Methodology And Influence Of English

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1. Introduction
2. Methodology
3. Analysis
A. Lexis, Morphology, and Semantics
B. Changes in Phonology
I. General Changes
II. Mergers
III. California Vowel Shift
C. Syntax
4. Conclusion
5. Evaluation
6. Bibliography
7. Appendix
8. Raw Data

1. Introduction
The global influence of English doesn’t come from just the British anymore. No, the current most widespread variants of English comes from the United States of America; if we go in closer, we’ll see that the one of the main sources is none other than… Hollywood. Although, by itself, Hollywood is just a small part of a larger city, which is just a fraction of the third largest state in the US; you guessed it! California!
Have ever seen a movie where the main character is played by a Californian? If not, then that’s okay. All you have to do is watch news broadcast from any major news outlet in the US, as most of the news anchors have a Californian accent! Now, you might be wondering, “What is a Californian accent?” or even, “What is California English?” Well, to pin that down, we’ll have to look at the state from a geographical and historical point of view.
English was first commonly spoken in what we now know as California when a surge of English speakers from Canada, Europe, and the US rolled up to the west for the Gold Rush. The amount of English-speakers grew quickly as the influx of settlers from the South, Northeast and Midwest increased. The dialects which these people carried along served as an origin for the modern California English.
As time passed, the southern influence faded away slowly (but not completely) as teachers forbade most southern slang and pronunciation in grammar schools. However, as a relatively young state, California wouldn’t see any ...

... middle of paper ...

...rn and Southern Californian English, and all information in the paper was acquired from the Internet, multimedia, and conversations with Californians. However, California is constantly growing, with the population pushing 40 million people along with new people arriving every day- who all contribute to the large melting-pot of cultures; in addition to that, key stimuli like the Internet, will modify the English language for years to come. Therefore, further research via increasingly popular platforms of social interaction like “YouTube” and “Facebook” can be carried out periodically to show the changes in the language as time goes on. I believe that research based on growing mediums of the communication which the population uses will show us how the two dialects of English are not only representing the population, but also evolving alongside the ones who speak it.

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