i have already received several replies from people that want to participate
in the phonetics survey. i will wait until i can gather more ''informants''
and then send the questionnaires out.
it is very important that you remember that this is purely a descriptive
phonetics project -- that is, no judgment of any kind is involved. i would
like to put a few theories to the test and see where the isophonemic lines
[the lines that join points where people pronounce similarly] really go
through. i have a lot of information on what i should expect, and i am sure
that i will be surprised at the end of the survey. the survey will require
certain information on locations, e.g. where you were raised, where you went
to school, where you have spent the last few years, etc.. rest assured that
this is only so that i can identify certain variables that relate sounds and
places. again, i'm not interested in class or income. in other words, this
is not the ''who's who on the jmdl'' survey.
i am being very careful about this issue since most linguistics projects
fail because informants feel self-conscious or have the misconception that
surveys are meant to determine where people sound posh and where they
disgrace their english teachers. consequently, either deliberately or
unwittingly, they provide non-representative answers because they feel that
these responses will place them in a better light.
the only condition to participate is that you are a native speaker of
english. let's define a native speaker of english as someone whose first
language was english. if you were raised on more than one language, then
english must be one of those languages for you to qualify as a native
speaker.
if you're ready and you promise you won't cheat, e-mail me privately.
wallyK
