Everything about Accent Linguistics totally explained
In
linguistics, an
accent is a manner of
pronunciation of a language. Accents can be confused with
dialects which are varieties of language differing in
vocabulary and
syntax as well as
pronunciation. Dialects are usually spoken by a group united by geography or social status.
Phonology
Development
Children are able to take on accents at a fast rate; children of traveling families, for example, can change their accents within a short period of time. This generally remains true until a person's early twenties, after which, a person's accent seems to become more entrenched.
All the same, accents are not fixed even in adulthood. An acoustic analysis by Jonathan Harrington of Queen
Elizabeth II's
Royal Christmas Messages revealed that the speech patterns of even so conservative a figure as a monarch can continue to change over her lifetime.
History
As human beings spread out into isolated communities, stresses and peculiarities develop. Over time these can develop into identifiable accents. In North America, the interaction of people from many ethnic backgrounds contributed to the formation of the different varieties of North American accents. It is difficult to measure or predict how long it takes an accent to formulate. Accents in the USA, Canada and Australia, for example, developed from the combinations of different accents and languages in various societies, and the effect of this on the various pronunciations of the British settlers, yet North American accents remain more distant, either as a result of time or of external or "foreign" linguistic interaction, such as the Italian accent. It has been theorized that the accents of certain groups in the USA today resemble the English spoken by the settlers in the 17th and 18th centuries more than it does the English spoken by most British today.
In many cases, the accents of non-English settlers from Great Britain and Ireland affected the accents of the different colonies quite differently. Irish, Scottish and Welsh immigrants had accents which greatly affected the vowel pronunciation of certain areas of Australia and Canada.
Social factors
When a group defines a
standard pronunciation, speakers who deviate from it are often said to "speak with an accent". People from the
United States would "speak with an accent" from the point of view of an
Australian, but people from Australia may also "speak with an accent" from the point of view of an American. The concept of a person having "no accent" is meaningless, although a variety used in formal settings, such as
BBC English, is sometimes informally designated as "accentless".
Groups sharing an identifiable accent may be defined by any of a wide variety of common traits. An accent may be associated with the region in which its speakers reside (a
geographical accent), the
socio-economic status of its speakers, their
ethnicity, their
caste or
social class, their
first language (when the language in which the accent is heard isn't their native language), and so on.
Prestige
Traditionally certain accents carry more prestige in a society than other accents. This is often due to their association with the elite part of society. For example in the
United Kingdom,
Received Pronunciation of the English language is associated with the traditional upper class.
Legal Implications
Kentucky's highest court in the case of
Clifford vs. Commonwealth held that a white police officer, who hadn't seen the black defendant allegedly involved in a drug transaction, could, nevertheless, identify him as a participant by saying that a voice on an audiotape "sounded black." The police officer based this "identification" on the fact that the defendant was the only African American man in the room at the time of the transaction and that an audio-tape — contained the voice of a man the officer said “sounded black” selling crack cocaine to a white informant planted by the police.
Cultural factors
Acting and accents
In
Hollywood, a common sign of great acting is the ability of an actor to imitate a foreign accent. Actors usually perfect this through exposure, which allows the brain to appreciate the subtle nuances that make the accent unique.
Criticism of perceived correct accents can include being considered inaccurate by speakers and aficionados of this accent. The perception or sensitivity of others to accents means that generalizations are passed off as acceptable, such as
Brad Pitt's Jamaican accent in
Meet Joe Black.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Accent Linguistics'.
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