American Dialectics, Essay Example

One of the more interesting things about the readings is the postvocal /r/ sound that Bostonians, acquired. It’s strange to think that not only do different parts of the country speak a different variety of English but that there are subsections of cities that speak different dialects even though sometimes the only thing that separates them is a few city blocks. It’s most comparable to rural regions in China where there is something like 33,000 different dialects, but they’re all considered Mandarin, but in some cases, the dialect has been so skewed that sometimes there’s a language barrier even with the same language. I find this to be applicable when considering the postvocal /r/ and certain other dialects of English spoken around the world.

Something else that I found interesting in the readings was that the /r/ in English is often times the consonant that gets the attention. A person’s accent can be placed simply by denoting in what way their /r/ is pronounced in the syntax of a sentence. This emphasis on the /r/ was not really known to me prior to the readings and it makes me want to understand this consonance use a little better. For instance, in New York, Maine and in California, the /r/ is treated differently depending on whether or not the following word begins with a vowel (similar to French pronunciations) which is something that Bostonians exhibit. In New York, the pronunciation is of the vowel preceding the /r/ is given a drawn out /a/ sound while in California, words ending in /r/ are given a “liquid” pronunciation. The pronunciation of the /r/ is further complication in parts of the Midwest with the inclusion of /r/ in words that ought not to have an /r/ such as in “warsh” instead of “wash”.

The complications of dialectics is astonishing. What further interested me about the articles was that not only are dialects place indicators but how a person says a word may also denote their social status, upbringing, gender, or class. I found the debate on whether or not standard English is considered a dialect or a language interesting as well. The origins of American English derive from immigrants from the British Isles and depending on what region in England they were from and where they settled in the New World, that new region adapted to these immigrated dialects. For instance, even in parts of England currently each region denotes a certain dialect (people from London speak a little differently than people from Wales or Leeds).

Something of further note is the mesh of dialects that American English exhibits. For instance, even though Americans don’t speak German, there are certain parts of the country where Germans settled in droves that still exhibit certain speech patterns or ways of speaking and holding a conversation with one another: for instance in parts of Ohio they still may say “Please?” which is derivative of the German’s saying “Bitte?” at the end of a sentence.

Another interesting debate in the chapter was the discourse between “pop” or “soda” when referring to carbonated drinks. The country is split on this topic. If a person says “pop” then the person is obviously from the Midwest, but if the person says “soda” then they’re from the Northeast or the West. However, there are still smaller variations of these with the south referring to everything carbonated as “coke” (thank the marketing campaign of Coke in the south) or the Mid Atlantic region that refers to it as a soft drink (as opposed to a hard drink, which refers to liquor).

Language Variation

In the readings, what really drove the point home was using The Simpsons’ example of Cletus. Cletus’ speech is very stereotypical but it resonates with how some parts of the country speak. The character is referred to as a redneck (a term originating in West Virginia during the coal mine rebellions when men wore a red handkerchief around their neck in order to protect it from the sun). This type of speech is meant to reference, hillbillies, or typically people living in the Midwest of America.

Another stereotyped dialect used as an example in the readings is Ebonics in which letters are replaced with other variants such as “ax” instead of “ask”. Often times such exhibition of language is judged as substandard and the person using it is considered of less intelligence because they’re showcasing how poorly they’re using their native language. This denotes a lack of education, and where there is a lack of education, there’s a lack of intelligence. Thus, whenever a person opens their mouth they’re going to be judged for how well they use their words.

I never considered speech to be “socially antagonistic” before reading these articles. I often thought about Twain’s use of irony and misunderstanding in his short stories and novels and how Jim spoke differently than the boy protagonist Huckleberry, but never really applied the use of social standards or class to either one’s speech. Twain emphasized how dialect and lexicon suggested class warfare (in a way) and how this pertained to other social injustices. Although he used humor to denote a more serious issue, these social statuses were very present in his writing.

The chapter goes on to speak about social variation and dialectic competition in reference to speech patterns; something I had never thought of in reference to how words fall out of my mouth. I guess words are saying more than I thought they were saying about what type of person I am, where I’m from, who raised me and what type of educational background I have. I feel like Americans are selectively breeding out certain speech patterns because they’re deeming them to be non-standard or substandard and therefore not an accurate portrayal of what they want their country to look like to the outside world. For instance, in an episode of America’s Next Top Model one of the models is from Chicago. Since she’s from Chicago she has a very peculiar accent that although denoting where she’s from (and she’s very proud of her heritage and being from Chicago) it does her no favors in particular competition. Toward the final episodes of the show, when most of the models have been eliminated and a few remain, they are required to do a commercial. They are given a script to follow and must annunciate the words exactly in order to win the competition. The girl from Chicago is unable to do this because of her accent. She does more takes than the other girls and in the end she doesn’t do a very good job and her commercial doesn’t win. Thus, she was being judge for her accent and the judges not picking her commercial is telling the show’s audience that people with this accent cannot be in commercials because no one will clearly understand what they’re saying. Marketing executives want their potential buys to understand what is being sold to them, and what the models representing the product to be seen as educated as well as beautiful. Thus, dialect may interfere with people’s careers because that dialect is seen as substandard. This is true for the actor Walton Goggins (on FX’s Justified) who had to get rid of his southern accent because he said he wasn’t getting jobs because people thought he was slow. The southern accent is a drawl and it takes longer for southerners to say certain words because of this accent. Once Goggins dropped his accent he was able to land more roles. This is something that is of interest to me, and something that I had never really thought about (losing potential jobs because of the way words are formed).