Accents of English, 5 op

This course surveys the wide variety of accents found throughout the English-speaking world. We will discuss accent and its connection to a speaker’s geographical origin, ethnicity and social class, and issues such as attitudes and prejudice towards speakers of different accents. We will look into the ways in which accents change over time, and the reasons and mechanisms behind the shifts in the phonemic system. We will be getting familiar with the important pieces of research on this topic, and the resources available for independent research. We start by looking at the ‘prestige’ accents of Britain and the United States, which are widely used as models in English pronunciation teaching, before moving on to other native varieties, and a selection of the large group of non-native speaker accents. Classes are held in the language laboratory, and we will use the audio equipment to analyse speech samples, and to practice reproducing the key features of a selection of English accents.