Colin Powell

[Paul Johnston]

I too had classes in speech therapy for two New York/New Jersey features from age 7 to age 9--dentalized /s/ (going along with dentalized /t d n/ for me) and dark /l/ in onsets (and vocalized /l/ in codas).  Granted, this wasn't done by fellow NY Metro Area residents, but by speech therapists from Hinsdale, IL, to which my parents had moved when I was 6, and people didn't say play = [pXei] (with a rounded and velarized, though lenis [X]) around there like I did.  Now--and I did move back to NJ later on--the frequency of dentalized "alveolars" is probably down to 10% of the time or so, and the more extreme /l/ allophones are nearly gone, but I still have a pretty dark /l/ in onsets (and the tongue tip is often down), and /l/-vocalization in codas is still the norm for me.

I constantly try to persuade my students going into speech path to watch what dialect variation is around, and not to blindly label forms as pathological just because they aren't "General American"--that even something like a lip /r/ has to be treated differently in Central Massachusetts than in Kalamazoo, that /l/-vocalization is normal in a lot of Mid-Atlantic States speech.  I tell them I used to interview in an area where uvular /R/ in English was fine, just fine, especially among the old, some of whom even had it in all positions, that there is nothing divinely ordained about Michigan speech, and that not everyone in the United States necessarily wants to sound like them.  They seem to listen in class.  But I fear they're telling me what they perceive I want to hear, like Arnold says.

Are the accent reduction classes in some Southern universities (Furman comes to mind) still around?

Paul Johnston
On Sep 8, 2011, at 11:37 PM, Arnold Zwicky wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Arnold Zwicky <zwicky at STANFORD.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Colin Powell
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Sep 8, 2011, at 5:31 PM, Alice Faber wrote:
>
>> Well, my father was screened and told he had to take the speech class
>> because of his "l defect" (which I think, on the basis of what he said,
>> was that he had dark l in environments where normative English had clear
>> l).
>
> many sighs.  my daughter was identified as having a speech defect because she had light l where dark l was normative.  at the same time, David Stampe's son was identified as having a speech defect for the opposite reason.  a phalanx of linguist parents prevented the kids from being subjected to speech therapy sessions -- but, as i recall, the marks against them went into their files.
>
> even after all these years, i weep.
>
> (both David and I taught many speech therapists-in training.  we feared that nothing we did in class had any effect on what they did in their lives.  tremendously dispiriting.)
>
> arnold, hoping that we had some small effect on small number of students, but still it makes me wonder what good i've done with my life
>
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