Anirudh Week 5: The Accent that Doesn’t Exist
Growing up, I used to watch a lot of movies and TV shows, and most of them centered around characters from the U.S. I’d watch characters with a “Southern” accent, characters with a “New Jersey” accent, and even those with a “Midwestern” accent. Yet as weird as it seemed, I nor anyone around me seemed to have one of those accents. They just sounded like the boring NPR reporters that would come up on the TV after my parents switched the channels.
What I did not know was that this feeling was not unique to me. In truth, the idea of an accent is a matter of recognizing differences in speech relative to your own. And the concept of Standard American English complicates this further. Even though it’s recognized as a standard for formal or institutional writing, we tend to assume that means it lacks any features and is built upon unmarked pronunciation.
Separating institutional formalities from our understanding of a linguistic baseline is crucial therefore, because the purpose of Standard American English is not to be treated as a “pure” baseline, but a dialect that can connect all the regions of the U.S.
Perhaps the most telling effect of this assumption is the exaggeration of Regional accents in order to emphasize a stark contrast from Standard American English. Take the Southern Accent for example. Elongated vowels, a slower tempo, and the signature drawl are often exaggerated immensely in movies and tv shows.
This contrast therefore reveals how media does more than represent linguistic regional differences. When an accent is emphasized more than the others, audiences begin to associate the former with neutrality while the latter is seen as an offshoot. The distinction is thus not in the presence or absence of an accent, but rather in which accents we’ve learned to recognize.
Yep, accents sure are a beloved part of American culture. I wonder how the Boston accent, for example, evolved. I guess Europeans came over? They would have spoken British English and then formed a colony in the New England area. Over time, did they create that Boston characteristic?
ReplyDeleteI wonder if there is some historian or linguist (or combination of them both) that has put together a map or something of accents and their evolutionary histories. I love gazing at maps, especially of the U.S.; that’s why the (partially cropped) map for your blog caught my attention! I bet there are lots of foreign language influences, too, on these accents. Someone out there has probably done good research.
Did you know that Antarctic scientists living at their base down there have their own accent? They came from different parts of the world and reside together in order to do their studies. When they returned home, some linguists tested them and found they had their own Antarctic accent.
I really like this blog, because I haven’t really thought about this topic that deeply before! While I also used to think that I was accent-less, I’ve found that most people living in California have a bit of a California accent. This became painfully obvious to me in my vocal class, when my teacher pointed out that I tend to hit my “Rs” really strongly while singing, and that to make a more open sound I had to ditch the California accent. She said it’s super common for people who live here. I didn’t even notice it until she made me stop doing it! I guess that definitely demonstrates what you said about only recognizing accents that are different to your own.
ReplyDeleteI also find it interesting how some accents just seem to disappear. Personally, I think the transatlantic accent should make a comeback. It would certainly shake things up in the accent scene!
I agree that accents are heavily emphasized in film to achieve contrast between characters. Whenever studios want a character that is wacky, mysterious, or just different, they tend to give that character a noticeable accent. It has to be exaggerated so viewers can instantly tell the difference in speaking between a character who speaks “standard” English and the character with a highlighted accent. This does not just apply to American accents, however, as movies and shows may give a character a German or French accent to provide further contrast from the American accent.
ReplyDeleteI liked the point you made about how Standard American English is a dialect that connects all of the regions of the U.S. I believe that as people interact with people of different regions and watch films that include characters with different accents, they will adopt some of the characteristics of the various accents and develop a homogenous one. In this way, the standard for English speaking is characterized by components of different accents all across America.