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I grew up in a region with a strong, distinctive regional accent and dialect. Every member of my family, teachers, friends, literally everyone all spoke with th

by psyc 10y ago

I grew up in a region with a strong, distinctive regional accent and dialect. Every member of my family, teachers, friends, literally everyone all spoke with that accent. But even from a very young age (like 3-4) I knew it was an accent. I didn't pick it up. I understood what canonical pronunciation was, and opted for that. So, what, I just decided that newscasters were my tribe for some reason? I'm just very suspicious of the idea that its completely relative, and just depends on what you're used to hearing. If you were being taught a foreign language by a native speaker, I think you'd be much less likely to doubt them when they told you "this is how it is pronounced." And you ended with another appeal to consequences.

foldr 10y ago
The problem with this view is that there are instances where the 'canonical' pronunciation in one group is the 'noncanonical' pronunciation in another, and vice versa. For example, in British English, 'r' deletion is part of the 'canonical' pronunciation and it's only nonstandard dialects that are rhotic. In American English it's the other way round. So in general, it can't be that features of the pronunciation itself somehow determine whether or not it is canonical. I doubt you really know what accent you spoke with when you were three or four. As to why you picked up an accent somewhere close to SAE, it's most likely for reasons of prestige.
- psyc 10y ago
  I don't have to remember. I have recordings. Things like 'r' are a bit of a puzzle. What determines when a letter is silent? I don't actually believe pronunciation is absolute or fixed in time. But I don't believe its perfectly relative, either, or that "standard" does not have a meaning. Most accents sound like vowel sounds aliasing as other vowel sounds. I think the standard accent just doesn't alias nearly as much among all the vowel sounds, and I think that's meaningful.
  - foldr 10y ago
    >What determines when a letter is silent? I don't actually believe pronunciation is absolute or fixed in time Not sure what you mean here. There are rhotic dialects which lack a rule of 'r' deletion and non-rhotic dialects which don't. It has nothing to do with letters. It has to do with the presence or absence of a particular phonological rule. The relevant feature most certainly is fixed in time, in the sense that speakers of non-rhotic dialects consistently delete /r/ phonemes following a vowel whereas speakers of rhotic dialects do not. >I think the standard accent just doesn't alias nearly as much among all the vowel sounds, and I think that's meaningful. This is simply false. There are non-standard dialects that make more distinctions between vowels than standard dialects.
WorldMaker 10y ago
«So, what, I just decided that newscasters were my tribe for some reason?» That is not all that unlikely an explanation, really. Newscasters are shared figures of authority. But it may also be deeper than that. We watch sit-coms or soap operas and share their stories in a similar fashion we might trade tribal social cues. We interact at a very young age with educational TV programming like Sesame Street. There's a lot of pop culture jokes about many of us being raised by TV in the last several generations, but there is a lot of truth there too. «And you ended with another appeal to consequences.» Only because I read that you were inquiring about specific possible consequences. My apologies if that is not what you were asking.

by psyc 10y ago

foldr 10y ago

The problem with this view is that there are instances where the 'canonical' pronunciation in one group is the 'noncanonical' pronunciation in another, and vice versa. For example, in British English, 'r' deletion is part of the 'canonical' pronunciation and it's only nonstandard dialects that are rhotic. In American English it's the other way round. So in general, it can't be that features of the pronunciation itself somehow determine whether or not it is canonical. I doubt you really know what accent you spoke with when you were three or four. As to why you picked up an accent somewhere close to SAE, it's most likely for reasons of prestige.

psyc 10y ago
I don't have to remember. I have recordings. Things like 'r' are a bit of a puzzle. What determines when a letter is silent? I don't actually believe pronunciation is absolute or fixed in time. But I don't believe its perfectly relative, either, or that "standard" does not have a meaning. Most accents sound like vowel sounds aliasing as other vowel sounds. I think the standard accent just doesn't alias nearly as much among all the vowel sounds, and I think that's meaningful.
- foldr 10y ago
  >What determines when a letter is silent? I don't actually believe pronunciation is absolute or fixed in time Not sure what you mean here. There are rhotic dialects which lack a rule of 'r' deletion and non-rhotic dialects which don't. It has nothing to do with letters. It has to do with the presence or absence of a particular phonological rule. The relevant feature most certainly is fixed in time, in the sense that speakers of non-rhotic dialects consistently delete /r/ phonemes following a vowel whereas speakers of rhotic dialects do not. >I think the standard accent just doesn't alias nearly as much among all the vowel sounds, and I think that's meaningful. This is simply false. There are non-standard dialects that make more distinctions between vowels than standard dialects.

WorldMaker 10y ago

«So, what, I just decided that newscasters were my tribe for some reason?» That is not all that unlikely an explanation, really. Newscasters are shared figures of authority. But it may also be deeper than that. We watch sit-coms or soap operas and share their stories in a similar fashion we might trade tribal social cues. We interact at a very young age with educational TV programming like Sesame Street. There's a lot of pop culture jokes about many of us being raised by TV in the last several generations, but there is a lot of truth there too. «And you ended with another appeal to consequences.» Only because I read that you were inquiring about specific possible consequences. My apologies if that is not what you were asking.