjects did not need the transitions with the following vowel (Tilkov, 1983) to identify a consonant as palatalized. The Russian subjects of Richey’s (2000) experiment did not need the formant transitions either to identify the secondary palatal gesture. These findings provide further evidence that the palatalized consonants of the Standard Bulgarian have not undergone depalatalization. The purpose of the audio-visual experiment was to investigate if Bulgarian and Russian listeners use visual information to identify palatalized consonants. The results from this experiment were not as clear cut as those from the audio-only experiment. Factors such as insufficient visual information at earlier gates, as well as attentional load are being considered as possible confounds. In addition, an improved methodology for an audio-visual perception study is outlined. Experimental evidence from the acoustic and perception studies points to similarities in the phonetic shape of the palatalized consonants of Bulgarian and Russian. However, the phonological distribution of these segments is very different in the respective languages. I argue against a one-to-one mapping between the phonetic and phonological representations of the Bulgarian palatalized consonants. Based on distributional evidence, I propose that at the level of phonology they consist of a sequence of /CjV/.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Dept. of English Language and Literature, June 1999. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

Although there have been some studies conducted in Sweden about the language attitudes towards different varieties of English, most of these studies have focused on the language attitudes found amongst students. There have not, however, been many studies conducted that examines teachers’ language attitudes. The focus of the present study is to investigate which attitudes are found towards two varieties of English, American English and British English, amongst English teachers in Sweden. The study also aims to explore whether the teachers’ age and language backgrounds have an impact on the teachers’ attitudes. The hypothesis was that older teachers would be more positively inclined towards British English while younger teachers would prefer American English. Furthermore, it was also hypothesized that teachers who grew up monolingual would prefer British English and those who grew up bilingual would favour American English. The data collection method that was used in the study was a questionnaire which was distributed online to English teachers in Sweden. 115 teachers participated in the study and answered the questionnaire, which provided both quantitative and qualitative data. The results of the study show that the teachers seem to display equally positive attitudes towards both varieties. For example, American English is favoured in terms of being most familiar, easiest to understand and easiest to teach. British English, on the other hand, is favoured in terms of pleasantness and is in many ways seen as more respected. The findings of the study did confirm the hypotheses to a certain degree. The results showed a tendency amongst younger teachers and teachers who have grown up bilingual to prefer American English. In contrast, the tendency amongst older teachers and teachers who have grown up monolingual was to prefer British English. Overall, the results of the study raise the question of how these attitudes affect the teachers’ teaching of English.