On February the 4th
we had a conference activity on lexicon. The title was “The Lexicon in Varieties of English Around
The World, Puerto Rico, The USA, Britain and Malta”. It was given by, Dr.
Manfred King from the University of Bamberg in Germany. In this conference we
were shown data from years of studies and surveys that had the finality of
identifying which English, be that Britain or American, influenced most in
Puerto Rico and Malta. Malta is a southern European archipelago that is densely
populated, just like Puerto Rico is. Thus, I believe, is one of the reasons the
professor chose these two islands, and of course the fact that English is the
second most spoken language in both places.
The results stated that Malta
is most influenced by the British English than the American and that Puerto
Rico is most influenced by the latter. Not surprisingly on account of the
location of these islands. However, there are exceptions in words; specifically
in Puerto Rico, where the professor pointed out is influenced by British
English like the word aluminum. Just like, astoundingly, not only British
English but also a bit of Italian influence the English spoken in Malta.
We Puerto Ricans have the privilege of knowing two languages at least, Spanish and English. In this conference what stood out for me was that the written and the spoken in English vary, we use two phrases to express the same thing that depends if you are talking or writing.
ReplyDeleteWell thanks for clarifying a lot about the conference! Indeed it is interesting how we have two phrases that vary if we are speaking or writting, but even more interesting it's that we do this unconsciously. Maybe our huge exposure to american TV and books since we're kids has something to do with this.
ReplyDeleteYears of data, interesting specially if they were there, they probably lived the influence of the english.
ReplyDelete