Barbara Walters

[Alice Faber]

Absolutely agreed about the, at least sporadic, labialization of /r/. I
suspect that what's going on here is a regional/class-based dialect
along with something that speech pathologists would salivate at
treating. Furthermore, we should be careful not to evaluate her accent
based on a wide-spread caricature of it. If you listen to her speech
after the SNL sketches, you can hear the core of what they're mocking,
but it's definitely exaggerated for comedic effect.

RonButters at AOL.COM wrote:
> Some scholar or other attributes BW's intervocalic r-weakening to a Rhode
> Island dialect, not Massachusetts. I'm not able to check this now. However,
> contrary to what Larry [lawi] said earlier, lablization of /r/ is certainly not
> unknown in various dialects of English (>[babwa waltowz])--cf. Elmer Fudd in the
> old cartoons.
>
> In a message dated 2/23/09 10:59:32 AM, bhneed at GMAIL.COM writes:
>
>
>> I am not a native of Massachusetts, but i lived north of Boston for
>> nine years from 9.5. I never heard anyone up in Essex county who
>> sounded like Barbara Walters--and no one ever pronounced my first name
>> the way she is stereotyped as saying hers. (I remember people in my
>> neck of the woods making fun of her!)
>>
>> Barbara
>>
>> Barbara Need
>>
>> P.S. That I never acquired a Northshore accent was a conscious
>> decision on my part. I thought the non-rhoticity and linking-R ugly,
>> and I resented being told by my spelling teacher that I had
>> mispronounced _aunt_ ([Ant] where [A] is ash). B
>>
>> On 22 Feb 2009, at 11:54 PM, Paul Johnston wrote:
>>
>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>> -----------------------
>>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>> Poster:       Paul Johnston <paul.johnston at WMICH.EDU>
>>> Subject:      Re: ~ (UNCLASSIFIED)
>>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> Comments from natives of Massachusetts are appreciated here, but
>>> impressionistically, her most salient feature, the lip /r/, is
>>> probably a dialect feature in Worcester, MA, where she originally
>>> comes from, and I've heard it from a number of people from west of
>>> Boston myself, as well as a number of obviously local contractors on
>>> New England-based programs like This Old House, and the late Sen. and
>>> ex-Presidential candidate Paul Tsongas (from Lowell, MA).  ( Not a
>>> scientific sample, I know--and I'd love to know the distribution of
>>> this feature.  It's not in Providence, RI.)  Otherwise, I hear a
>>> mixture of New York City and New England features, particularly in
>>> her vowel system.
>>>
>>> Paul Johnston
>>> On Feb 22, 2009, at 4:08 PM, Alison Murie wrote:
>>>
>>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>>> -----------------------
>>>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>>> Poster:       Alison Murie <sagehen7470 at ATT.NET>
>>>> Subject:      Re: ~ (UNCLASSIFIED)
>>>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>> ---------
>>>>
>>>> On Feb 22, 2009, at 3:09 PM, Paul Johnston wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>>>> -----------------------
>>>>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>>>> Poster:       Paul Johnston <paul.johnston at WMICH.EDU>
>>>>> Subject:      Re: ~ (UNCLASSIFIED)
>>>>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>> ----------
>>>>>
>>>>> Tom,
>>>>> That;'s because all the local Standards are 95% similar (I'd put
>>>>> it a
>>>>> little less, but not much) on a phonemic basis. Most of the
>>>>> differences are on the sub-phonemic level.  The consonant systems,
>>>>> phonemically, are nearly identical all over the US, for instance.
>>>>> The vowel systems do differ phonemically, but not much with this
>>>>> kind
>>>>> of variety--your "awe-dropping", rhoticity vs. non-rhoticity (only a
>>>>> few non-rhotic or, more likely, variably rhotic newscasters, but
>>>>> those that are, Walters, King etc. are known for it) .  Some lexical
>>>>> incidence differences appear in individual words, though this is the
>>>>> stuff that the pronunciation guides concentrate on.  I'll give you
>>>>> actual stats when I'm finished if you want to see them.  You'll be
>>>>> surprised.
>>>>>
>>>>> Paul Johnston
>>>> ~~~~~~~~
>>>> Walters?  I've lived most of my life out of range of her voice, but
>>>> the few times I have heard it  I have assumed her speech to be
>>>> completely idiosyncratic, largely attributable to a speech
>>>> impediment,
>>>> not a dialect.
>>>> AM
>>>>
>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>>
>
>
>
>
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--
 =============================================================================
Alice Faber                                    faber at haskins.yale.edu
Haskins Laboratories                           tel: (203) 865-6163 x258
New Haven, CT 06511 USA                        fax (203) 865-8963

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