Do you have a strong regional accent?

[randrum]

I've been told I have a Chicago accent. Personally, I don't think I do. But I think it's harder to recognize an accent in yourself than hearing it in other people. A good friend of mine always makes me repeat the word "quarter". Apparently I say it funny.

What I do notice more is the slang and colloquialisms I have a tendency to use. Like sitting in the "front room", wearing "gym shoes", and drinking "pop".

[Daniela]

Originally Posted by randrum

I've been told I have a Chicago accent. Personally, I don't think I do. But I think it's harder to recognize an accent in yourself than hearing it in other people. A good friend of mine always makes me repeat the word "quarter". Apparently I say it funny.

What I do notice more is the slang and colloquialisms I have a tendency to use. Like sitting in the "front room", wearing "gym shoes", and drinking "pop".

It's interesting to hear the different colloquialisms people use.

People often say "cut the lights off," instead of "turn the lights off," in GA. I have a friend from St Louis who said she never heard someone say "shot a bird" instead of "flip a bird." Of course everyone drinks Coke, so there is no "pop."

[Rockinonahigh]

I have a mix of Italian,cajun and southern drawl,understandable ??Ask Fever.

[homoe]

Being born and raised in Upper Michigan I never heard pop called Soda till I moved to the big city of Milwaukee

Another thing they said in the city that I'd never heard of "we're going to go by so and so's" I never understood why they said "by" instead of "to" so and so's I mean to me going by someone's place meant to just drive by not stop and visit!

[Ascot]

Regional, no. Pedantic, alas, yes.

[stargazingboi]

Originally Posted by homoe

Being born and raised in Upper Michigan I never heard pop called Soda till I moved to the big city of Milwaukee

Another thing they said in the city that I'd never heard of "we're going to go by so and so's" I never understood why they said "by" instead of "to" so and so's I mean to me going by someone's place meant to just drive by not stop and visit!

yes, different parts of the country have different words and wordings for things, like:

In Mass...we say: where is the bubblah?
translation: where is the water fountain/drinking fountain

In Mass...bang a left at the light
translation: take the next left

In Mass...I'm gonna swing by the packie, you want somethin?
translation: I'm heading to the liquor store, would you like me to pick you up something?

In Mass....that is wicked cool!
translation: That's great!

I could go on....but yeah...it's an interesting little thing to observe. Sometimes it's like we aren't even speaking the same language when I am talking to folks here in the midwest

[Gemme]

Originally Posted by SleepyButch

Stong? no. I tend to pick up the regional accents pretty quickly.

I can do this. A weird thing about me is that I pick up speech impediments.



If I'm talking to someone with a lisp, I will catch myself subconsciously replicating it. I'm a vocal chameleon but I can't 'do' accents on demand. They sneak up on me.

Originally Posted by Daniela

I can always tell when someone speaking Spanish has an Argentinian accent (they sound like my parents!), although I'm a little lost at picking up Cuban vs. Puerto Rican, for example.

I wish I could help with this. I've dated both a Puerto Rican and a Cuban and they had very similar speech patterns but both lived in South Florida, so I'm sure their dialect is different from those who live in Puerto Rico or Cuba.

Originally Posted by Ginger

To say someone's accent is "abrasive" seems oppressive to me. Maybe classist, definitely regionalist. Some accents are "deeper," in my opinion, than others—more thoroughly immersed in the way of speaking in a certain region. Why is that a bad thing? An "abrasive" thing?

Abrasive means rough, not good or bad. Just like some people have gravely voices. Their voice might be described as 'gritty'. Some make careers out of it, like Joe Cocker.

Some accents are more rough, like Bostonians and some native Rhode Islanders. Part of it is the accent itself and part of it is the delivery. Very 'you talkin' to me?' when excited and 'eh, whataya gonna do?' when relaxed. Thick; rich with character.

I find English accents to feel very smooth, like water flowing down a quiet creek (pronounced CREAK by me and CRICK by my dad, who has been in MS all his life). The words flow seamlessly and, from my experience, the peaks and valleys are not as distinguishable as with North Easterners. It's very relaxing to me and I could listen to it for hours. I love Scottish and Australian accents too.

Here, there are a lot of stops and starts and the volume goes up, up, up. Most days it feels like home, because I am Italian and that's how I am, but some days it feels like someone broke the control button on the speakers.

[Cin]

Originally Posted by stargazingboi

yes, different parts of the country have different words and wordings for things, like:

In Mass...we say: where is the bubblah?
translation: where is the water fountain/drinking fountain

In Mass...bang a left at the light
translation: take the next left

In Mass...I'm gonna swing by the packie, you want somethin?
translation: I'm heading to the liquor store, would you like me to pick you up something?

In Mass....that is wicked cool!
translation: That's great!

I could go on....but yeah...it's an interesting little thing to observe. Sometimes it's like we aren't even speaking the same language when I am talking to folks here in the midwest

LOL! Sounds like home. Love that Dirty Water.

