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A scientific analysis of her famous Christmas broadcasts found that Queen Elizabeth II's famous cut-glass accent, the Queen's English, is now sounding less upper-class.
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Queen Elizabeth II's famous cut-glass accent, the Queen's English, is now sounding less upper-class, a scientific analysis of her famous Christmas broadcasts found.
Researchers analysed each of her messages to the Commonwealth since her 1952accessionusing digital technology to track the shift in her pronunciation from thearistocraticUpper Received to the less plummy Standard Received.
Jonathan Harrington, professor of phonetics at Germany's University of Munich, wanted to discover whether dialect changes recorded over the past half-century would take place within one person.
"As far as I know, there just is nobody else for whom there is this sort of broadcast archive," he said.
He said the aristocratic way of pronouncing vowels had gradually ceased to be a class apart over the decades.
"Her accent sounds slightly less aristocratic than it did 50 years ago. But these are very, very subtle and slow changes that we don't notice from year to year," he explained.
"We may be able to relate it to changes in the class structure."
He told The Daily Telegraph newspaper: "In 1952 she would have been heard referring to 'thet men in the bleck het'. Now it would be 'that man in the black hat'.
"Similarly, she would have spoken of 'the citay' and 'dutay', rather than 'citee' and 'dutee'. In the 1950s she would have been 'lorst', but by the 1970s lost."
The queen's annual broadcast is a personal message to the Commonwealth.
A Christmas institution, the 10-minute broadcast is televised at 3:00 pm in Britain as many families are recovering from their traditional turkey lunch.
The results were published in the Journal of Phonetics quarterly magazine.
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(AFP)
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研究人員通過分析英女王伊麗莎白二世發(fā)表的著名圣誕致辭發(fā)現(xiàn)，她那著名的“女王式發(fā)音”如今已少了些“貴族”的味道。
研究人員對女王1952年即位以來的每個圣誕致辭進行了分析，并采用數(shù)碼技術對她的貴族式發(fā)音向標準發(fā)音的轉變進行了追蹤記錄。
德國慕尼黑大學的語音學教授喬納森·哈林頓試圖通過研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，一個人的口音在50年內是否會發(fā)生變化。
他說：“就我所知，一般人是沒有類似的演說記錄檔案的?！?/font>
他說，幾十年來女王的貴族式元音發(fā)音已逐漸消失。
哈林頓教授解釋說：“女王的口音和50年前相比已經沒有明顯的貴族味，但這一變化十分細微而且很緩慢，我們幾乎察覺不到?！?/font>
“女王口音的變化主要和社會等級結構的變化有關?！?/font>
他在接受《每日電訊》的采訪時說：“1952年，女王說thet men in the bleck het，而現(xiàn)在她則會說成that man in the black hat?！?/font>
“同樣，女王過去會說'the citay' and 'dutay'，現(xiàn)在則是'citee' and 'dutee'。上世紀50年代，她會說lorst，但到了70年代就變成了lost?！?/font>
每年圣誕節(jié)，女王都會向整個英聯(lián)邦發(fā)表圣誕祝辭。
這個10分鐘的圣誕祝辭已成了英國的圣誕習俗，會在每年圣誕節(jié)的下午3點通過電視臺向英國民眾播放，此時大多數(shù)家庭已經吃完傳統(tǒng)的圣誕火雞午餐了。
這項研究結果在《語音》季刊上發(fā)表。
（英語點津姍姍編輯）
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