Date:    Thu, 12 Mar 1998 10:22:06 -0500
<br>From:    Grant Barrett  gbarrett[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]DFJP.COM 
<br>Subject: Dialect Discrimination
<br>
<br>I received this from the EDIE list and think it might be of interest here, too.
<br> Please pardon me if you also subscribe  to EDIE-L and have already seen this.
<br>
<br>Grant Barrett
<br>gbarrett[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]drjp.com
<br>
<br>Begin quote:
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<br>I thought this might be of interest to anyone who's not heard about the
<br>case already: it's a report by Gavin Innes in 'The Scotsman' newspaper
<br>(3rd March 1998) entitled "Police Dog 'could not understand Scots accent':
<br>Alsatian blamed for PC's course failure, tribunal told."
<br>
<br>The case has been discussed, somewhat flippantly, on BBC radio news, and
<br>was brought up as a joke topic on the BBC Radio 4 'News Quiz' comedy
<br>programme of Saturday 7th March 1998, to the great amusement of the
<br>studio audience. As one would expect, given the rather uneasy
<br>relationship between the Scots and the English, the potentially serious
<br>implications of a case like this are defused by trivialising the issue.
<br>
<br>Try replacing 'Scottish/Glaswegian' with 'Pakistani', 'Yiddish' or
<br>'Jamaican' in the passage below, however, and it's clear how far positive
<br>race relations practice on the part of the Met and other forces UK-wide has
<br>taken us. That is, had McPherson been a member of one of the 'recognised'
<br>minority groups - south Asians, Jews, Afro-Caribbeans, etc. - the case
<br>could never have come to court in the form we read about below.
<br>
<br>What disturbs me is the fact that a barrister is happy to accept a
<br>situation in which having a Glaswegian accent renders one unsuitable even
<br>for communication with dogs (we can only assume that this implies that
<br>human beings are liable to have similar problems with this accent). What
<br>exempts Scots from the kind of tolerant and enlightened treatment we expect
<br>in c
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<br>         ADS-L Digest - 10 Mar 1998 to 11 Mar 1998             98-03-12 00:00:25
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<br>There are 35 messages totalling 1398 lines in this issue.
<br>
<br>Topics of the day:
<br>
<br>  1. Q: "free indirect discourse"
<br>  2. standardization of non-standard forms (12)
<br>  3. "spittin' image"
<br>  4. GREASY/GREAZY
<br>  5. standardization of nonstandard forms (2)
<br>  6. call for papers - ADS at SCMLA
<br>  7. "Take Me/Us to Your Leader"
<br>  8. Shaggy-Dog Story
<br>  9. "A prosecutor could indict a ham sandwich" (6)
<br> 10. Ring around the rosie(s) (5)
<br> 11. interesting stuff here
<br> 12. wife-beaters
<br> 13. Accent Reduction Therapy - Yoruba (2)
<br>
<br>----------------------------------------------------------------------
<br>
<br>Date:    Wed, 11 Mar 1998 00:28:31 -0500
<br>From:    Margaret Ronkin  ronkinm[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]GUSUN.GEORGETOWN.EDU 
<br>Subject: Q: "free indirect discourse"
<br>
<br>Can anyone, perhaps in an English department which teaches stylistics
<br>and literature, steer me toward a source of expertise or a good current
<br>bibliography on "free indirect discourse"? I first encountered uses of
<br>this device in the works of Z. N. Hurston and I remain particularly
<br>interested in its uses by 20th-century American writers. Many thanks.
<br>
<br>- Maggie Ronkin
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