How Linguists Detect and Monitor Variation in the Pronunciation of Modern English

David Graddol categorised Modern English into 3 parts. We will be looking into the handling of Late modern English by linguists. It is used in our present era where English has become the international language of communications technology and American English becoming more dominant . I will be looking at the study by Guy and Vonwiller followed by some of the devices used by linguists to detect and monitor the pronunciation of modern English.

A very clear example of how linguists detect and monitor variation in the pronunciation of modern English is the study by Gregory Guy and Julia Vovwiller. The methods they used to collect their data to come to their conclusion of AQI (Australian questioning intonation) serves to showcase how linguists come to certain deductions. This research in intonation or changes in pitch occur when a sentence is uttered in one breadth breaking usually in a grammatical structure. The AQI has a unique questioning tone, usually at the end of a sentence. This sentence will not be a question. This innovation can also be described as the High Rising Tone or HRT. This intonation encourages interaction between the listener and the speaker as the listener is made to think or prepare an answer for the questioning tone. But the speaker may not require an oral response. The speaker monitors the listener¡¦s attentiveness via this tone too.

In their findings, Guy and Vonviller did a series of surveys to note certain trends among the people in the way they use AQI. In their report, they categorised their findings according to age groups, class and sex distributions.

¡§This intonation clearly predominates among the young, with a maximum in the older teenagers who use the intonation at ...

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...ion and change. They gathered information from conversations in various settings and interviews. The data collected helped these linguists to monitor changes in the pronunciation.

English has always been changing. I am sure it will carry on doing so through the ages. There are many ways to detect and monitor the variations in the pronunciation. It is collection of many tedious processes and has to be a continuous task. This is so as language is never static.

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References

David Graddol, Dick Leith and Joan Swann (Ed). English ¡V history, diversity and change. New York and London: Routledge 2002.,,X David Graddol, English Manuscripts: The Emergence of a Visual Identity, Chapter 2,,X Susan Wright, Accents of English, Chapter 7,,X Gregory Guy and Julia Vonwiller, The High Rising Tone in Australian English, Reading A (Chapter 7)