Temat: Polish attitudes to the British people
Grazyna Nnachi:
accidentaly I pressed 'wyslij' before finishing my thought!
You can press 'edutuj', and not have to start from scratch again.
One can communicate in a foreign language without sticking to all its rules! But does that justify dismissing these rules? If there was no system in a language the communication would soon become impossible...
You're obviously no linguist, Grażyna.
English grammar is descriptive not prescriptive.
It describes what people say, rather than telling people what they should say.
Furthermore, millions of people in the world communicate perfectly effectively in languages whose rules have never been codified.
No-one says, 'I ain't know nothing'.
>
Warren, I dare say you do not know all the 60 million people living here. I have heard people use such sentences and I am talking about people born here. The youngsters all to often resort to such language. I have no need to make it up, but, of course, it is your right to choose not to believe it.
Of course, you can hear the 'proper' English loathed here among people who are educated.
I know enough about English to say that no-one says, 'I ain't know nothing'.
People say, 'I don't know nothing'
They also say, 'I ain't got no money'.
But, I repeat, no-one says, 'I ain't know nothing'.
'ain't' = 'I haven't' or 'I am not'.
You are just demonstrating you are not really familiar with the 'rules' of non-standard English as it is spoken in places such as Luton.
In the south of England people say, 'you was'. In the north they say, 'I were'. So what?
So, nothing! :) If one chooses to break grammar rules it's their business, but still it does not dismiss those rules or nullify them
You learnt 'I was', 'You were'. Should the people who say it differently change their speech patterns to suit the aesthetic sensitivities of a foreigner?
No, by no means should they change for foreigners! They should do it for their own sake, to preserve their culture, closely linked to language! There were times in the past when the only thing Poles had was the language as the land was occupied by neighbouring countries.
Britain is not occupied but the multitude of cultures here will inveitably influence the language, so perhaps it is a good idea to maintain its original system(?)
Saying 'you was'
is the natural way for them to speak English.
How the people of Luton speak English in their own town is none of your business.
You are a foreigner.
Incorrect according to whom?
Oh, come on, Warren! You know phonetics of your own language! If it wasn't important, why would we be taught there is a difference, eg. between the pronunciation of 'ship' and 'sheep', after all Poles do not differentiate between long and short vowels as it does not change the meaning of words, only may sound funny....
And how do you judge whether intonation is right or wrong?
are there no rules? hmmm.... some things have drastically changed since I left uni! ;-p
There are no formal rules concerning this whatsoever. If such rules do exist, could you please provide a reference to them.
I will. Not today, however, as I am going out with my family for the whole day:)
Find them for me then.
I repeat, there are no formal prescriptive rules in English concerning intonation.
I suggest you have confused 'intonation' with some other term.
Furthermore, there is no such thing as a 'Luton dialect'. And I've actually lived in Luton.
Well, perhaps you were not aware there is a dialect in Luton:) I did not pay attention to it (I only work there from time to time) either. It was my English friends that pointed to it during a similar discussion.
Frankly, you are talking rubbish here.
Do you understand the word, 'dialect'.
The way people speak English in Luton is not significantly different to the way English is spoken in the rest of the south-east of England.
I would imagine virtually everyone from an English background who lives in Luton speaks something called 'Estuary English'. It's the kind of English I speak. It's not peculiar to Luton.
There was something called 'Bedfordshire dialect' spoken around Luton, but I doubt if anyone born after WW2 would speak in this manner.
If I am wrong, perhaps you could point me to some internet resource on the 'Luton dialect'.
Could you provide me with a list of words and grammatical structures used in Luton and nowhere else?
The idea that I, an English person, could have lived in Luton, and not been aware that others around me were speaking in some strange, unfamiliar dialect is beyond stupid.
The very name Luton is pronounced by people there without the sound 't' and that is one of the characteristics of the Luton English.
And?
It's called a 'glottal stop'.
People throughout the south of England use glottal stops, not just in Luton.
It's a feature of Southern English speech.
If I were you, Grażyna, I'd learn a little more about English, English dialects and linguistics generally before you make your next contribution.
warren whitmore edytował(a) ten post dnia 15.02.08 o godzinie 14:38
пропозиції роботи
