Dialect change

[Prof. R. Sussex]

Karl Krahnke's observations are intriguing. Outside the rhotic
domains (demesnes?) of N. America, the clear majority of pop bands
and artist(e)s affect a heavily rhotic accent, and modify vowels,
with varying degrees of mangling, in the direction of what they
believe mainstream US practice to be. The rhotics are often anything
but authentic (over-retroflex, etc.). This practice is picked up by
non-professionals, including pre-school children, who have parallel
phonologies, one for pop and one for parents; they swap effortlessly
and with little interference between the two codes.

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Roly Sussex
Professor of Applied Language Studies
Department of French, German, Russian, Spanish and Applied Linguistics
School of Languages and Comparative Cultural Studies
The University of Queensland
Brisbane
Queensland 4072
AUSTRALIA

Office: Forgan-Smith Tower 403
Phone:  +61 7 3365 6896
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Email:  sussex at uq.edu.au
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