The two little quizzes from the PBS website were interesting to say the least. Since I was born on the west coast and moved here when I was younger I’ve never really noticed the “accent” that people say those from the Midwest (mainly Minnesota and Wisconsin) have when pronouncing “o” sounds in words. However I often have conversations with my dad who lives in Oregon so I ended up getting the West and the North pronunciations mixed up but I did get one of each. As for the rest I did well with the South, matching both of theirs while messing up the New England, Mid-Atlantic and Midland since all of these sounded similar yet different to me.
With the second little quiz “Do you speak American?” I ended up getting a two out of five. The two that I figured out I got right away, which were “block” and “desk” while coming close with busses and not having any idea what the other two were. These others were too difficult for me to understand at all even when listening to the sample sentence I still was completely unsure since the vowel pronunciations has such a heavy accent to understand.
While this activity was to see how much we understand people from our own country, I feel that I did not do very well. The United States, as small as it may be, it has a very diverse amount of dialects in which there are subtle differences from one part of the United States to other parts. While being in person I feel we could have a better understanding of where people are from because we would be able to hear more then a couple of words. It still is interesting to see how different our verbal communications may differentiate just by being in a different part of the U.S. While having a background from both the West and the North I felt that it added additional confusion just because both ways of speaking are familiar to me so it was difficult judging the differences between each of them. However to me I felt the easiest dialect to identify was that of the South since it is often the heaviest with slurs and has a different sound as opposed to that of people of from other parts of the U.S.
Why do you think so many differences reside in the way people speak, while the difference in distances may not be so great?
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I have thought about this many times and have never been able to come up with a very logical answer for it. You think that new york and minnesota really aren't that far away and they have about the same climates, but man, the accents sure are different! Why is that? I am not entirely sure. It seems like the accents change ever so slightly the farther you go and when you get all the way across the country, all of the sudden there is a huge difference! Wish I had an answer for why this is, but I don't know if anyone really could tell you why.
ReplyDeletePerhaps a significant indicator of regional dialects is the nationalities that settled in the region during the early years of our country. If you think of all of the Norwegian and Swedish people that reside in the Midwest, this might have something to do with why the dialect is the way it is here. Aside from this indicator, I can't really think of any other reason why such small distances could create such diverse dialects, but I think the origin of the original European settlers may be the key.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Matthew on this one-it has to do with the dialects of those settled there. Near where I'm from there's a small community that is saturated with German-speaking people with heavy accents when speaking English, but they have been born in the US and never left the country. Their community fostered the accents because it was what the first people to live there spoke and passed on to their children, etc.
ReplyDeleteI've wondered this before but I would also agree with Matthew. I believe that the people living in that area have a great influence on the way we speak. I live in the Twin Cities and recently there have been many Somali people that have immigrated here. There is a small area that has been influenced by the immigration. It is interesting when you go to this area to listen to the way in which people speak.
ReplyDeleteI think that people are incredibly influenced by the way in which people speak, is very interesting to listen to the many different dialects.
I think people speak differently because they come from the ancestors that first came to that region. Ancestors from all over the world. If someone is raised there then they will all end up speaking the same. Even though it does not cover that much space then it shows that people always adapt well with their surroundings.
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