« Shoes to dress up or down an outfit | Home | How to be honest »
Do you speak with an accent?
By Meg | June 2, 2007
O.k., the title of this post is a trick question. The truth is that everyone speaks with an accent. An accent is just the pronunciation characteristic of a group of people. This includes so-called “standard English”, which so many people think they speak but yet no one can define. When non-linguistics think of accents, they usually think of foreign accents like the ones you might hear when you call tech support. Geographical accents are just one aspect of dialectology, which is the study of dialects - or language use across various regions. Dialects vary not just by pronunciation, but also by vocabulary choice and grammar.
However, accents and other language use also vary among social groups. Such groups may be divided by level of education, wealth, age, gender, occupation, religion - or basically anything that causes some people to interact more or less with other people. The study of accents and other language use among social groups is called sociolinguistics and different groups are said to speak different sociolects (whether dialectology should be considered a field of sociolinguistics or vice versa is a matter of debate).
Why is this important? It’s important because, whether you realize it or not, how you speak sends messages about your background and also your aspirations. If you identify with a certain group, you are more likely to copy their speech, whereas you may distance yourself from other groups - even ones you might currently belong to - by differing your speech. In fact, you even alter your speech depending on to whom you are talking - or writing. Don’t believe me? Consider how you talk among friends. Now, do you talk the same way among professional colleagues? … with your parents?
What can you do? Well, I’m not suggesting that everyone needs to take a course in sociolinguistics. However, we should all be more conscious of our speech (at least as much as we our conscious of everyone else’s). I will definitely be writing more about this subject since my educational background is in linguistics (surprise, surprise) and I am particularly passionate about sociolinguistics. In the meantime, if you want to learn more about sociolinguistics there is an excellent article on Wikipedia. If you do want to study sociolinguistics in greater depth, here are a few of the books that I read in some of my college classes:
- An Introduction to Sociolinguistics
- Sociolinguistics: The Essential Readings
- Sociolinguistics: A Reader and Coursebook (Palgrave Modern Linguistics)
What do you think people can tell about you from how you speak or write? How does language use affect your perception of others? For instance, are there certain language features that you consider to be signs of a poor education? On the other hand, are there certain language varieties that you think sound prestigious?
Tags: Language & Writing
Related Posts:
June 4th, 2007 at 2:18 pm
I never thought too much about my own accent (despite taking Sociolinguistics in college :) until I lived abroad and was constantly mistaken for a southerner by the Brits. In addition, I met tons of Americans from different parts of the country I never would have encountered in Seattle and we all marvelled at how different we sounded.
June 4th, 2007 at 6:58 pm
Now I was always told that we don’t have an accent here in the Great Northwest. He hee. But I was also told that having a long second toe is indicative of greater intelligence.
BTW, our theatre is doing My Fair Lady next winter. :)
June 4th, 2007 at 9:06 pm
My Fair Lady, yeah!!! I love that play and movie. It was certainly a favorite among my fellow linguistics classmates. One teacher found some excuse to show it in class and we were all singing along. I recently watched it yet again on t.v. and that sparked my most recent hat purchase (I think I can blame at least one other hat on that movie).
June 4th, 2007 at 9:20 pm
Yes, and I have begun warning people that, although I have worked house all the other shows we have been involved with, I plan on doing costumes for that one!