X Международная студенческая научная конференция Студенческий научный форум - 2018

Nowadays English is the world’s most widely spoken language. The effective intercultural communication requires an adequate mutual understanding of interlocutors. Thus, the study of stereotypes of English accents’ perception is of current interest for us.

The purpose of the research is to investigate the distinctive features of Scottish accent and identify the attitude of artificial bilinguals of Russian origin towards the Scottish accent and personality of a Scottish accent speaker.

The object is distinctive features of Scottish accent.

The subject is the perception of the Scottish accent by artificial bilinguals of Russian origin.

In the course of the study the following objectives were completed:

1. explore the historical roots of Scottish accent;

2. find and describe the distinctive phonological features of Scottish accent;

3. make a questionnaire to identify stereotypes of perception of the Scottish accent and a Scottish accent speaker;

4. conduct a survey based on the questionnaire;

5. analyze the results of the survey;

6. make a conclusion.

Scottish English refers to the varieties of English spoken in Scotland. The main, formal variety is called Scottish Standard English or Standard Scottish English (SSE). The history of Scottish English is inextricably linked to that of 'Scots,' whose history as an autonomous Germanic language. SSE resulted from language contact between Scots and the Standard English of England after the 17th century.

This contact was a consequence of several historical events:

The Reformation: The newest version of the Bible conforming to Protestant codes was made by English speaking refugees in Geneva. English therefore suddenly had a place in almost every home in the country. It became the language of formality and solemnity, while Scots was left as the language of "lower intellectual pitch".

The arrival of the printing press, which was in English.

In 1603 James IV of Scotland inherited the English throne.

The Union of the Crowns in 1707 resulted in all legislative bodies relocating to London. At this point English became "the official language of the whole country for law, administration, education and church usage".

Thus, Standard Scottish English retained the major phonological features of Scots and the syntactic and morphological constructions of Standard English.

The distinctive phonological features of Scottish English are:

1. The RP [æ — ɑ:(a)] distinction doesn't exist:

Ex. hat /hat/, dance /da:ns/;

2. /i/ [happy] becomes /e/;

3. Length is not a distinctive feature of Scottish vowels:

Ex. pool /pul/, pull /pul/;

4. Vowels such as RP /iə/, /ɜ:/, /ɛə/, /uə/ do not occur;

5. Rhoticity (tapped /r/);

6. The velar fricative /x/ occurs in a number of words:

Ex. loch /lɒx/;

7. A distinction between /ʍ/ and /w/:

Ex. which /ʍiʧ/ — witch /wiʧ/;

8. Initial /p/, /t/, /k/ are usually non-aspirated;

9. Non-initial /t/ is often realized as glottal stop:

Ex. /ˈbʌʔər/;

10. [ł] is dark in all positions.

We composed a questionnaire to investigate the attitude of the respondents towards the Scottish accent and a Scottish accent speaker. The questionnaire consists of 3 blocks of questions. The first one is devoted to the personal information of a respondent. In the second one the respondents tried to define the accent, its distinctive features and estimated the accent on the giving criteria. In the third they described the impression the speaker made.

The respondents were the 3d year students of Faculty of Foreign Languages of NSPU, who studied the accents of English language this term. We presented them a 1 minute audio of a person speaking with a Scottish accent.

The analysis of the data showed that 27 % of respondents could define the accent correctly. 73% of them noticed such a distinctive feature as rhoticity and 13% - the presence of /x/-sound. 74% considered this accent to be accurate and appropriate for a formal situation. 63% wrote it sounded beautiful. 76% considered a person speaking with the Scottish accent quite competent. 77% evaluated her social attractiveness, 86% would like to talk with this person.

In this research we investigated the distinctive features of Scottish accent and identified the attitude of artificial bilinguals of Russian origin towards the Scottish accent and personality of a Scottish accent speaker. The conducted survey and analysis of the data showed that the Scottish accent as well as a person speaking with this accent is evaluated positively by artificial bilinguals of Russian origin. Thus, drawing a conclusion, we may say that accent has a significant influence on the evaluation of personal characteristics of a speaker, and therefore, the perception of accents plays a significant role in intercultural communication.

Список литературы:

Теоретическая фонетика английского языка / М.А. Соколова, К.П. Гинтовт, И.С. Тихонова, P.M. Тихонова. — Москва.: Гуманитарный изд. центр ВЛАДОС, 2003. — 288 c.

Harry Guinness. Shades of Brown: Standard Scottish English in a Received Pronunciation World. — Yale University, 2008. — 56 c.

Электронные ресурсы:

https://www.thoughtco.com/scottish-english-1691929

http://www.dialectsarchive.com/scotland-23

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