Standard US English Dialect?

[RonButters at AOL.COM]

DC is also such a mixing bowl that one tends to get a lot of leveling, right?
Particularly in the suburbs. Over the years, when I couldn't place a white
Duke student's accent, I would guess "DC suburbs" and very often got it right.
(African American and even Asian students were generally much more difficult to
place, for a variety of sociolinguistic reasons.) Of course, Duke has a lot
of students from the DC suburbs, but Duke also gets a lot of students from
suburban Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, etc.

In a message dated 4/14/08 11:45:24 AM, preston at MSU.EDU writes:


> Yes, DC always does surprisingly well, but the East Coaster the South
> is the better it does as well. SC higher than GA, GA higher than AL,
> etc....We actually have some qualitative evidence for this; some of
> the fieldworkers asked respondents why they ranked the DC area so
> high, and many said that they figured good English was spoke in the
> capital. This seemed truer of southern and south midland respondents
> than of northern ones (who know they speak the best English).
>
> dInIs
>




**************
It's Tax Time! Get tips, forms and advice on AOL Money &
Finance.
      (http://money.aol.com/tax?NCID=aolcmp00300000002850)

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