[lg policy] terminology question

[Harold Schiffman]

Dear Anthea,

I've never heard the term 'European English" although if I had, I
would consider it somewhat
derogatory.  I have heard the term "transatlantic English" but think
of it more as something
from the media, i.e. an "accent" that sounds British to Americans and
American to Brits.

Hal

On Wed, May 5, 2010 at 3:43 AM, Anthea Fraser Gupta
<A.F.Gupta at leeds.ac.uk> wrote:
> I have a question, especially for people in the US.  A speech-language professor in the US contacted me with questions related to Singapore, and used a term that baffled me: "European English". I didn't know if it was regional (how????) or racial (why???) and simply couldn't interpret it. When I asked him what he meant by the term he explained that he "was referring to the English used in the schools in Singapore. Perhaps I should have refered to it as standard European English. Here in the U.S. we have standard American English. My use of European English is more specific than just the general term standard English."
>
> Have you ever come across this term, apparently being used where other people would use 'British Standard English'? Is its meaning clear to people in the US? I find it odd and rather offensive.....
>
> [My regular readers will know that I reckon there is ONE Standard English and that categorical regional differences are tiny and rarely worth mentioning.]
>
> Anthea
> *     *     *     *     *
> Anthea Fraser Gupta (Dr)
> School of English, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT
> <www.leeds.ac.uk/english/staff/afg>
> *     *     *     *     *
> _______________________________________________
> This message came to you by way of the lgpolicy-list mailing list
> lgpolicy-list at groups.sas.upenn.edu
> To manage your subscription unsubscribe, or arrange digest format: https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/listinfo/lgpolicy-list
>



-- 
=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+

 Harold F. Schiffman

Professor Emeritus of
 Dravidian Linguistics and Culture
Dept. of South Asia Studies
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305

Phone:  (215) 898-7475
Fax:  (215) 573-2138

Email:  haroldfs at gmail.com
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/

-------------------------------------------------

_______________________________________________
This message came to you by way of the lgpolicy-list mailing list
lgpolicy-list at groups.sas.upenn.edu
To manage your subscription unsubscribe, or arrange digest format: https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/listinfo/lgpolicy-list