How does langauge effect you? - Research task

Analysis:

After handing out several questionnaires to family and friends about language and how it effects people, I found certain findings. The first that I want to talk about is how 8/9 of the people that actually filled in my questionnaire and gave it back to me seemed to find that those who speak of ‘Urban Slang’ normally recognisable from those living in the East London area. The reasons for this could be of many, and one in which I think is key is the way in which they project their voice using made up slang words quite aggressively, this is commonly known as ‘black English’. The reason those 8 people chose this could also be that they know the area as they ae not far away and are aware of what people from the area using ‘urban slang’ are actually like. The other options I put with this were ‘a strong manc speaker’ which could be quite intimidating due to the strength in which these people speak, which is similar to a ‘scouse speaker’ which for me would have the same effect as a strong manc accent. Reason for these two being intimidating would be that these are unknown by people of this area who filled out my questionnaires and so therefore would be quite intimidating at first, when coming across one of these speakers.

Question 5: If you were to meet one of the following people with one of these certain accents for the first time, would you find any of these intimidating?

Urban Slang speaker (8)  Strong manc speaker (Manchester) (0)   Scouse speaker (1)   Formal Language speaker (0)   

Above I have put the question I have just spoke about and out next to the answers how many people chose that answer. And as I’ve already said, all but one found the urban slang speaker most intimidating with one person differentiating, saying that they would find a scouse speaker most intimdiaitng due to the strength of a scouse person.

In my questionnaire findings I found something that came of a shock to me, one of the people who handed the questionnaire back to me stated in that when they speak to someone of higher class, they changed the way they speak dramatically. Meaning they completely change their tone and voice when speaking to someone like the queen. This came as a shock to me because even though I and most other people would change the way they speak when speaking to those of higher class, not everything would change, and I would just avoid the way in which I use slang so I don’t look like an idiot, they seemed to change everything that makes up the way the speak. The answer they gave was as followed:

‘I would change the way I speak to someone of higher class to me because they are of higher class, simple as that. I would change everything involving the way in which I usually speak so I can set a good first impression, because at the end of the day if they are of higher class, you don’t want to look like an idiot.’

This answer was quite stern and straight to the point, and perhaps tells me that they may be intimidated by someone of higher class if they are changing the way they speak when faced with someone of higher class.

Overall, nothing really came much of a surprise to me when receiving back my questionnaire, all but a few was of sensible answers and I expected what I got back. There was a few hiccups though but those were what was commented on above.