Sounds like Greek to me

[Damien Hall]

Robert asked about linguists' work on folk perceptions of foreign 
languages. Miriam said:

> I believe that Dennis Preston has done substantial work on 'folk 
> linguistics.'

He has indeed, but as far as I'm aware all his work under that rubric has 
been on American dialectology: eg the words that people use to describe 
others' dialects ('nasal', 'Southern twang', etc), and the fact that 
listeners are able to place American accents on a North-South continuum 
with a remarkable degree of precision (when played sentences spoken by ten 
speakers, given a map with a North-South line of ten places on it, and 
asked to match speaker with place). I'm not aware of any work Dennis has 
done on folk perceptions of foreign languages, though that, of course, 
doesn't mean to say that he hasn't done any!

Nevertheless, the question sounds like one that people in educational 
linguistics might well have some tips on. There's a list you cuold ask, 
accessible here:

http://listserv.linguistlist.org/archives/edling.html

All the best

Damien

-- 
Damien Hall

University of York
Department of Language and Linguistic Science
Heslington
York YO10 5DD
UK

Tel. (office) 01904 432665
     (mobile) 0771 853 5634
Fax  01904 432673
http://www.york.ac.uk/res/aiseb/