By Fay (Long Feiyu)

The final lecture, given by James Gardiner—a gentleman from Britain, has been successfully held at 7:00 P.M, on 22nd December. The topic was “Accentuating the Accent—Uncovering the Myth of the British Accent”. Through interesting games, video clips, tables, Mr. James Gardiner stated different local languages in British, showed the diversity of British dialects from North to South, and mentioned the attitude which we need to take about accent.

At the beginning, James shared his own teaching experience with the students. He explained what is “language”, “dialect” and “accent” and helped us to set up the basic conception that “dialects include accents”. To make it clear, James took examples of speakers from Newcastle. According to his ideas, though people can be judged his or her social class by the diversity of languages and dialects, we should not feel shamed for keeping our own accent. On the contrary, it is better for us to have cultural identity.

What is more, James introduced types of British dialects and local colors of languages in different regions. With some reading and dictations, he compared the languages in Ireland, Wales and Scotland. He provided reasonable conceptions about languages and cultures for students during the whole lecture. For examples, any accents are acceptable; everyone has dialect more or less when speaking English; we should pay much more attention to pronunciation and intonation rather than accent.

Finally, James answered our questions with large patience and broke our doubt. A student said "James, with his British humor, really impressed us a lot!"