Bonus 25: Adapting your language to other people - chat with Claire Gawne

My mom is from Ontario, but has lived for about 40 years now in the western US. But whenever she goes somewhere Anglophone that is not the US she gets an Canadian accent back - Canada, England, Scotland, Australia, New Zealand - doesn't mater. Oh, except when we were in Yellowknife where people sound too much like us Alaskans to get her to switch I guess. Wonder where she'd change if we did a road trip from Anchorage to Toronto.

Lingthusiasm

That's awesome, I'm so glad you enjoyed it! And best of luck to your daughter with her studies!

So, I signed up to Patreon today, specifically so that my 17 year old daughter could listen to this episode.. She will listen tonight. The reson being, she is in her final school year (going to study Linguistics at University in 2021) and is doing a project to bring together her interests. She is fascinated by how accents change when people move between groups and settings. Her project will be looking at how her school has become known for having it's own accent. The situation of the school is such that there is 100 mile radius catchment across central Scotland, with a bunch of international students thrown in for good measure. People arrive speaking the accent of their region but very quickly adopt the school accent. So it was a real surprise to sign up today and discover that Claire was talking about her experiences in Edinburgh (it's only 40 miles away and many pupils have Edinburgh type accents as their parents work there (including us). Particularly interested to hear Claire talk about the pronunciation of the T in water. That's a very Edinburgh thing. It's Anglicised. In many (most?) regions of Scotland the T in water would not be pronounced. And the way in which the A in water is pronounced in Edinburgh is also completely different from the way the A in water is pronounced in general Scots English. I love that I signed up today and found the podcast related as directly as it does to what my daughter wishes to research. I pronounce the T in daughter by the way, but my next door neighbours don't. And interestingly, I also pronounce the T in don't, when they wouldn't. And again with wouldn't... and so on and so on... Anyway. Thanks for the enlightening podcast and indeed for the entire series. It's been inspirational to my budding little linguist! (I had a little trouble posting this, so apologies for the previousl post deletion. I'm not very tech savvy).