~ (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Tom Zurinskas]

There wasn't much differents between them except for Jenning's Canadian "oat and a boat" for "out and about" and Brokaw's "widdle wed wabbit" lisp.  Broadcast English is standard stuff, with the great exception of today's awe-dropping and a few other things like "wool" for "will", "cloddy" for "cloudy" "sex" for "six".  Ideolects can become dialects over mass media TV.

I remember being in Tenn in the 60's listening to heavy Southern Appalachian accents of the locals (which I liked) and hearing standard broadcast English on TV.  Quite a transition.

One gal down south was looking to rent an apartment and I said you can't be from here.  She said she's going to broadcast school and learning to lose her accent.


Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL5+
see truespel.com













----------------------------------------
> Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2009 20:20:57 -0500
> From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
> Subject: Re: ~ (UNCLASSIFIED)
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Laurence Horn
> Subject: Re: ~ (UNCLASSIFIED)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 8:46 AM +0800 2/20/09, Randy Alexander wrote:
>>On Fri, Feb 20, 2009 at 7:08 AM, Scot LaFaive 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
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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