1. Pronunciation in the movies! Wayne Rimmer

2. Role of pronunciation in film Identify and distinguish characters Show emotion and involvement Manipulate audience response

3. Manipulation Audiences … empathise with characters that sound similar to them or who they want to be. react less favourably to characters that sound different to them or who they want to be.

4. Techniques Work on stereotypes Play on similarities and differences Typecast

5. My fair lady Refined RP = affectation and snobbery Very open /ə/ and / ɜ :/ Retention of /h/ General RP 5% of UK population (Gimson) RP changes, e.g. /dj/ / ʤ /, / ʊ ə/ / ɔ :/

6. Trainspotting Your accent is something finer than you could purchase in so removed a dwelling. As you like it (1600) I have been correcting several Scotch accents in my friend Boswell. Johnson (1772)

7. Trainspotting He spoke French without the least accent. Jefferson (1789) All men have accent of their own– but they only notice it in others. Carlyle (1840)

8. Some like it hot The native language of most inhabitants of the US – used especially with the implication that it is a variety of English clearly distinguishable from that used in Great Britain and not deriving its standards of usage from it yet not so divergent as to be a separate language. Webster (1961)

9. Foreigner talk L1 English speakers who attempt L2 are intelligent and cultured L2 English speakers want to sound like us but fail L2 English speakers who do manage to sound like us are suspicious Some varieties received better than others Heavy accent stigmatised or lampooned

10. Classroom implications Pronunciation goes beyond being intelligible Learners can also manipulate responses Films offer good language input but often a poor message

11. Wayne Rimmer PronSIG@iatefl.org