I’m totally with you on that one, EU, since I thoroughly enjoy a good old posh English accent – about as much as I do many other English accent varieties. I’m not sure if the phonetic ‘correctness’ of its sounds has anything to do with it (though it helps, I suppose). What I do know is that the characteristic stress, intonation, expressions and even the voice quality that often goes with it are anything but dull and pedestrian to listen to.
Hi Alan,
You wrote:
Are you sure it is not important for a linguist to be alert to differences in pronunciation?
EU
It is what distinguishes a foreign speaker from a native speaker. Mother tongue has a bad influence on pronunciation, word-choice and grammar. It makes foreigners’ speech unnatural.
Most of the native speakers of any of the languages do give little attention to word-chioce and grammar…yes I agree with you…Sassiek…
Hi EU,
I happened to have a chance to read an artical discussing about the history of language on the planet. This artical presents a very important messege: language is changing from time to time and it changes very fast. I share this with you because I wonder what the standard of english pronounciation you think it is? Who’s pronounciation can represent a specific english accent? Seems it’s hard to define.
Piangel