Activity #6 (Online Quizzes)

I found the quiz “Where is the Speaker From?” very interesting. First of all, I find it fascinating that although individuals across the world can speak the same language they speak the language subtly different. More to the point, this exercise makes me understand that being aware of how individuals speak is important in several aspects of my area of education interest—English. For instance, in my Writing seminar class last semester one of my fellow classmates wrote a story with an English protagonist with a heavy English accent. Nonetheless, this exercise reemphasized for me the importance to always be aware of the different dialects within the same language.

But even though I found the latter activity interesting, and even though I understand the importance of understanding the differences in dialectical speeches, I was awful at discerning where the voices were located. If I studied more linguistics I would probably do a better job, but to be very good at the exercise I think one needs to be an acute listener. After all, for the Mid-Atlantic female voice, the exercise says that one should pay attention to the /o/ sound when the lady says “chocolate.” Needless to say, I am not very good at hearing slightly different dialectical sounds. One reason for this is probably because I have not heard many different dialects or languages in my life. Perhaps if I encounter a greater variety of speakers, I will be able to discern between slightly different sound systems from within the same language.

As for the quiz “Test Your Vowel Power” I surprised myself by doing relatively well. Mathematically I still did poorely on the quiz, only answering correct three out of five times, but even on the ones that I missed, I was not wrong by much. The words that I answered correctly—desk, grade, and block—didn't present me with much difficultly. I especially didn’t find them too difficult after listening to them a few times.

In contrast,though, I guessed wrong with the words “socks” and “busses.” Instead of “socks” I guessed “sacks,” and instead of “busses” I guessed “watches.” Obviously the latter is the one that I found most challenging. I am predicting that I confused my Midwestern English sound /w/ for a /b/ sound. Nonetheless, at least “busses” and “watches” ends with similar /z/ sounds. Because of that, I don’t feel so awful for guessing “watches” when the word was actually “busses.”

Even so, much like the first quiz, I found the “Test Your Vowel Power” quiz very interesting. I found the activity interesting, especially the essay regarding vowel shifting located below the quiz, because I have always been interested in the development of linguistics in the English language—from early British literature to the present. I happen to be more interested in the reasons, external or internal, why sounds change over the course of time, but the exercise nonetheless gave me a practical example of the diversity of the English language. And because of this diversity, I am interested to see how the language will transform.

Question: Have you ever bumped into somebody who has commented about your specific English speech (example: someone commenting on your Minnesotan accent)? If so, how did that make you feel? If not, how do you think it would make you feel?