Hey, folks, some colleagues and I are working on a project about New York City English (NYCE), and I was hoping those of you who live in the NYC area (whether you grew up here or moved here last week), or used to for a substantial period of time (say, 10 years) could answer our quick little survey here.
We’ve been asking our friends, family, students, and random people on the street and internet, and I thought that you folks would be a great group to ask. This is completely voluntary and anonymous, and I ran it past TubaDiva, who gave it the thumbs up. If you don’t want to answer all the questions, you don’t have to. Oh, and where it says “Who sent this survey to you?” please type “Libby.”
As far as who lives in the NYC area, that’s up to you to decide. If that’s how you would honestly describe where you live, then we want your opinion. Clearly, people who live in NYC are in this group.
I’ll gladly discuss the results of the survey when we have them. We’re hoping to present it at a conference in the fall.
So, please answer the survey before reading the rest of the thread in case people want to discuss their answers. And feel free to send the link to people you know in the area. I’ll have limited internet access the next couple of days, but I’ll be checking in to answer questions, etc.
Thanks so much!
A quick debriefing:
[Spoiler]As linguists, we’re always quick to point out that we don’t believe in judgments like “best” and “worst” about languages or dialects. From a scientific point of view, all dialects are equally logical and expressive and all that good shit. But we all have opinions, even linguists, and lately the field of perceptual dialectology has come along to ask speakers what they think of how they speak, as well as how other people speak. So, while part of me doesn’t want to perpetuate the idea that there are such things as “best” and “worst” English, I’m dying to know what people think. Hence, this spoiler box.
As far as my opinion, if I had to answer, and it is tainted by my linguistic training: the “best” English for me would be that old-timey ‘toity-toid and toid’ accent you hear in old movies and on the occasional older Jewish man, and the “worst” would be some place like Chinatown, since few people speak English natively and I have a heck of a time understanding them.[/spoiler]
Putting this is in a spoiler box because it might be visible from the OP without scrolling down. After this, I don’t think any spoiler boxes are necessary:
[spoiler]“Worst speaking” neighborhood was tough, because it could be any heavily ethnic neighborhood where English is a second language. I mentioned Chinatown, Sunset Park, and Spanish Harlem, but in all likelihood those aren’t the best choices.
“Best speaking” was, for me, very easy to answer. The Upper East and West sides of Manhattan, between 60th and 90th streets. It’s almost entirely wealthy white people, and “proper” English can be effectively defined as the English spoken by upper class whites.[/spoiler]
Thanks, VarlosZ. They’re not easy questions to answer, but you hit on two themes we see a lot in the responses so far: socioeconomic status and immigration. Issues of education and first language seem to be what a lot of people are tapping into, which wasn’t what we expected at first. We expected the “worst” would mostly be places like Brooklyn and the Bronx which are thought to be areas of the traditional New York accent that people in the rest of the country tend to pick up when making fun of New Yorkers. So, people inside and outside of New York seem to have much different perspectives. But, of course, we’re not quite done gathering data or analyzing it, so I can’t say for 100% sure.
I’m doing a little bump here to hopefully reach a few more of you! Please send the link to your friends. Thanks.