"Peppa Pig" is causing American kids to speak with British accents

[lowsocks]

There has recently been a spate of news reports, from the United States, Canada, New Zealand, and perhaps other countries: Parents claim that their children are speaking with British accents after watching the children's cartoon "Peppa Pig". There are so many, I scarcely know which ones to list. Just google "Peppa Pig accent" (without quotes).

I suspect it is all part of a plan by Britain, to regain her former possessions...

(More worrisome, is that some of the children are reported to end their sentences with a snort or oink.)

[MrsStarez]

I like it! My son (native Brit) has been picking up American pronunciation from things like Blaze and PJ Masks so it’s good to hear the accents are travelling in both directions

[reineke]

Cartoons that Make A Difference: A Linguistic Analysis of Peppa Pig
Article (PDF Available) · January 2019 
55 reads

The present paper examines the vocabulary contained in the British animated programme Peppa Pig and investigates whether the vocabulary included is frequent but also appropriate for beginner learners of English. It also examines if there is any formulaic language in it. Comparison with the BNC wordlist and with the CYLET and EVP wordlists for beginners suggests that one fifth of the English vocabulary contained in the show is frequent and that a small amount of it overlaps with the proposed vocabulary lists of CYLET and EVP for A1 level. Therefore, the majority of the vocabulary contained in the show is mainly infrequent but still appropriate while the in-depth analysis of selective episodes showed amplitude of formulaic language in the show and plenty repetition of it.

https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... _Peppa_Pig

VOCABULARY UPTAKE FROM PEPPA PIG: A CASE STUDY OF PRESCHOOL EFL LEARNERS IN GREECE

This chapter presents a small-scale case study that investigated the influence of comic series in English as a foreign language (EFL) vocabulary acquisition. To that aim, Greek preschoolers watched a set of episodes of the Peppa Pig comic series in English and then they discussed the plot and the heroes with their teacher in Greek. No explicit teaching of the English language or vocabulary included in the comic series took place. Following that, the children were tested in a child-friendly way in order to measure the receptive English vocabulary they were exposed to in the specific episodes of the comic series. Results indicate the significant contribution of comic series in EFL students' receptive vocabulary but also in vocabulary development in general.

"Overwhelmingly the vocabulary comprised high frequency words with 86% from the first 1,000 most frequent words in English and a further 6% from the second 1,000 most frequent words. The vocabulary contained in the four episodes appeared to be highly concrete and imageable as defined by Milton (2009). The results of the uptake of the target words is shown in Table 16-2 below. Preschoolers could remember about half of the target vocabulary in each episode and about one third of the total 21 target words without explicit instruction but merely by watching the episodes. If this were to be true of all the words in the corpus compiled for this study, then it suggests that these learners may have acquired some 200 different English words within a period of a little less than an hour and a half. Nothing in the literature suggests uptake as impressive as this among older L2 learners or even among L1 learners. This, in turn, can imply that if these words were then formally instructed, contextualized and practised through activities, the results could be even more impressive."

https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... AI_ALEXIOU

[MacGyver]

I am pretty skeptical to be honest. Growing up in New Zealand, cartoons almost all had American accents. Did I speak with an American accent? No. Did watching Sooty and Sweep give me a British accent? No.

[Beli Tsar]

If this were to be true of all the words in the corpus compiled for this study, then it suggests that these learners may have acquired some 200 different English words within a period of a little less than an hour and a half. Nothing in the literature suggests uptake as impressive as this among older L2 learners or even among L1 learners. This, in turn, can imply that if these words were then formally instructed, contextualized and practised through activities, the results could be even more impressive."

Speaking as a parent rather than a language learner, the people who put together Peppa have done an amazing job of designing the show for learning. The slow, careful way that words are demonstrated and explained is like no other show I've seen. It's a masterpiece of didactic filmmaking.

It's no wonder it is good for picking up foreign languages and accents too.

If it wasn't for the fact that Peppa is such a nasty, vindictive little pig I'd have been very happy for our kids watching it. As it is, they picked up the accents, the oink noises, and the habit of being stroppy and selfish whenever they watched, so no more of that for them.

I'll have to decide whether my own character and personality is tough enough to resist that when I take up a language where Peppa is available....

[AML]

I like it! My son (native Brit) has been picking up American pronunciation from things like Blaze and PJ Masks so it’s good to hear the accents are travelling in both directions

Maybe incidences like this are how the Mid-Atlantic accent was formed.

[MrsStarez]

The accent I can just about live with, as he forgets that once he’s not seen PP for a while (he’s way too old to watch it but went back to it recently, as well as Paw Patrol - urgh). The vocab is just annoying though - Brits don’t talk about sail boats and race cars!

[rdearman]

Brits don’t talk about sail boats and race cars!

You don't appear to have heard of "Top Gear". lol

[zjones]

I like it! My son (native Brit) has been picking up American pronunciation from things like Blaze and PJ Masks so it’s good to hear the accents are travelling in both directions

Maybe incidences like this are how the Mid-Atlantic accent was formed.

Is Neil Gaiman's accent a Mid-Atlantic accent? I absolutely LOOOOOVE his voice, and initially I thought he had a strange East-Coast accent until my husband told me that he's actually British. It's a really nice, almost spell-binding accent that I could listen to all day.

[Neurotip]

Is Neil Gaiman's accent a Mid-Atlantic accent? I absolutely LOOOOOVE his voice, and initially I thought he had a strange East-Coast accent until my husband told me that he's actually British.

Speaking as a Brit* with no prior experience of discriminating mid-Atlantic accents, he sounds to me like a native of the Home Counties who's spent a fair amount of time in the States, though it could have taken me a while to notice the US influence if I hadn't been paying attention.

* I always rather liked the term Rightpondian but I don't see it used very much these days