4 ms·

It would be nice to get a transcript so we could identify what speech was declared to be lower socioeconomic speech. It's important to be able to speak and wri

It would be nice to get a transcript so we could identify what speech was declared to be lower socioeconomic speech. It's important to be able to speak and write proper English for a job interview, even though most speak in an informal English most of the time.

9wzYQbTYsAIc 6y ago
The article specifies pretty clearly that the data used included, in part, things like voices from consumer speech recognition products. Furthermore, they found that speech patterns were associated with an actual higher social class.
bitwize 6y ago
This doesn't take into account things like accent, which does count. Many people native to the Boston area looking to get high-paying jobs (esp. in tech) work on breaking their Boston accents to sound higher class.
- devonkim 6y ago
  This is probably also true in the UK that has class lines often built around geography and therefore accents. In the US people with southern accents are viewed by many others as having a lower socioeconomic status. Things get more interesting when the history of the modern Boston accent comes from popular British speech trends hundreds of years ago and co-opted by the aristocrats of Boston, so what is an oftentimes low-caste Boston accent today was meant to be a high-caste accent around 1800. The ridiculousness of it all is staggering
  - Clubber 6y ago
    I like hearing different accents. I'm Southern and have a slight accent, but there are many different Southern accents. My father grew up with a thick Southern Alabama accent, but he took speech classes to get rid of it before I was born. I really like hearing the Boston accent too. Deep Louisiana accent is great. I like hearing both James Carville and the LSU coach talk. On a side note, money can't buy class.
- intergalplan 6y ago
  Practically all US regional accents, especially if thick, register as "lower" than Standard American English spoken with a generic or newscaster accent.
  - disabled 6y ago
    There is no Standard US English accent. Even people from the US Pacific Northwest speak with an accent. Interestingly, there are AI apps to make your English accent [1] more mainstream, but the fact is that judging a person by their accent is xenophobic. Anyways, I practice my pronunciation for a foreign language using speech recognition software/apps. [1] Class Is in Session: AI App Schools on English Pronunciation: https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2018/06/26/class-is-in-session-ai-app-schools-on-english-pronunciation/ https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2018/06/26/class-is-in-session...
    - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
      The national news anchors de facto define the standard US accent.
      - carpedimebagjoe 6y ago
        Perhaps analogous to BBC and Received Pronunciation (RP). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Received_Pronunciation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Received_Pronunciation
    - intergalplan 6y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_American_English https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_American_English Also called "Standard American English" (as noted in the article). It's what you mostly hear on the radio, in film actors when they're acting but not "doing an accent", among professional newscasters, et c. It's not been static through time—ever watch early talkies or listen to '30s radio serials?—but it exists.
  - carpedimebagjoe 6y ago
    There's an interesting documentary on American accents. Do You Speak American? https://www.pbs.org/speak/ https://www.pbs.org/speak/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_You_Speak_American%3F https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_You_Speak_American%3F
- wincy 6y ago
  I know a woman who now works at Google who is from Boston. I had no idea until she told me, as she had no accent at all. She laughed and said "oh only poor idiots have the Boston accent, they actually have to practice to sound like that". She had a pretty dim view of the Boston accent, and she was from Boston.
  - chrisseaton 6y ago
    > as she had no accent at all Everyone has an accent.
fallingfrog 6y ago
Erasing your regional accent probably goes a long way. I have a pretty strong Maine accent and it’s hard to suppress. I don’t think I could fake a true bourgeoisie affect though, partly because I find it so repulsive. But also I think you have to have had grown adults as your personal servants as I a child to really nail that sort of bored/unconcerned affect. Where you truly consider certain people to be beneath you. They see you as an NPC. I’ve seen it, a handful of times. I guess there’s a professional class in between too where the attitude is in between, you treat people with a friendliness that doesn’t seem superior, but also is guiltless and free of guile, lacking in any suspiciousness which speaks of a person who has never truly been hungry and not had food, or has considered breaking the law as their best option, or lived in an area where there was a lot of crime. I don’t know why all that comes out in your speech but it does. Truly lower class people are reserved- they don’t volunteer information, because they don’t trust you. Upper class people don’t either, because they don’t have to care what you think, and they don’t consider you an equal. In between, people tend to be more talkative.
- molsongolden 6y ago
  Sending out an HN bat signal here: I can't find the article/post that this comment reminded me of but it was a semi-recent discussion/breakdown of class in the USA. All I remember is that it called out Jeff Bezos as upper middle class.
  - the_only_law 6y ago
    Yes, I recall what you’re taking about as well. The article submitted was about a book in class in the US. I believe from the 80s. The classes were defined differently from their colloquial usages. And I found it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26351913 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26351913 The line about Bezos is in the linked article.
    - molsongolden 6y ago
      That's the one. Thank you!

