Not "feeling" like losing an accent (dialect?)

RonButters at AOL.COM RonButters at AOL.COM
Mon Oct 30 15:48:51 UTC 2006


There is considerable variation in the human ability to mimic the phonology 
of other dialects and languages. Motivation is certainly a variable, and to the 
extent that it is operative, people have widely different reasons for 
resolving them the way they do. In my professional judgment, few people are going to 
put very high up on their motivational list the dialect spelling 
pronunciations of a prescriptivist from Connecticut (or any other locale). 

In a message dated 10/30/06 10:31:17 AM, truespel at HOTMAIL.COM writes:


> Steve says we can lose accents, but we choose not to for various reasons.  
> I
> just talked to a lady from Denver who wants to live in Roanoke VA.  She said
> she was raised in Roanoke and is going back.  I said she had me fooled and
> had no Roanoke dialect at all.  People do change after 5 years old.  See
> another view below.
> 
> Tom Z
> 
>

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



More information about the Ads-l mailing list