<bertvaux@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:1192891137.795547.3920@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Dear linguists and other lovers of the English language:
>
> My new online survey of world English varieties is now available
> online at
> http://www.ling.cam.ac.uk/survey/.
>
> This survey differs from my previous Harvard and UWM surveys in a few
> im****tant ways:
>
> 1. It maps the responses using the google maps engine, which allows
> for
> interactive manipulation of the maps: zooming in, moving across the
> globe,
> and so on.
>
> 2. It has a more manageable number of questions (31).
>
> 3. The questions are designed to be relevant to speakers of English
> worldwide, not just in the United States.
>
> Currently the maps plot 50,000 responses from the United States, but
> once I
> have sufficient responses from the rest of the world I will generate
> new maps.
>
> I hope you will consider taking the survey and asking your friends and
> students to as well.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Bert Vaux
> University of Cambridge
Are you at all concerned that, although you appear to be getting a rather
broad regional response, you are nevertheless relying on the participation
of a rather narrowly defined socio-economic group (i.e. on-line computer
users who either frequent newsgroups or have been referred to your survey
by
those who do frequent newsgroups)? I would think that such a narrowly
defined group of respondents could not necessarily be relied upon to
provide
an accurate representation of the regions in which they may have formed
their speech habits.
--
alan
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