Notes from the seminar

1. SociolinguisticsCourtesy Rules& Mother/Daughter Relationships Language and Society

2. Do you attribute certain characteristics to people with certain accents? Trudgill Sociolinguistics“Everyone knows what is supposed to happen when two English people who have never met before come face to face in a train – they start talking about the weather”

3. Do you think it is useful in being able to make first impressions based on speech or does it create bad judgments?

4. Mutual intelligibility is often used as a criterion for distinguishing languages from dialects. “if two speakers cannot understand one another, then they are speaking different languages”

5. Do you think that certain accents would be a disadvantage in the work place? Cheryl Cole was believed to be fired from her job as X Factor judge in America due to a number of complaints about not being able to understand her accent.

6. Dialect – a form of language which is peculiar to a specific region or social group. Accent – a way of pronouncing a language, associated with a country, area or social class.

7. Do you agree or disagree with this quote? Do you think this still applies to adults? “A little girl's best friend is someone she tells everything to. A little boys best friend is someone he does everything with”