Since 2007, I've been researching the dialect of Standard American English used by broadcasters. I'll present some of this research at the New Ways of Analyzing Variation conference in Ottawa, Ontario.
Research is on-going through this website. The survey below is informal. Your responses, though, can help generate future studies.
The clips linked to the right demonstrate an MU student at different stages of education as a broadcast journalist. An MU journalism major read the same news story during each semester of her junior and senior years. This represented her time at MU from beginning work in the School of Journalism as a major to graduation. She is currently reporting for a small-market television station, indicating that her education in the J-School was successful.
I want to find out whether, from listening to her readings, people can identify at which point in her studies each was recorded.
To complete the survey, simply listen to each clip and assign an order for it. 1 represents the earliest recording and 4 represents the most recent. Then provide a brief description of the factors that determined your rankings.
Informed Consent
This is not a formal study, but I will keep a log of ratings and my use in presentations, publications, or other work with trained linguists. I may cite numbers as averages and specific comments from qualitative descriptions. No personal information from any respondent is being solicited (besides whether a respondent is of legal age) and none will be kept.