Nakul Week 5: Accents in America
When people think of a “normal” American accent, they picture a General American one. Smooth, universally known, and often heard in national news broadcasts. However, GA is more of a broadcast ideal than an accepted national reality, and many more accents exist throughout the continental USA.
Consider the classic south drawl, characterized by elongated vowels and a melodic cadence and inflection. This evolved from early English settlers mixing with African influences. Compared to the sharp, punchy, New York accent, with sharp vowel shifts and not pronouncing ‘r’; something that came from centuries of dense urban migration patterns.
Accents do a lot more than indicating where someone grew up, they carry someone's personal and cultural identity. When someone speaks with a southern, midwestern, or Boston accent, they echo centuries of their family, their community, and their heritage. For many people, an accent provides a sense of home, and belonging. Though, accents can also lead to code-switching– changing your speech patterns to fit a specific group of people.
Is the American accent changing? Is it disappearing? While it may be tempting to assume this, rest assured that this is a complete falsity. New vocal patterns are constantly emerging like “vocal fry” or “uptalk” are spreading. In fact, Bay Area vocal patterns are moving and spreading throughout the contiguous US, with speech patterns like the “vowel shift” morphing into General American. Ultimately, diversity in American speech should be celebrated rather than standardized. Our varied accents reflect the unique journeys, histories, and communities that define the country.
Hi Nakul! I think people often associate certain accents with intelligence or social status, even though the way someone speaks has nothing to do with their abilities. Your point about how accents carry a person’s sense of belonging is something I really relate to—no matter how ‘Americanized’ my parents become they will have their Indian accent to represent their individualities. Growing up in the Bay Area, where there are so many different cultures and languages, I realized there isn’t one way to sound American. I fear I have also fallen victim to your discussion of code-switching, as I change how I speak around different groups to fit in. One question I have after reading your blog is, do you think growing up in a diverse place changes how people view accents and what it means to sound American?
ReplyDeleteNakul - This appears to be a popular topic for many people this week, and it doesn’t come as a surprise. With Fremont’s demographic makeup, it comes as an inevitability that people will talk about accents. From personal experience, it is shocking how little accents affect communication between people, and from that, it also begs the question of what draws the line between an accent and a dialect. Is it a Southern dialect or a Southern accent? Is Southern German a dialect or just German with an accent compared to German, well, German? Same with Chinglish, is it a dialect? There is much to think about. I also think with accents that it is impossible to address them without also bringing up the mockery of accents in America, especially by comedians on the internet that hope to make a quick buck by appealing to edgier subgroups on the web.
ReplyDeleteHi Nakul! The perception of the American accent is so diverse across the globe. I’ve heard family in India talk about how superior it is to that of their own, while simultaneously my cousins studying in Europe share how their American accents are constantly made fun of by students from other European countries. While the dialects you discuss are prominent to us as Americans, to the international outsiders they are treated as essentially the same.
ReplyDeleteEspecially with our community’s unique background, our accents really go to show what parts of our identities we most associate ourselves with. My parents have clear Indian accents, marred by inflections picked up from America and Australia. My sister and I have clear Californian accents, something completely different from the recordings I watch of the thick Australian accent I had so long ago.
I agree that the American accent will never disappear. Although we live in an age where the world is constantly interacting, our most direct influences will always be the individuals we interact with the most, and that is mainly whoever lives in the same locality as us. The uniqueness of the Southern drawl and Brooklyn accent should be considered a point of pride, something we purposefully carry as a reminder of our roots. In a country that champions its diversity as a melting pot of culture, we should appreciate the new accents and cultural signifiers that come from the merging of communities.