Hi,
I think Jonathan's points highlight the variety of regional pronunciation of
English, and the
importance role of pron in marking identity. Some strange things seem to be
happening
though. 'Geordie' is now recognized around England as the voice of 'Big
Brother', yet the
accent isn't a very authentic Geordie. The vowel sounds are right, but the
rhythm and
intonation are standardized, and Big Brother never uses any dialect lexis. Big
Brother
Geordie is divorced from the original accent, almost as much as BB is divorced
from
Orwell's meaning of the phrase.
Anna, I found the link really interesting - David Crystal spoke a bit about
this at the
conference in Glasgow. What struck me most was the comment that Crystal had
spoken to
kids about the OP performance of Shakespeare and they had said it was better
than when
actors "talk posh". It seems the OP pronunciation made the plays more accessible
to them,
by removing an alienating factor.
All evidence that pronunciation is pretty powerful in communication!

Alex.




--- In iatefl_pronsig@..., BERNARD Anna <anna.bernard@...> wrote:
>
> Shakespeare is often performed in what we understand to be the "Queen's
> English" but in OP (original pronunciation) it is fascinatingly different
> as the work by David Crystal shows.....
> If you're interested here's a link:
> http://www.npr.org/templates/player/mediaPlayer.html?
action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=4761275&m=4761276
> Have a good weekend all
> Anna
>
>
>
>
> Anna Bernard
> EFL Lecturer
> Ecole Nationale de L'Aviation Civile
> 7, avenue Edouard Belin
> BP 4005
> 31055 Toulouse CEDEX
> Tel: 00 33 5 62 17 41 15
>