World English

Honglish:

• Spoken in Hong Kong
• Introduced to Hong Kong during the Opium Wars
• You have probably heard Honglish before, perhaps at a Chinese restaurant/takeaway
• Honglish phonology is a combination of English and Cantonese phonology
• Lacks pluralisation such as “two cat is…” instead of “two cats are…”
• There are often additions of vowels at the end of words to make them easier to say. E.g 'gas' = 'gasi'
• Honglish speakers have difficulty pronouncing 'r' and 'l' sounds. Therefore the stereotypical Asian dialect is formed. 'Fried rice' = 'Fwied wice'

American English:

• English is the most widely-spoken language in the United States. English is the common language used by the federal government and is considered the de facto language of the United States due to its widespread use. English has been given official status by 30 of the 50 state governments. As an example, under federal law, English is the official language of United States courts in Puerto Rico.
• The use of English in the United States is a result of English colonization. The first wave of English-speaking settlers arrived in North America during the 17th century, followed by further migrations in the 18th and 19th centuries. Since then, American English has been influenced by the languages of West Africa, the Native American population, German, Irish, Spanish, and other languages of successive waves of immigrants to the US.

Prescriptivism & Descriptivism

What is Prescriptivism?

Prescriptivism is the idea that only one 'variety' or way of speaking is correct. It is a very biased way of looking at language. Prescriptivists would argue that their own dialect (or possibly another) is the correct, and only way, to speak.
The aim of prescriptivism is to establish a 'standard language' that everyone will use. The reasons for this are to teach people what a 'correct language' is, and to perhaps make communications more efficient.

What is Descriptivism?

Descriptivism is the analogy of a certain language, and describing how it is spoken (or was spoken in the past) by a group of people in a single speech community. Like all other sciences, the aim of descriptivism is to observe the current linguistics as they are, without any bias or ideas of how it should be. In some ways, it is the opposite of prescriptivism.

Quote by Edward Finegan of the University of Southern California:

"Descriptivists ask, “What is English? “ …prescriptivists ask, “What should English be like?"

Examples of linguistic theorists that are/were also descriptivist are:

• Jean Aichison
• David Crystal 
• Samuel Johnson (converted to a descriptivist from a prescriptivist)

Examples of linguistic theorists that are/were prescriptivists are:

• Lynee Truss
• Robert Yates
• Jim Kenkel

David Crystal's views on non-standard English:

• non-standard varieties of English have been virtually neglected
• 'perhaps 1% of all the English speakers in the world use standard English'
• double negatives are non-standard - 'I haven't got nothing'
• most people use non-standard English

Lynne Truss' views on non-standard English:

• "It seems to me that, since the English language self-evidently belongs to everyone who speaks it, if people can't express themselves in writing, they have been deprived not just of a life skill but of their birthright. And in an age of fabulous, unprecedentedly fast and convenient means of written communications, it is actually criminal – not funny, not sad, but criminal – that so many people can't string a sentence together."

I believe this paragraph sums up Lynne Truss' views exponentially.

I thought I would include this quote from her book 'Eats, Shoots & Leaves' because it is simply brilliant.

“A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife annual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"I'm a panda," he says, at the door. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.”

Rastamouse: Righteous Rodent or Rank Stereotype?

Not since the Teletubbies said "eh-oh" has a children's TV show been this talked about. Rastamouse might have skateboarded onto CBeebies a mere fortnight ago, but the crime-fighting, reggae-playing rodent has already gathered a righteous cult following. And, of course, a backlash.

Producer Greg Boardman came across the Rastamouse books by Genevieve Webster and Michael De Souza in 2005, when his son was given a copy of Rastamouse & Da Bag-a Bling and they were both "blown away by the story, language and energy."

The pleasingly retro feel of Rastamouse's stop-frame filming comes courtesy of director Derek Mogford, an animator who learned his trade on Postman Pat. Paddington Bear, The Wombles and The Clangers are also mentioned as influences. "Michael and Genevieve still needed convincing, so Derek went off and built the puppet himself," says Boardman. "He even got the hat knitted and sewed a little T-shirt. We all got together for a meeting and Derek had the Rastamouse puppet under a white napkin, unveiled it and everyone fell in love with it instantly."

Our furry hero's voice is provided by Radio 1 DJ Reggie Yates. Some very well-known people auditioned, Boardman says. "They came in desperate to pitch us their best Rastamouse voice, then Reggie came in and stole the day. He's now getting a lot of requests for Rastamouse impressions."

