Talk: The Impact of Current Trends in British Society on the Phonostylistical Peculiarities of the Media Discourse

Abstract

In the light of the current socio-political situation in Great Britain, the state that finds itself in the process of finalising BREXIT, a country led by the Conservative Party, there is a noticeable change in the common perception of Received Pronunciation (RP) and its contemporary varieties, predominantly among those of opposing political opinions. The given phenomenon is supported by the negative connotation of a word “POSH”, which in many ways not only characterises the social status of those who currently rule the country but also is commonly associated with the accent they speak. In the present circumstances, speaking with a previously admired and universally acclaimed Standard British pronunciation, also commonly referred to as “The Queen’s English” can be much less beneficial than assumed by English language learners. The project consists of two main parts: the first part, theoretical one, is concerned with the analysis of existing literature on the given matter, including the subjects of sociolinguistics, accents, political, socio-cultural setting in Great Britain, historic contexts as well as discourse competences; the second part – a practical one, where methods and results are presented. The method is a phonetic analysis of the two transcribed speeches taken as examples of contemporary media discourse: one – extracted from BBC Breakfast; the other one – from YouTube, defining a less formal environment. In both cases, the same speaker is analysed. The analysis is visualised in two tables. The present research could be of great use when it comes to actualising the more beneficial and up-to-date English-teaching practices. Language changes, and so does the language preference. Hence, the development of an approach to teaching pronunciation could benefit greatly from the ‘preference shift’ acknowledgement.

Info

Day: 2020-11-19
Start time: 19:45
Duration: 00:30
Room: Odille Morison
Track: Phonetics and Phonology
Language: en

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