Individuals' Attitudes Towards English Usage: Controversial and Non-Controversial - Research Paper

Introduction

Individuals have many different attitudes towards various examples of English usage that are controversial and non-controversial. It could be common in their use of language from their area of origin but may differ from the dialect of English spoken in other places. For example, in some dialects words, are pronounced differently but maintain the same meaning as standard American English. Individuals have a variety of thoughts towards how certain words and sentences are spoken---with their range in age, ethnicity, education level and occupation in mind.

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I started to conduct my research by asking my first question to a female 20 years of age, who lives in Las Vegas, Nevada. She is a junior at the University of Las Vegas, Nevada and has known English her entire life. She is working on getting a degree in nursing. I asked her what she thought about people who say an 'eez' sound at the end of the word 'processes.' "I think people who say processes with an 'eez' sound at the end sound smart. I would think it would be correct and wouldn't have thought twice about it because some people speak differently," she said. After her responses, I went over what she said and the implications it has on the material covered in class specifically the difference in standard American English concerning her response. Her responses in correlation to the effect that language has in a person's opinion of others are affected by her interpretation that adding the 'eez' ending to 'processes' made the speaker sound more intelligent even though the meaning of what was being said didn't change. I was surprised by her answer since I wouldn't have concluded that someone altering the ending of the word 'processes' with 'eez' would have had an impact on my perception of their intelligence. I can conclude that this individual has an open attitude towards language and even though pronouncing 'processes' with 'eez' is not the standard in American English.

Next, I surveyed an individual in regards to the second question. The individual was a male 19 years of age, who lives in San Francisco, California. He is a sophomore that attends San Diego State University and is a native English speaker. I hence presented him the question "What do you think of a person who pronounces often without the 't'?" and he looks at me in a way that connotes his lack of clarity on the issue. To him, this is the right way to pronounce the word, and it was so from the time he learned how to pronounce such a word. He adds that it was a sign of literacy, and mastery in the English language. In his right words, he termed it as "fancy." Well, this could be contested by the genesis of the word often which comes from the German word ufta, making the /t/ pronounceable. By marrying this pronunciation with other words that are structured similarly for instance fasten, the 't' omission seems like the right, or rather the most common pronunciation. However, there is a silver lining as both pronunciations are acceptable. The off-uhn pronunciation is mostly used when the next word begins with a vowel, or a /h/ while ofTen is for syllables.

A few miles northwest, I meet a 35-year old male of the African American origin. He is a high school dropout operating a grocery store in Detroit Michigan. I decide to present the question first-hand, and address him in the following sentence, "I have been meaning to aks you something." And he gives me a go ahead with the inquiry. I then present the question directly to avoid vagueness, and asked him, what he thought of a person who pronounces ask like 'aks.' He came up with a biblical reference that states 'axe and it shall be given to you". "It has always been there, he says, and still is. I use it all the time I have never for once aksed if it is the right word for it or not." He added that it was the norm at "this end of the country," and this brings forth the attitude of many English speakers that such pronunciation is affiliated to the uneducated or the blacks. In a nutshell, it is a pronunciation for the minority in literacy and language. The Chinese in South Africa use it, and the black Caribbeans as well, and it has hence been tagged to the vernacular of these individuals. The genesis of this pronunciation is often pointed at the exposure of obsolete pronunciations by slaves who in many instances were mixed with others during transport or while working. However, this pronunciation falls under the consonant cluster reduction technique as well as metathesis. The pronunciation of ask as aks takes two consonants /s/ and /k/ and pronounces then a /x/ hence a case of consonant cluster reduction. It is common for many individuals and does not necessarily connote to illiteracy or ethnicity. It is similarly a metathesis as it entails a switching of consonants during pronunciation.

I also happen to interact with a middle-aged woman who did not feel comfortable revealing her age. She is a resident of Oklahoma, and a secretary at the Langston University. She is of the Choctaw tribe of Native Americans. In the course of our interactions, I pose her the question "What do you think of a person who says, "My sister and me were close when we were young"? And her immediate response is "poor her, my sister and me are very close!" To get her closer to the context, I ask her if the person uses the personal pronoun me correctly, and she responds that she did not notice any abnormality with that. I also asked of what she thinks of a person who says, "My mother was always fair with my sister and I," and she similarly did not find any strange aspect in the sentence. This has in many contexts been confusing to many individuals. The use of me or I as first-person personal pronouns are often confusing. The former is an object pronoun while the latter is a subject or normative pronoun. Switching between these two extreme ends hence brings forth the confusion. In the sentence used in the question, "my sister" and the speaker are both the subjects, and hence the use of me is wrong. For a case of the first person as the object, here is a sentence, my father took me to the museum. The father is the subject, and the speaker the object. Such an instance under investigation, therefore, is a tendency of individuals to switch between the first person subjects or object pronouns.

At a movie theatre in New York City, I have the luck of speaking to a forty-three year white non-Hispanic man who has spoken English for as long as he can remember. Subtly, I slip in the question "What do you think of a person who says, "She don't remember meeting you"? He fidgets uncomfortably and in a somewhat conserved voice utters "I think it is full blown urban." For a man who has been around a lot of films, he also attributed it to popular culture, pointing at the injustice the movie stars, singers and artists have done to the Queen's English. He also adds, "That is the very injustice committed when these folks use the words can't and no in a single sentence." At this point I ask him of the correctness of the sentence "I can't have no noise when I sleep" and he adds "see what I'm talking about. The entire thing is just wrong." Both these instances are cases of hypercorrection whereby, the over-mispronunciation of a word, more so by the significant majority automatically makes the sound of it classy, and normal. Many individuals who use such words are quite aware of the difference between don't and doesn't but choose to ignore the phonetics of it and go with the popularity and identity they possess.

A female of 20 years of age, lives in San Diego, California. She is Hispanic and Creole and has lived in the United States all her life, so English is her first native language. She attends San Diego State University and is working towards a Journalism degree. After presenting her with the question "What do you think of a person who says, 'There's too many cars on the road"? She didn't think there was anything wrong with the statement until thinking about it more in depth. She realized that it should be "there are too many cars on the road" instead of "there is too many cars on the road." "If I heard it right away I would think it was grammatically correct until thinking more about it," she said. "I wouldn't think anything of it." After hearing her response, I instantly link it to the reaction the theatre manager gave, and all these point out to hypercorrections. Certain words have been verbally accepted to be right due to their popularity even though they are grammatically incorrect.

Conclusion

The English language has been subject to many reforms, influences, and injustices, and this has often created massive rifts between spoken and written English. These have been attributed to popular cultures such as music And films, gang-related cultures, geographical differences, migrations, intermarriages and the mere ignorance of what is right. With such differences in vocabularies and pronunciation, social stratifications have also come up, with certain utterances associated with the illiterate, the blacks, the Native Americans, the literate or the highly regarded in society. Intentional and non-intentional grammatical mistakes have also gained an intergenerational aspect, and with time, have been accepted as right. By learning different language attitudes, these mistakes or mispronunciations can be rectified to salvage the already punctured English language.