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Re: off topic: language, long



I have a few questions and comments about dialects, accents, standard
academic english.



Zach Wolff wrote in part:

I believe
I have learned to use the standard academic English
language rather well, and largely for this reason.

What's meant by "standard academic English?" The phrase conjures visions
of a dialect used only in writing wherein the active voice is never seen.

I think the comments in Richard Tarara's message
provide a strong counterpoint to Brian Whatcott's
claim that American English dialects no longer place
the user in a distinct social class. Minorities would
disagree, as would my father who occasionally still
pronounces an r in the word wash (we're from Kansas).
We learn to control our linguistic register based on
the company. My father's r disappears in formal
settings. I don't swear in front of professors like I
swear in front of my friends. Many other speakers of
minority (I include minorities other than ethnic here)
dialects regularize their speech in formal settings.
This is important, as Mr. Tarara points out, for
employment and other situations.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but there's a difference between an accent and a
dialect. Accents deal with pronunciation; dialects deal with syntax and
the meanings assigned to new words. Brian's original comment dealt with
accent, not dialect, and with social class, not geographic location. I
think he's right.

Someone listening to Zach's father say "wash" and a few other words could
identify him as a native of a very large area somewhere in the central or
maybe western U.S..

But they wouldn't be able to identify his social class. He might be rich
or poor, educated or ignorant, from either side of the tracks. There's no
way to tell from his accent. (There is an arrogant notion among many
northerners that a southerly accent is a sign of ignorance and stupidity,
but it has no basis...though it does reveal something about those who
believe it.)

But if he were to present at, say, an AAPT meeting, and if during his
presentation he regularly used double negatives and the word "ain't",
everyone present would make a judgment about his social class. This is a
matter of dialect, not accent.

It's not an entirely clear-cut matter, especially for some minority
dialects. Many of us do speak something of a regional or minority dialect,
and we speak it with the accompanying accent. Most of us know how and when
to switch into Standard American English. Many of us change our accents
when we switch dialects, deliberately or otherwise.


I now live in an area where the middle class mostly speaks standard
American English with something close to the standard accent (I've been
told there is such a thing...might be a memorism). When I travel to
Kansas, where my parents live, I take on something of a twang in my speech.
It's not deliberate; it just happens. If, in Kansas, I happened to give a
talk on physics, the twang would disappear during the talk. That's not
deliberate, either; I can't speak in an academic setting with a Kansas
accent unless I concentrate on it, and probably not then. The twang would
reappear the first time I stopped to get gas or groceries on the way back
to my parents' house.

Digby