Nobody knows what a coffee frappe is here, my dad always called it a coffee cab, either way you can't get one. They don't have coffee anything. Except coffee. And it's only recently that I've been able to get iced coffee. I would go to a coffee place and ask for an iced coffee and they would look at me strange and say they don't have it. I'd be like do you have coffee? Do you have ice? Put 'em together. They'd just shake their head no.

And it's always trash here, even when it's clearly garbage or should I say gahbidge cause that's how it sounds when I say it. I'd say put it in the garbage and people would just look at me. It's put it in the trash or put it in the poubelle.

I had to stop saying I was going to take the T. People thought I was getting a cup of tea.

You can't get an elastic here, it's a rubber band.

Here it's not a packie or a liquor store. It's the SAQ.

But everybody knows what wicked pissah is!

Originally Posted by Miss Tick

*snipitty*
But everybody knows what wicked pissah is!

Not everyone! Iz like bostin', mint or rippah?

[Cin]

Originally Posted by Daktari

Not everyone! Iz like bostin', mint or rippah?

LOL. Let me clarify. I meant everyone I've met in Montreal seems to be familiar with the term wicked pissah. As soon as they hear my Boston accent they say "Hey you're from Boston aren't you? Wicked pissah."

I didn't mean everyone in the world. Sorry. Poor communications skills .

[girlin2une]

Originally Posted by Miss Tick

But everybody knows what wicked pissah is!

I had no idea what "wicked pissah" is but looked it up... It is "the way a person in New England would describe something as being really awesome"...

[Cin]

Originally Posted by girlin2une

I had no idea what "wicked pissah" is

I meant everybody where I live knows what it means. I really need to brush up on my communication skills. Sorry about that.

[imperfect_cupcake]

Originally Posted by Miss Tick

LOL! Sounds like home. Love that Dirty Water.

Nobody knows what a coffee frappe is here, my dad always called it a coffee cab, either way you can't get one. They don't have coffee anything. Except coffee. And it's only recently that I've been able to get iced coffee. I would go to a coffee place and ask for an iced coffee and they would look at me strange and say they don't have it. I'd be like do you have coffee? Do you have ice? Put 'em together. They'd just shake their head no.

And it's always trash here, even when it's clearly garbage or should I say gahbidge cause that's how it sounds when I say it. I'd say put it in the garbage and people would just look at me. It's put it in the trash or put it in the poubelle.

I had to stop saying I was going to take the T. People thought I was getting a cup of tea.

You can't get an elastic here, it's a rubber band.

Here it's not a packie or a liquor store. It's the SAQ.

But everybody knows what wicked pissah is!

Lol a closes friend of mine that I used to do research with is from Boston. I used to take the piss out of him (tease the shit out of lol) when he got drunk and argumentative (in a fun way) "poor bugger, he's got three 'R's in his name and he can't pronounce a single one."

Received Pronunciation

Rp: a Social Accent of English

Received Pronunciation, or RP for short, is the instantly recognisable accent often described as ‘typically British’. Popular terms for this accent, such as ‘The Queen’s English’, ‘Oxford English’ or ‘BBC English’ are all a little misleading. The Queen, for instance, speaks an almost unique form of English, while the English we hear at Oxford University or on the BBC is no longer restricted to one type of accent.

RP is an accent, not a dialect, since all RP speakers speak Standard English. In other words, they avoid non-standard grammatical constructions and localised vocabulary characteristic of regional dialects. RP is also regionally non-specific, that is it does not contain any clues about a speaker’s geographic background. But it does reveal a great deal about their social and/or educational background.

Well-known but not widely used
RP is probably the most widely studied and most frequently described variety of spoken English in the world, yet recent estimates suggest only 2% of the UK population speak it. It has a negligible presence in Scotland and Northern Ireland and is arguably losing its prestige status in Wales. It should properly, therefore, be described as an English, rather than a British accent. As well as being a living accent, RP is also a theoretical linguistic concept. It is the accent on which phonemic transcriptions in dictionaries are based, and it is widely used (in competition with General American) for teaching English as a foreign language. RP is included here as a case study, not to imply it has greater merit than any other English accent, but because it provides us with an extremely familiar model against which comparisons with other accents may be made.

What’s in the name?
RP is a young accent in linguistic terms. It was not around, for example, when Dr Johnson wrote A Dictionary of the English Language in 1757. He chose not to include pronunciation suggestions as he felt there was little agreement even within educated society regarding ‘recommended’ forms. The phrase Received Pronunciation was coined in 1869 by the linguist, A J Ellis, but it only became a widely used term used to describe the accent of the social elite after the phonetician, Daniel Jones, adopted it for the second edition of the English Pronouncing Dictionary (1924). The definition of ‘received’ conveys its original meaning of ‘accepted’ or ‘approved’ — as in ‘received wisdom’. We can trace the origins of RP back to the public schools and universities of nineteenth-century Britain — indeed Daniel Jones initially used the term Public School Pronunciation to describe this emerging, socially exclusive accent. Over the course of that century, members of the ruling and privileged classes increasingly attended boarding schools such as Winchester, Eton, Harrow and Rugby and graduated from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Their speech patterns - based loosely on the local accent of the south-east Midlands (roughly London, Oxford and Cambridge) — soon came to be associated with ‘The Establishment’ and therefore gained a unique status, particularly within the middle classes in London.

