Analysis of Questionnaire

                                                                   Analysis

What are the attitudes towards the afro Caribbean influence on Standard English Analysis?

I asked 20 people many questions about the influences of standard English and how they think it’s changed over the years and what’s has made it change so much.

1) Was there any links between the students/people that answered the questionnaire?

There was a link between all of the people in which that answered my questionnaire as they were all sixth form students at Shenfield high school, and were all linked into the same area, of Shenfield. As they are all sixth form students they’re all the same age range from 16-18. 100%^ of the students were in education, specifically sixth form, meaning they’re more educated and clued up which means their answers would be more educated.

2) What was the overall opinion?

Out of all 20 students asked, 85% of those asked stated that they thought that Standard English had changed over the years, and all of their reasoning’s for this was due to immigrants coming over and teaching the Standard English how to use slang and all the different regional accents have changed the way in which speech is spoken.

All people also recognised that when given an example of two sentences, one using Standard English and one using slang, that the one using Standard English was better.

When asked what their understandings of ethnicity was, all people answered that they believed that ethnicity was to do with their background and where they originate from. There wasn’t any other answers from this questions and there wasn’t any differentiation. 

3) What does this tell us about the status of Standard English?

When asked what they’re opinions of standard English was, and what they believed it consisted of, every single person asked either said that they thought it was ‘”words from the dictionary” or “Queens speech” or “proper English” however, no-one went on to explain was ‘proper English’ was. Peter Trudgill was a sociolinguist that said that Standard English was only spoken by a minority of people as it’s seen as more of a ‘prestige’ way of speaking and that’s how it’s seen in the modern day. This corresponds with the answers that I received in my questionnaire as they believed that the term ‘standard English’ was the way in which the Queen spoke meaning that it’s not used in every day speech.

4) What attitudes are there towards BEV and other variations of English?

When asked if they believed that Standard English has changed, they believed that other variations of English, specifically foreign accents and foreign language have had an influence on the way in which we speak. As people came over from other countries they didn’t know the Standard English so from picking it up by everyone else, they learn slang and only pick up some of the Standard English. This affects the way in which everyone speaks as it just rubs off onto everybody else.