~ (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Laurence Horn]

At 8:46 AM +0800 2/20/09, Randy Alexander wrote:
>On Fri, Feb 20, 2009 at 7:08 AM, Scot LaFaive <slafaive at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>There is a standard USA pronunciation.
>>
>>  My vote for Tom's most incredible proclamation yet. Seriously, any bubble
>>  gum chewing freshman in Linguistics 101 could tell you differently. I'm not
>>  an elitist, but I have to ask Tom: have you ever taken even one course
>>  (college or otherwise) on basic linguistics? I'm not trying to be hurtful;
>>  I'm just in shock at the above statement.
>
>I'm not sure that a statement like that is so incredible.  If one took
>the stance that there is no such thing as a "standard" American
>English, then wouldn't that preclude the existence of any
>"substandard" forms?

In fact, that's not a term generally used by scientists in this field.

>Don't most people believe there is a "standard" American English?  If
>most people didn't believe that, then why would there be "accent
>reduction" classes, etc?
>
>I think it's pretty well established that "standard" American English
>(or General American, or Broadcast English, or whatever you want to
>call it) is not very well defined, but that doesn't mean there isn't
>such a thing.
>
>I've often wondered how to go about defining it.  One strategy that
>has come to mind would be to carefully examine the speech of Peter
>Jennings, Tom Brockaw, and Dan Rather, as they, having been heard by
>most Americans daily for over 20 years, perhaps are the considered by
>most Americans as representative of this "standard" American English.

I'm sure others with more expertise will jump in, but it might be
worth pointing out that Jennings (who was a Canadian), Brokaw (a
Midwesterner), and Rather (a South Midland speaker) couldn't be joint
representatives of a single variety, unless it's defined loosely
enough to be useless.  If you're talking grammar, maybe (although
even there it would have been pretty incongruous to imagine Jennings
or Brokaw coming out with some of Rather's...um, downhomeisms)--but
phonology?  Not particularly close.

LH

>
>If I could make copies of myself, I would begin work on this right
>now.  I think it would be of great importance to ESL students to have
>a clear model.  Right now the only clear model for them is RP, which
>by my estimation probably only has about 1 million speakers worldwide.
>
>--
>Randy Alexander
>Jilin City, China
>My Manchu studies blog:
>http://www.bjshengr.com/manchu
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org