[Fwd: PRESS RELEASE: FAU Graduate Students Offer Speech Therapy Via Webcam to Republic of Rwanda Citizens]

[alex gross]

Thanks for your message, Paul.  Yes, Angus has it right.
And you certainly have it right about this:

> I too wondered if there isn't a bit of global rivalry surfacing
> here between the British and American accents. There's
> quite a story to be told about this, I think.

Yes, there is. I grew up in the US but against the
background of a British family on my father's side.  Have
a half-brother who was a well-known British artist &
a half-sister who after my father's passing continued to
publish the A-Z Atlas of London. Spent considerable
time with my older siblings when they came over here
during my youth & visited with them in England during
the 50s. I lived in the UK from 1963 to 1971, worked as a
dramaturg for the Royal Shakespeare, have published
in both nations, and have written extensively on Brit-US
relations including accents, for instance the following on-line
excerpts from my Sixties book:

http://untoldsixties.net/eng2.htm#totop

http://untoldsixties.net/eng1.htm#totop

http://untoldsixties.net/thea.htm#totop

I would simply add the following thoughts:

Those many Brit actors & TV reporters who flourish
over here have for the most part had their Brit accents &
expressions cleaned up for US usage. Though I doubt
if they used the U/Fla method...

When I was in Britain, posh RP tones became so
overbearing that there was a strong reaction against them.
And if I'm not mistaken the English sociolinguist
Peter Trudgill has campaigned fiercely against them.
Which has led to the many more varied accents one
hears on English TV today.

Not all Americans, even among the educated,
are able to understand all (or even many) Brit accents.
And not all Brits can handle many American ones.
Some episodes of "Shameless" I can follow, others
leave me mystified.  There are even a few pieces of
Monty Python where subtitles would be useful.

Most Americans don't want to admit they don't
understand some Briticisms, & vice versa for the Brits.
There could be a linguistic principle here, that people
in general don't care to confess when they don't
understand something, after all others might interpret
this as a failing.

Here's an amusing story I so far have only one
source for: at a WWII strategy meeting Monty spent
some time upbraiding Ike about how barbaric
Americans proved themselves whenever they
pronounced "schedule" with an "sk" sound.
Ike took it for as long as he could but finally
replied, "Well, I guess it's wrong, Monty, it
must be just something I learned in shool."

All the best to everyone!

alex

PS--Since this purports to be a scholarly group, you might
be interested in Norman W. Schur's book "British English"
(Harper Perennial 1987).  It functions as an English-
American dictionary listing 5,000 differences in nouns,
verbs, adjectives, & idioms between the two languages.
Other similar volumes exist.

**************************************************
The principal purpose of language is not communication but to persuade 
ourselves
that we know what we are talking about, when quite often we do not.

**************************************************

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Paul Hopper" <hopper at cmu.edu>
To: "Angus B. Grieve-Smith" <grvsmth at panix.com>
Cc: <funknet at mailman.rice.edu>
Sent: Thursday, February 03, 2011 11:10 PM
Subject: Re: [FUNKNET] [Fwd: PRESS RELEASE: FAU Graduate Students Offer 
Speech Therapy Via Webcam to Republic of Rwanda Citizens]


> Yes, Angus gets it right. Terminology is part of the power/money play of
> medical organizations. Optometrists have explicit rules about it (a
> brochure put out by the New York State Optometrics Association recommended
> that clients should be referred to as "patients", the receptionist should
> be a "nurse", to insist on the title "Doctor", etc.)
>
> I too wondered if there isn't a bit of global rivalry surfacing here
> between the British and American accents. There's quite a story to be told
> about this, I think.
>
> Paul
>
> On Thu, February 3, 2011 10:23, Angus B. Grieve-Smith wrote:
>> On 2/3/2011 9:56 AM, Natalie Weber wrote:
>>
>>> I wonder if it would be more accurate to say that this "therapy" aids
>>> in developing a more American accent, no matter what English dialect you
>>> had previously learned, and is called "speech therapy" to make it more
>>> palatable to those who pay for the service? Many language courses do not
>>> emphasize natural pronunciation, assuming that "it will just come when
>>> you are more fluent", so I would imagine such a speech therapy service
>>> could be in high demand.
>> I think that accents are being pathologized because that puts
>> speech trainers in a class of "medical practitioners" rather than 
>> teachers,
>> and allows them to demand higher fees and greater prestige. It may even 
>> be
>> paid for by some insurance companies, for all I know.
>>
>> It may also be a case of "when you've got a hammer, everything
>> looks like a nail."  These two explanations are not mutually exclusive.
>>
>> --
>> -Angus B. Grieve-Smith
>> grvsmth at panix.com
>>
>>
>>
>
>
> -- 
> Paul J. Hopper
> Paul Mellon Distinguished Professor of Humanities
> Department of English
> Carnegie Mellon University
> Pittsburgh, PA 15213
> and
> Senior External Fellow
> School of Language and Literature
> Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies (FRIAS)
> Albertstr. 19
> D-79105 Freiburg i.Br.
> Germany
>
>
>