This analysis is from the questionnaire I made in order to gain more of an understanding of white British British ethnic individuals, understanding of black English and standard English, the audience had the opportunity to drop out of the questionnaire if they didn't want to answer any of the questions.
I have recently conducted a questionnaire in order to get primary research of how people's opinions are in association with standard English and Black English vernacular. The questionnaire I produced was given to a group of people ageing from 19 to over 40. Although this was a huge age gap to use, I decided to make it that big so my audience was enlarged and I could get more of an understanding on what people felt with the change in language. One thing I noticed straight away was that from a younger age of 19, the volunteers who decided to answer the questions had a lack of understanding on what 'Black English' actually was. This instantly bought up my opinion that people of a younger generation aren't as educated in languages and accents as what the older generations are. In total i I asked 20 people and from the questionnaire and analysis, I have found that 10 people were aged 19 to 23, 2 were aged 24 - 27, 2 were also aged between 32 to 35 and a total of 6 were aged 40 or over. To whom were all White British, This wasn't purposely but just a coincidence although made my feedback more towards the attitudes of how white British Ethnicity's thought of Black English Language.
When asking the audience if they still think Black English is still standard English, I received many mixed opinions on the matter, while 16 answered no they wasn't the same and 4 answered yes they were the same. The question asked for their opinion and summarising what the feedback was, the reason why 80 percent said no was due to Black English saying words differently and making up words which is suited to their surroundings. This was an important finding as it gives me understanding to why so many people have said no but also could be due to stereotypes. While the other 20 percent said yes and that black English was still standard English, their replies were because that is what society happens, it changes and the language changes.
I then asked the audience to what extend does the accent override in children TV shows, the reason I asked this question as I think the media plays a big part in children understanding of language change and accent. The audience had an opinion to chose from British, American, Australian, Afro - Caribbean and Irish, to all 100 percent of the answers came back American and British. This lead me on to thinking that society is picked and chosen to what they want children to know best as when turning on a children's channel, mainly all of the shows are of the British or American Accent.
The next question I asked was based to the individuals surrounding when growing up. The question I asked was if you could live in any society, would you chose to live in a mixed ethnic society, all white society or not bothered. The feedback was mixed, but with the majority saying they would rather live in a mixed society. This was because they would enjoy the new cultures of fashion, food and art, but also because it meant they would be able to understand more of the accents and new words and phrases used. The feedback was also so everyone could be themselves and not feel segregated from other ethnicity's. It was also clear that people from the questionnaire felt strongly that with the society being mixed, it would mean that people would have better understandings of religions and way of life. Therefore the answers were'nt just all about language but everyday life. Lastly people said they wanted differentiation. Reasons why people said no to multi-ethnic societies was because of the lack of understanding of accents and the easier of change with accents if more people with many accents were in one place.
For this research I thought it was important to know the answers of 'Has English language change of the good or the bad?' with 12 answering worse, 4 saying its stayed the same and 4 also saying for the better, from analysing this data, it was clear that the opinions were mainly because of the colloquialism, change in many accents, words being made up, English becoming more common and influences from TV shows such as the only way is Essex. This plays a big part in why language has changed because this show in particular plays up on stereotypes, also changing the dialect of the people on the show which influences people from Essex to speak with the same dialect, showing that English language has changed for the worse as it caused bad stereotypes for the people living in Essex especially, over the past 10 years. the reason as to why people said worse was because of words being made up, certain attitudes towards another ethnic group causing people to want to speak like them and it is more common and slang.
Finally I asked the question, 'Do you think its socially correct or incorrect if people change the language ad spelling of words in order to fit their ethnicity, when 16 replied with it being incorrect and 4 saying yes its socially correct, The views for incorrect were because; they shouldn't be able to change the language as we follow standard English for a reason as that is what your taught in school, therefore you should follow that same example through your life. Secondly this is why people think Black English Vernacular language isn't the same as Standard English as the views were that Black English many change their words and phrases therefore giving the understanding that they don't follow standard English, this is why it is socially incorrect. The views for Correct were because we live in an evolving society where things change every day so why should language make this process stop?.
Overall I personally think from evaluating my questionnaire that the status of Standard English has dropped due to the fact that many of the people speaking English are from all around the world and due to communication errors, people then bring in different words in order to understand. The attitudes towards BEV I think have been mainly negative during this process to find information on the views of this topic, I personally think one of the main causes of this though is to do with the media and society as of 10 years ago the media wasn't as big meaning people couldn't be influenced by this, whereas now, my whole target audience for this questionnaire are the main age range for users on social media and have grown up with being around the media. I think that this has also made me understand that Black English Language hasn't been given as much creditably as it should have, I think this because people have negative attitudes towards this type of English language when really they were influenced and taught through standard English backgrounds but changed through society and generations, meaning there should be no problem with language change and dialect as that is what happens when people migrate and move to different parts of counties or areas.
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