Adam Glassner

In the English language, there are many different dialects and ways to pronounce different
words. The five interlocutors that were interviewed spoke a few different versions of English. For
anonymity, they will be referred to as participants one through five. Participants one and two were
both from Michigan, although they had a different age and gender. Participant one was a female and of
an older age. Participant two was of the male gender and in their twenties. The final three participants
were female and in their twenties. Participant three is from California. Participant four is from Georgia
and is African American. Participant five is from Japan and English is not their native language.
Each of the participants were asked to pronounce five words. These words would be marry,
merry, pajamas, nuclear, interesting, leisure, syrup, white, cot, and caught.
Participants one and two pronounced these words in a very similar fashion. Despite them being
a different age and gender, participants one and twos location where they are from caused their
pronunciation to be the same. They pronounced cot and caught very similarly however caught was
pronounced like kt and cot was pronounced kat. Despite this small difference, they were pronounced
very similarly and it was hard to tell the difference. White was pronounced wt. Sryup was
pronounced srp. Leisure was pronounced lir. Interesting was pronounced ntresti. Nuclear was
pronounced nuklir. Pajamas was pronounced pmz. Merry and marry were pronounced the same
exact way and were pronounced mi.
Participant three also to my surprise also pronounced the words exactly like participants one
and two. The only one that was a little different was interesting. This was pronounced ntrsti.
Participant four was from Georgia. While I was expecting this to be a lot different, surprisingly
it was not as different as you would think. Pajamas was pronounced pmz. Both caught and cot
were pronounced kt. Sryup was pronounced srp. White was pronounced wt. Interesting was
pronounced ntresti. Nuclear was pronounced nuklir. Merry and marry were pronounced the same
exact way and were pronounced mi. Leisure was pronounced lir.

Adam Glassner
Participant five had a very distinct English pronunciation. They spoke with a Japanese accent, so
the pronunciation was different than the others although some words were the same. They did
pronounce marry and merry with a different pronunciation. Merry was pronounced meri. Marry was
pronounced mari. Pajamas was pronounced pmz. Nuclear was pronounced nuklia. Leisure was
pronounced leza. Interesting was pronounced ntaresti. White was pronounced wt. Sryup was
pronounced close to srp although the s was in between the normal s and the sh sound. Both caught
and cot were pronounced in the same manner. They were pronounced like kt.
The participants were also asked if they knew any other pronunciations for the words, what are
they and who uses those pronunciations.
Most of the participants noted that there were certain pronunciations found in the south vs the
north. Participant two was told a little more information about the interviews and was also surprised
that the participant from the south and the participant from California had relatively the same terms
and pronounced them relatively the same.
The various other pronunciations that the participants provided were common among all of
them. The participants noted that pajamas could also be pronounced paamaz or pamaz. Nuclear,
syrup, and interesting were noted that it is not common to be pronounced differently although there
were a few other pronunciations that could be used as well. Leisure was noted to also be used as lr.
Participant five was aware that there were different dialects of English. However, because they
were still learning English, they were not as aware of the other locations and other dialects of English as
others are.
There are many dialects of the English language, however many of them have the same
features. This means that many of them are dialect leveling and are heading towards a standard version
of English. However, I do not believe that all dialects of English will be the complete same and we will
have differences throughout them.

Adam Glassner
One important case of the interlockers is that 4/5 of them were from the younger generation.
While they were not in the same speech community, as they did not talk to one another specifically,
they were in the same social category because of age. This could be a reason that they pronounce
words alike even though they are from different cities. They are from the same age group. They also
are all in college, so they have that in common as well, although they go to different colleges so they are
still in different speech communities, as they do not communicate with each other.
Most of the participants were in the same class. They had the same job. All of the students
were in college. This could have impacted all their speech patterns to be similar, as they are taught by
professors around at different Universities that could be trying to use a standard dialect or that are
also in the same class.
With analyzing and reflecting on the interlocutors information that was gathered, many of them
spoke similar English. Not one dialect of English is better than another and not any more complex
than others. Reflecting back, not one way of speaking is correct and we should not be judged by the
way we speak.