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Discussion Forum—A Way with Words, a fun radio show and podcast about language

A Way with Words, a radio show and podcast about language and linguistics.

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Online Survey
Raffee
Iran
238 Posts
(Offline)
1
2014/05/10 - 1:01am

Hello everyone, the survey is about your pronunciation preference and is to be answered by 30 American English native speakers. My definition of a native speaker is someone who has been born and raised until the age of 12 in the US

It'll take around five minutes to answer, and it's easy. No private info has been asked. 

You can ask for more info about the survey or its result here or through my email mentioned on the first page of the survey.

I thank you in advance!

The link:

http://kwiksurveys.com/s.asp?sid=dyby0hsl54x6kcw359352

Guest
2
2014/05/10 - 5:02am

Interesting survey.

Some of the robovoice pronunciations were off in places that didn't much matter. For example, for melange in both cases the first vowel was ay as in day. I would prefer the first vowel be a schwa in at least one of the pronunciations, maybe both. But I suspect it was the sound of the g that was in focus on that word. There were other issues. For example, if there were only two pronunciations and one was impossible there was no way to indicate both the correct pronunciation and that the other was unfamiliar.

Guest
3
2014/05/10 - 4:35pm

I guess I'm qualified, since I've lived in the U.S. all my life. So I just took your survey. I agree with Glenn that for some of the questions, the possible responses did not allow me to give the feedback I wanted to provide. Why just "I'm unfamiliar with choice one" and no "I'm unfamiliar with choice two"?

Also, why so much French? I'll be interested to hear the results of this survey. Please post them to this thread.

Raffee
Iran
238 Posts
(Offline)
4
2014/05/11 - 12:25am

I thank you for your interest and also for your feedback. Allso thanks to all the participants!

As for the pronunciations you use but were not included, I should say my dictionaries did not include them either, so, that's why.

Glenn, nearly all the pronunciations, except maybe one or two, were those recorded by my dictionaries. Plus, if almost everybody chooses the "unfamiliar" option, that will indicate that maybe it is wrong. But really what you say may be a limitation of the survey.

Heimhenge, the option was '1 variations is unfamilair...", not " Variation 1...". :-)

Some limitations are caused by the short time I should conduct this.

Will soon post the results.

Guest
5
2014/05/11 - 2:54am

A better way to structure the survey would be to allow the responder to indicate for each option if it is
1) A pronunciation I use
2) An alternate standard pronunciation
3) A substandard pronunciation I've heard
4) An unfamiliar pronunciation

Guest
6
2014/05/12 - 3:29pm

Glenn - I don't believe I've ever heard melange  pronounced with a schwa, always ay, as the English approximation of the French é. The crowds we hang out with, I guess.

Guest
7
2014/05/12 - 6:24pm

tromboniator said
Glenn - I don't believe I've ever heard melange  pronounced with a schwa, always ay, as the English approximation of the French é. The crowds we hang out with, I guess.

All I've ever heard was with a schwa, so it surprised me to hear it as ay.  But a while back on this forum I was shocked to learn that most of you do not rhyme war with car

Guest
8
2014/05/13 - 2:14am

As native speakers we may be a melange, but we're not at war.

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