to not want school to teach my kids how to speak in the way the teachers wants?

[bellabreeze]

Having irish accents the teacher of some of my kids has told me they would do little speech classes so they speak different.. its not the accent but its things like saying 'ting' not 'thing' and dat not that and stuff like that really.. I think.. I don't think it is important enough to waste time doing? But maybe I am wrong?

I thought of this thread yesterday when I watched the follow-up commentary to the U.S. presidential debate. One of the commentators was James Carville, who has a very distinctive Louisiana accent. I noticed that he tends to say "dis," "dat," etc. He has done quite well for himself nonetheless. His accent may even have helped his career. I happen to find it utterly charming. It would be laughable to claim that he speaks "incorrectly." Of course he doesn't. He simply speaks in a particular regional accent.

I spent my childhood split between the U.S. and the U.K., so I sometimes put on various accents for fun when among friends. But my actual accent is rather non-descript American, and I wouldn't dream of modifying it (despite the occasional attempts of my clueless teachers, as described upthread).

The ability to hear different sounds and identify various accents does seem to vary from person to person. My DH is a native speaker of Russian and literally cannot hear (or produce) the difference between "ship" and "sheep" (among other sounds). He also has difficulty recognising various accents in English. OTOH, I speak Russian well and can usually fool Russians into thinking I am a native speaker. I have no problem hearing different accents in Russian.

Folks more knowledgable than me....why/how is it that kids from the Irish Traveller community retain their accents? Is there internal pressure, teasing etc... not to pick up the local accent

... Just wondering? I mean I speak nothing like my immigrant parents. Friends whose parents are Japanese have no problem with tthe R/L distinction even though their parents can't hear it. Similarly 2nd generation friends whose parents are from India and can't hear V/W have no problem with it.

These consonant things seem different from long/short vowels where people can hear the difference even if they are brought up with only one way. DH is from up north, I'm a Londoner. One child has chosen barth the other baath, but they can both switch.

I'm pages behind, so making short replies to comments as they occur ... including this one: There is a standard pronunciation of "th".

If you'll excuse me while I roll around the floor, clutching my sides: there are TWO 'standard' pronunciations of "Th" you nitwit! Hard and soft; "those" and "think".

Children can learn French phonics when they speak standard French

There is a French public body protecting and enforcing 'standard' French. English-speaking nations have no such bodies, English being an inherently mutable language. No amount of pomposity will remove its adaptability, thank goodness!

I do wonder whether losing your natural accent does make you more liable to the sort of accent-slippage I and others get

I wonder, too, LRD. I'm a shocking accent chameleon. I never had a natural accent - we moved all the time, with one Northern parent and one Southern.

Ah, LRD, you've already written my next reply. It went like this:
You haven't even done an EFL course?! So why did you claim to be knowledgeable in that context?

I've always assumed you're a native English speaker living abroad, Bonsoir. You've sometimes implied that you're a trained English teacher - as you also, sometimes, imply you teach other disciplines. This thread's made me doubt both that English is your mother tongue and that you've any theoretical knowledge of the language at all. Would you please clarify?

himalaya - I wondered about that. A mate of mine claimed (anecdote, just off the cuff) that she reckons Geordies also rarely lose their accents. Though she is a proud Geordie and only has quite a dilute accent now, with lots of our local one mixed in.

garlicbutty Never conciously lost my accent, but I have always had a very, very soft barely noticed version of my regional accent (west country) which most people don't place me as. But I'm still quite a chameleon, maybe it's just lack of a strong accent which does the mirroring?

I have taught (and written published teaching materials), but I am not a teacher of English, I am a linguist (my first two degrees were in Modern Languages and Linguistics and I am also a qualified translator, but that is complete sideline). I am more than able to keep up with current research, which I do, and I regularly attend academic conferences and sit on the board of an association that has to do with teaching plurilingual pupils in bilingual schools. Is that enough for you?

Not really, not until you learn the basics of linguistics, including that 'standard English accent' doesn't exist.

garlicbutty - re "there are TWO 'standard' pronunciations of "Th" you nitwit! Hard and soft; "those" and "think"."

Come back to your senses, woman. Do you really think that is news to anyone here?

The point that you are spectacularly missing is that there is a single correct pronunciation for the "th" in "think" and a single correct pronunciation for the "th" in "those". Neither is "d".

I say POTATO

Well, frankly, cote, it does come across as if it's news to you and bonsoir. It is really difficult to figure out why you don't get what the rest of us are explaining. If you meant us all to understand, through psychic connection, that you really did know there were two versions of 'th' ... but didn't know more ... honestly, you're over-estimating how coherently you're coming across.

I'm off to make chips with hully's potatoes.

Linguistics believes all languages are naturally in a state of permanent flux and evolution, with many variants. And they are. I have never countered that.

"Standard English" is a way of allowing all speakers of English, with their many accents (both regional and social, as well as the accents non-native speakers have) to have a common ground for communication. "Standard English" is not "correct English" (some posters have substituted correct for standard on this thread).

'Standard English' doesn't refer to accent, though. That's the point.

Nor do you need to speak with an RP accent to use phonics.

There's just no reason to think so.

No, "standard English" does have a pronunciation component. It is not the same thing as RP, however. Phonics instruction is very difficult if you have no grasp of standard English (and constantly drop initial h, final g, substitute /f/ for /th/ etc).

Yow eh a bad dancer, air Hoollaaay! Oi'm maickingg an informedd decision tu roitt this paostt the waiy thaiy talkk in moi sao-calledd haom taown.

Oi saiy POTAITOW!

Hmm ... chips for lunch, I think. Cheers

Great minds think "chips" alike, LRD.

No, phonics instruction is not very difficult if you - like the OP's children - pronounce your words according to a non-RP accent.

This is because phonics does not require you to speak RP.

The process of learning to read using phonics, in English, will be the same for the OP's children as for a child who speaks RP. The individual sounds they make will be different, but they will go through the same process of learning how two letters ('t' and 'h') are associated with a particular sound.

I think ships, garlic.

LRD - I don't expect psychic powers. I do expect a minimum level of rational thought.

What - you mean, you want me to know without you saying, that you accept one basic and obvious point, but not the other, which you're vigorously denying in the face of much careful explanation?

I'm not sure you are being rational at all, here. This kind of special pleading - 'ohh, of course, I knew it all along, I just never said so, because ... er ...' - is getting tedious.

"I'm not sure you are being rational at all, here. This kind of special pleading - 'ohh, of course, I knew it all along, I just never said so, because ... er ...' - is getting tedious. "

Your perversion of what is going on here (and free for all to read, LRD) is extraordinary. Your intellectual dishonesty is mind-boggling.

Bonsoir, whether or not it was your intention, you've come across to me as weirdly unpleasant on this thread, and your qualifications/sources/reasoning/position seem to have leapt all over the place from one minute to the next. I think it might be a good idea to retire gracefully because whatever it is you're intending to put across, it ain't working.

And no, I'm not getting into a fight about it. Sorry and all that.

Perversion and intellectual dishonesty?

Goodness.

I have to break it to you: pointing out you're wrong is not 'intellectual dishonesty'. Which is a fairly serious allegation in RL.

And are you self-appointed as adjudicator? Or did MNHQ send you ?