Rhiannon L's > English Language A Level Blog

With the constant evolution of the English Language over time, it was inevitable that with new technology would come a new way of speaking- especially for the younger generations. As always anything that's not as its always been will upset a few of the 'old fashioned' people intent on preserving the language that they know. The best example of the language changing with the use of technology is 'text speak'. Most people who have social medias now a days will have seen or written words that have stemmed directly from the use of mobile phone texting. Older phones had a lengthy and irritating way of getting the letter you needed and without the use of the ever-helpful auto-correct we of course found a way around this. Words like 'your' got shortened to 'ur' and phrases like 'be right back' became 'brb' - initialism; pronouncing the first letter of a group of words separately. Although it’s now much faster to text and we have the ca...

In some ways think the logic behind teaching children received pronunciation makes sense. I haven't come across many professionals with thick regional accents and certainly not any politicians or similar people with power. Banning regional accents and slang is completely different to learning how to 'turn it on and off' in different situations. Although the idea that people with standard English accents are more intelligent than people with regional accents is judgemental, a lot of people think it. Companies use this widespread idea to convey a sense of authority, in call centre's for example. One call centre in Newcastle hire the locals to answer the phones because they sound friendly and familiar. If the customer asks to speak to a manager or the phone call has to be escalated it will be transferred to someone with a 'posher' accent often RP. This is a commonly used way to portray authority when you cant see who you're talking to. This shows that in s...