That may be something of an understatement. Last week saw Rastamouse trending on Twitter, with the starry likes of Lily Allen, Emma Freud, Dizzee Rascal, Lauren Laverne and Rob Da Bank professing their devotion. Rastamouse is now the most-watched CBeebies show on iPlayer. Facebook fans number 9,000 and rising. Students are crawling out of bed to watch it. YouTube DJs have remixed Rastamouse with Tinie Tempah and dubstep tunes. Rastamouse's band, Da Easy Crew, even have a single out – the brassy skank of Ice Popp, released by EMI and penned by Mr Scruff collaborator Andy Kingslow.
"All this attention is a wonderful pat on the back but social networking sites and the media are obviously skewed towards adults," Boardman says. "In many ways, we've got to ignore it and carry on making what is at heart a pre-school kids' show. We absolutely don't put in jokes just for the parents. Humour is never intended to go over the kids' heads."

Yet the approval hasn't been unanimous. The BBC has received complaints from six viewers that it stereotypes black people. Another 95 have complained about the patois spoken by the animated characters. These issues have been debated in black newspaper The Voice and, perhaps predictably, on Mumsnet.
So is Rastamouse patronising towards black culture or reinforcing negative stereotypes? Boardman insists not. "We're a strongly multicultural production company making a programme about characters co-created by a Rastafarian," he says. "We think they're great models who use logic and problem-solving for the good of a positive, creative community."

And what about parental concerns that the patois could teach bad linguistic habits? "The show has a strong message: through love, understanding and respect, Rastamouse will make a bad thing good," says Boardman. "The whole package – music, colour, rhythm and rhyme of speech – engages kids and enables that message to be heard by a wider audience … I heard yesterday about a boy who was being bullied by a classmate and told his teacher, 'I'm giving him time to make a bad ting good.'" That's Rastamouse's message: redemption not retribution.

Rastamouse has also been seized upon by conspiracy theorists claiming that "cheese", oft-featured in a show about mice, is code for marijuana – and that the characters even make smoking gestures when they mention it.
"We're aware people have been reading things into it," laughs Boardman, "but that's the first I've heard about smoking gestures. I promise you, we never intentionally put in innuendo or anything that isn't age-appropriate. We're a family brand, we're on CBeebies and we're very careful. We can't make it as cult viewing, even though it may later end up as cult viewing. So while we love that the fact that they're watching, the students and messageboarders are barking up the wrong tree."

So have you been watching our red, gold and green hero? Is Rastamouse irie or vexin'? Let us know below.

How is the language issue represented?
To me, the article shows a very balanced argument about the Rastamouse controversy. The author is quite positive about the program, and includes quotes from the creators of the show "The show has a strong message: through love, understanding and respect, Rastamouse will make a bad thing good".
However the author also includes negative information from parents about the show "Rastamouse has also been seized upon by conspiracy theorists claiming that "cheese", oft-featured in a show about mice, is code for marijuana".
Having both negative and positive points included in his article gives the controversy a fairly balanced representation.

How does the author represent him/herself and others?
Generally, I think the author represents himself as

How does the author shape the readers response (audience positioning)?

BBC Voices

Whilst reading the BBC Voices poll results, I was able to make notes about the research obtained.

• the aim of the research was to find out how people felt about the different languages and accents across the UK.
• 5000 (15+) people took part in the survey.
• the participants were asked to rank celebrities in order of how pleasant their voices sounded.
• Sean Connery was a particular favourite, along with fellow Bond actor Pierce Brosnan.
• some of the most popular were newsreaders, including Moira Stewart and Trevor McDonald.
• some of the least popular were Paul O'Grady, Billy Connolly and even David Beckham.
• people tended to say that they liked the accents that were local to them; such as the Scottish - they liked Ewan McGregor's accent, while people in Northern Island loved the sound of Terry Wogan's voice.
• furthermore, some voted that 'an accent identical to your own' would be their favourite.
• many people enjoy hearing new accents, and the variation of accents.

With these results, I can create a league table of attitudes towards different accents:

1 - Standard English

2 - Scottish

3 - Irish

4 - Newcastle

5 - New Zealand

6 - London

7 - Birmingham

8 - Asian

9 - Liverpool

From all of this information, I can conclude that:

• Edinburgh accents was valued to be both helpful when job-seeking, and also pleasant to listen to.
• However, Asian, Liverpool and Birmingham accents were the opposite, deemed unpleasant.

• Scottish and Norther Irish participants preferred the Scottish accent the most, but English and Welsh voters decided that the Standard English accent is the best.