On accents

[xiphias]

So, people called me on the phone today to set up times to meet to see the apartment. And I noticed something that I've always known tacitly, but this helped make it explicit to me.

As much as we say otherwise, the United States has social classes. And you can, somewhat, tell what social class someone comes from by their accent.

I'm sure this comes as no surprise to browngirl, whose parents were clear to the point of corporal punishment that SHE was going to have an accent which marked her as belonging to, or at least POTENTIALLY belonging to, the class which has money and power in this country.

And, basically, that's what we were being taught in Voice and Articulation class: here's how to have the powered and monied accent.

But I want to learn how to have a blue-collar accent. Actually, I want to learn SEVERAL blue-collar accents. I just think that would be fun, to be able to modulate my accent to fit in anywhere, pass as any social class.

That's also why I'm leaning more towards supporting Howard Dean over John Kerry. Kerry's accent marks him as an "aristocrat." It's not fair, it's not all that accurate. But he's percived as "different" by the majority of people in the US. Dean's accent marks him as "upper working class" -- an admired and aspired-to class by the majority of Americans. Most folks don't aspire to being aristocratic -- they aspire to working hard and becoming wealthy and comfortable and respected -- and THAT'S the accent that Dean has.

Comments

[laurens10.livejournal.com]

What you say is very interesting. I'm someone who grew up having one of the more bottom rung accents -- lower middle class Southern, north Georgia variety.

Even if I still had my full-blown Southern accent, and even if it was an upper class one, people up here likely would read it as "dumb" or "racist". I lost it during high school and college, but I still can't figure out how to pronounce some words "correctly". People will hear my speech and realize it doesn't sound quite right, but they'll jump to bizarre conclusions, like I'm Irish.

I like Dean's accent/speech patterns. It never occurred to me that they might be "upper working class", but they don't sound so darn patrician like many of the other politicians. Maybe there are special voice lessons given in the Senate that make people sound aristocratic. :P

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

I think there's a big difference in perception between
lower-class Southern accents that tend to provoke
prejudice, and the accents of educated Southerners.
I read a book a few years ago, about changes in
regional accents. (I remember it was by someone in
central Connecticut, but I don't remember his name.
The book is in the house where I used to live.
[bother] A blue paperback, on the set of shelves
right behind the computer.) He distinguished a
regional dialect (unique sentence structure, or
unique words) from a regional accent speaking
standard English.

He said that all the US presidents recent enough for
their voices to be recorded had spoken standard English.
Not regional dialects. They had been educated men, no
matter where they came from originally. And being an educated man who spends a lot of time talking to
businessmen, and other educated men ... that was a
prerequisite for the presidency, and it has a strong
influence on accent.

There's an interesting secondary conflict going on,
which Lauren refers to obliquely. "Even if I had my
full-blown Southern accent, and even if it was an
upper-class one, people up here would likely read it
as 'dumb,' or 'racist.'" I don't believe that's a
class conflict at all. I think Lauren is concerned
about the lingering suspicion some liberal
Northerners have, even today, that a rich white
Southerner will be a racist. Or will harbor secret
racist attitudes, having benefitted from years of
racist policy. Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond didn't
sound "dumb," but they certainly sounded racist,
and a lot of people heard them as the public
voice of the Carolinas.

[laurens10.livejournal.com]

I grew up with both a regional accent and a regional dialect. You can't tell about the dialect because my writing "voice" is different from my speaking voice, and because I've mostly lost it because of constant pressure from my peers that what I say is uneducated.

The South in some senses is America's lower class. Certainly other regions of America could qualify for that too. In the South, there was that whole agricultural economy that relied on slavery, and then that war, and then that crippling depression pretty much from the war up until my mother's lifetime. The South is associated with poverty and racism and the uneducated. I'd bet that an accent like my grandma's, even minus the dialect, will come across as lower class compared to a standard American accent. I would also guess from the many poor and inappropriate attempts at Southern accents I've seen on TV that many Americans would not be able to distinguish the class difference in the accents between my mom's relatives and my father's relatives. I'd imagine that there is a very narrow range of Scarlett O'Hara-type Southern Belle that would be recognized as upper class, but I've never heard that accent in my life.

Because I speak like a Yankee now, many of my Southern relatives both fear and respect me as someone who they consider as "higher class". It's weird. They are both sad and proud. I really don't know what to make of it.

[supergee.livejournal.com]

I went to a NY prep school, mostly for Jewish kids, where were taught not to sound Jewish.

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

Hey, you left me nothing to say except "do I ever agree with you!" *grin*

A.
who, well, agrees with you, for reasons that you mentioned.

[greenlily.livejournal.com]

I think that, in Boston/Cambridge, accents are a statement that you belong here. My dad is a third generation townie (Dorchester and West Roxbury). My mom doesn't have any accent at all, and between that and Brookline's social prejudices I grew up accentless. (At least until the Anglophilia took over.) My teachers and classmates didn't quite know what to make of me; a townie accent added to the mix would have confused them further.

Hmm. We read in grad school about how kids from lower economic classes are more likely to be classed as learning disabled. I wonder whether, if I'd had a townie accent, whether teachers in the Brookline Public Schools would have found it easier to believe that I had a learning disability. Interesting.

[lidiya6.livejournal.com]

I think that, in Boston/Cambridge, accents are a statement that you belong here.

YES. I was getting directions to a store in Medford once and the guy on the phone had a wicked accent, and, having grown up in Naw-wood MA I thought I would get better service / whatever/ by showing off my native accent. (I always revert to my “boston” accent when talking to anyone with one)
But I didn’t know where a certain street or other landmark was and he said something like “you ahn’t from heah ah ya?” and I said no I am from Norwood, and he laughed said “yah I can tell…” I thought it was funny that I was not even local enough …I consider myself “from here” but others have smaller borders.

[solipsistnation.livejournal.com]

I find that I end up unconsciously imitating the accent of whoever I'm talking to. I hope people don't think I'm making fun of them, 'cause I end up talking like a hick when I'm home and talking to, well, hicks, and I end up talking like more working-class folks when I'm talking to them, and so on.

Ideally, this doesn't make me seem like an asshole to people.

[cheshyre]

That happens to me, too.
Really annoying when I actively wanted to acquire a Boston accent, but spent most of my days doing nationwide technical support.

[greenlily.livejournal.com]

Happens to me too. About ten years ago (whoah...)I was a counselor at a sleepaway camp where most of the other staff was from the UK, Ireland, Oz and NZ. I had to work really, really, really hard not to pick up their accents, as I was terrified they'd think I was making fun of them. It kind of worked...the only really pervasive one was the NZ.

[(Anonymous)]

::: mumbles something about an enlightened and informed public being necessary to a functioning democracy :::

To clarify: although Dean's accent might *sound* "upper working class," that shouldn't be taken to mean that Dean *is* from the working classes. In fact, Dean is something of an aristocrat -- a prep-schooled Yankee who was born into wealth.

If you want an example of someone rising out of the lower classes through hard work and perserverence, check out the Dennis Kucinich's background (his family was homeless for a stretch). Or John Edwards's.

Of course, I find it unsettling that someone's presidential candidacy is being judged by who their parents are. Bottom line: judge people based on what they have done and what they say they'll do, not based on some misplaced concept of their socioeconomic position.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

I never said Dean was working class.

What I'm saying is that people's decisions to vote for someone are affected, in great part, by the accents that candidates have. And, as such, since I want Bush out of office, I want a Democratic candidate who has an accent which will induce people to vote for him.