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The pronunciation of English in British Columbia : an analysis of the responses to the phonological section of the Linguistic Survey of B. C., Postal Questionnaire (PQ3)

University of British Columbia

The primary object of this thesis is the analysis of responses to the phonological section of the Linguistic Survey of B.C.: Postal Questionnaire (PQ3) which was designed by James Poison and Dr. R. J. Gregg at the University of B.C. In analysing the responses to the questionnaire, major emphasis has been placed on the distribution of variants in the province as a whole, on the shifting distribution of variants from older to younger generation speakers and on the isolation of dialect areas within the province. With regard to the isolation of dialect areas, the overall area distribution is the focus of attention; discussion of regional age variations is of necessity brief since sample sizes in age/area categories are for the most part too small to allow a definitive analysis. In addition to the analysis of PQ3 data, correlations have been made with data from other B.C. dialect surveys at both provincial and regional levels. Responses to other surveys at the provincial level are for the most part in agreement with those of PQ3> however, for some items significant variations occur. Comparison of responses at the regional level is difficult due to small and/or disparate sample sizes. The analysis of PQ3 data and the comparison of the results of this survey with those of other B.C. surveys indicates the necessity of a more concentrated study of B.C. speech. To this end, some alternative approaches to the study of British Columbia dialect have been suggested.

Text

2010-02-19

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/20592

Linguistics

University of British Columbia

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