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From: rjwells@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca (Justin Wells)
Subject: Re: Which English accents are used?
Message-ID: <CyEnCu.LyB@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca>
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References: <19941026125433.miyazaki@miyazaki.prc.msu.edu> <38p8v9$buk@harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au> <ONIZUKA.94Oct28115140@picasso.mrit.mei.co.jp>
Date: Fri, 28 Oct 1994 22:48:29 GMT
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Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu sci.lang.japan:19871 sci.lang:32439


[follow-ups to "sci.lang" -- began as a discussion in sci.lang.japan 
about which accents should be used when teaching English as a 2nd lang.]


In article <ONIZUKA.94Oct28115140@picasso.mrit.mei.co.jp>,
Onizuka KENTARO <onizuka@mrit.mei.co.jp> wrote:

>English is different from place to place.  In some part of US, people
>do not conjugate for "third person single present" So, it becomes "She
>don't know" instead of "She doesn't know." Even middle class british
>people use this kind of speach under colloquial condition.

I read in a text on rhetoric that there is some evidence that people in
many English dialects do this to signal that they are telling a story,
and that when they are not relating a story they don't do this.

eg:  "You know, I heard the strangest thing.  Ellen said she don't know
      what happened yesterday, but Harry, he's all upset and thinks..."

  but the same speaker might say:

     "Don't ask Ellen, she doesn't know."  (not a story.)

 
I don't know how much actual support there is for this argument.  I can't
remember all the details, but I could find out if anyone is interested 
because the article is included in a collection that was used in one
of my courses.  (e-mail me if you want the reference, followups are to 
sci.lang and I do not read sci lang.)

I imagine if it's true it's truer of some dialects than of others.  



Justin

-- 
Justin Wells <rjwells@lagrange.uwaterloo.ca, stem@sizone.tlug.org>
      This myth, never questioned because never stated, holds that whatever is
to come in the computer field is somehow preordained by technical necessity or
some form of scientific correctness.  This is cybercrud.    -Ted Nelson, 1973
