Concerning the different pronunciations of “our,” how does the pronunciation affect people of generational and foreign language background differences?

Abstract

The younger generation’s dialect has changed rapidly due to the increased consumption of media from different backgrounds. Changing dialect affects the way we communicate with each other. The research question I curated concerned the different pronunciations of “our,” and how the difference in pronunciation affects people of generational and foreign language backgrounds. The methods of the study included a short sequence of questionnaires to provide interest, statistical information, as well as availability information for myself (the interviewer) to find a time at which I may interview the participant. The takeaway from the research was originally to research more on the topic of the generational differences of dialects. However, upon further inspection of my participant pool, another observation of the variables was needed to encompass the entire population. Thus, it can be concluded that dialect changes among people with the competing dialects of the older and younger generations affect the non-native population. The hypothesis suggests there is a relationship between dialect used by both younger and older generations, which  impacts L2 English speakers and their pronunciation of “our.” The results were calculated by hand from data collected on Google Sheets. It can be assumed that the [‘aʊɚ] to [‘ar] pronunciation dialect change affected most of the older and younger populations. 42.86% of the total participants used the pronunciation of “our” as [‘aʊɚ], meaning that less than half of the population used the “proper” pronunciation of “our.” The following results are deemed inconclusive due to the number of variables that were present.