Broadcaster’s choice
RP probably received its greatest impetus, however, when Lord Reith, the first General Manager of the BBC, adopted it in 1922 as a broadcasting standard - hence the origins of the term BBC English. Reith believed Standard English, spoken with an RP accent, would be the most widely understood variety of English, both here in the UK and overseas. He was also conscious that choosing a regional accent might run the risk of alienating some listeners. To a certain extent Reith’s decision was understandable, and his attitude only reflected the social climate at the time. But since RP was the preserve of the aristocracy and expensive public schools, it represented only a very small social minority. This policy prevailed at the BBC for a considerable time and probably contributed to the sometimes negative perception of regional varieties of English.

There’s more than one RP
A speaker who uses numerous very localised pronunciations is often described as having a ‘broad’ or ‘strong’ regional accent, while terms such as ‘mild’ or ‘soft’ are applied to speakers whose speech patterns are only subtly different from RP speakers. So, we might describe one speaker as having a broad Glaswegian accent and another as having a mild Scottish accent. Such terms"]Sounds Familiar HomeRegional VoicesLexical VariationPhonological variationGrammatical variationSocial VariationChanging VoicesYour VoicesCase StudiesActivities
Received Pronunciation

Rp: a Social Accent of English

Received Pronunciation, or RP for short, is the instantly recognisable accent often described as ‘typically British’. Popular terms for this accent, such as ‘The Queen’s English’, ‘Oxford English’ or ‘BBC English’ are all a little misleading. The Queen, for instance, speaks an almost unique form of English, while the English we hear at Oxford University or on the BBC is no longer restricted to one type of accent.

RP is an accent, not a dialect, since all RP speakers speak Standard English. In other words, they avoid non-standard grammatical constructions and localised vocabulary characteristic of regional dialects. RP is also regionally non-specific, that is it does not contain any clues about a speaker’s geographic background. But it does reveal a great deal about their social and/or educational background.

Well-known but not widely used
RP is probably the most widely studied and most frequently described variety of spoken English in the world, yet recent estimates suggest only 2% of the UK population speak it. It has a negligible presence in Scotland and Northern Ireland and is arguably losing its prestige status in Wales. It should properly, therefore, be described as an English, rather than a British accent. As well as being a living accent, RP is also a theoretical linguistic concept. It is the accent on which phonemic transcriptions in dictionaries are based, and it is widely used (in competition with General American) for teaching English as a foreign language. RP is included here as a case study, not to imply it has greater merit than any other English accent, but because it provides us with an extremely familiar model against which comparisons with other accents may be made.

What’s in the name?
RP is a young accent in linguistic terms. It was not around, for example, when Dr Johnson wrote A Dictionary of the English Language in 1757. He chose not to include pronunciation suggestions as he felt there was little agreement even within educated society regarding ‘recommended’ forms. The phrase Received Pronunciation was coined in 1869 by the linguist, A J Ellis, but it only became a widely used term used to describe the accent of the social elite after the phonetician, Daniel Jones, adopted it for the second edition of the English Pronouncing Dictionary (1924). The definition of ‘received’ conveys its original meaning of ‘accepted’ or ‘approved’ — as in ‘received wisdom’. We can trace the origins of RP back to the public schools and universities of nineteenth-century Britain — indeed Daniel Jones initially used the term Public School Pronunciation to describe this emerging, socially exclusive accent. Over the course of that century, members of the ruling and privileged classes increasingly attended boarding schools such as Winchester, Eton, Harrow and Rugby and graduated from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Their speech patterns - based loosely on the local accent of the south-east Midlands (roughly London, Oxford and Cambridge) — soon came to be associated with ‘The Establishment’ and therefore gained a unique status, particularly within the middle classes in London.

Broadcaster’s choice
RP probably received its greatest impetus, however, when Lord Reith, the first General Manager of the BBC, adopted it in 1922 as a broadcasting standard - hence the origins of the term BBC English. Reith believed Standard English, spoken with an RP accent, would be the most widely understood variety of English, both here in the UK and overseas. He was also conscious that choosing a regional accent might run the risk of alienating some listeners. To a certain extent Reith’s decision was understandable, and his attitude only reflected the social climate at the time. But since RP was the preserve of the aristocracy and expensive public schools, it represented only a very small social minority. This policy prevailed at the BBC for a considerable time and probably contributed to the sometimes negative perception of regional varieties of English.

There’s more than one RP
A speaker who uses numerous very localised pronunciations is often described as having a ‘broad’ or ‘strong’ regional accent, while terms such as ‘mild’ or ‘soft’ are applied to speakers whose speech patterns are only subtly different from RP speakers. So, we might describe one speaker as having a broad Glaswegian accent and another as having a mild Scottish accent. Such terms

http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/so...pronunciation/