9wzYQbTYsAIc 6y ago

The article specifies pretty clearly that the data used included, in part, things like voices from consumer speech recognition products. Furthermore, they found that speech patterns were associated with an actual higher social class.

bitwize 6y ago

This doesn't take into account things like accent, which does count. Many people native to the Boston area looking to get high-paying jobs (esp. in tech) work on breaking their Boston accents to sound higher class.

devonkim 6y ago
This is probably also true in the UK that has class lines often built around geography and therefore accents. In the US people with southern accents are viewed by many others as having a lower socioeconomic status. Things get more interesting when the history of the modern Boston accent comes from popular British speech trends hundreds of years ago and co-opted by the aristocrats of Boston, so what is an oftentimes low-caste Boston accent today was meant to be a high-caste accent around 1800. The ridiculousness of it all is staggering
- Clubber 6y ago
  I like hearing different accents. I'm Southern and have a slight accent, but there are many different Southern accents. My father grew up with a thick Southern Alabama accent, but he took speech classes to get rid of it before I was born. I really like hearing the Boston accent too. Deep Louisiana accent is great. I like hearing both James Carville and the LSU coach talk. On a side note, money can't buy class.
intergalplan 6y ago
Practically all US regional accents, especially if thick, register as "lower" than Standard American English spoken with a generic or newscaster accent.
- disabled 6y ago
  There is no Standard US English accent. Even people from the US Pacific Northwest speak with an accent. Interestingly, there are AI apps to make your English accent [1] more mainstream, but the fact is that judging a person by their accent is xenophobic. Anyways, I practice my pronunciation for a foreign language using speech recognition software/apps. [1] Class Is in Session: AI App Schools on English Pronunciation: https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2018/06/26/class-is-in-session-ai-app-schools-on-english-pronunciation/ https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2018/06/26/class-is-in-session...
  - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
    The national news anchors de facto define the standard US accent.
    - carpedimebagjoe 6y ago
      Perhaps analogous to BBC and Received Pronunciation (RP). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Received_Pronunciation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Received_Pronunciation
  - intergalplan 6y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_American_English https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_American_English Also called "Standard American English" (as noted in the article). It's what you mostly hear on the radio, in film actors when they're acting but not "doing an accent", among professional newscasters, et c. It's not been static through time—ever watch early talkies or listen to '30s radio serials?—but it exists.
- carpedimebagjoe 6y ago
  There's an interesting documentary on American accents. Do You Speak American? https://www.pbs.org/speak/ https://www.pbs.org/speak/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_You_Speak_American%3F https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_You_Speak_American%3F
wincy 6y ago
I know a woman who now works at Google who is from Boston. I had no idea until she told me, as she had no accent at all. She laughed and said "oh only poor idiots have the Boston accent, they actually have to practice to sound like that". She had a pretty dim view of the Boston accent, and she was from Boston.
- chrisseaton 6y ago
  > as she had no accent at all Everyone has an accent.

fallingfrog 6y ago

Erasing your regional accent probably goes a long way. I have a pretty strong Maine accent and it’s hard to suppress. I don’t think I could fake a true bourgeoisie affect though, partly because I find it so repulsive. But also I think you have to have had grown adults as your personal servants as I a child to really nail that sort of bored/unconcerned affect. Where you truly consider certain people to be beneath you. They see you as an NPC. I’ve seen it, a handful of times. I guess there’s a professional class in between too where the attitude is in between, you treat people with a friendliness that doesn’t seem superior, but also is guiltless and free of guile, lacking in any suspiciousness which speaks of a person who has never truly been hungry and not had food, or has considered breaking the law as their best option, or lived in an area where there was a lot of crime. I don’t know why all that comes out in your speech but it does. Truly lower class people are reserved- they don’t volunteer information, because they don’t trust you. Upper class people don’t either, because they don’t have to care what you think, and they don’t consider you an equal. In between, people tend to be more talkative.

molsongolden 6y ago
Sending out an HN bat signal here: I can't find the article/post that this comment reminded me of but it was a semi-recent discussion/breakdown of class in the USA. All I remember is that it called out Jeff Bezos as upper middle class.
- the_only_law 6y ago
  Yes, I recall what you’re taking about as well. The article submitted was about a book in class in the US. I believe from the 80s. The classes were defined differently from their colloquial usages. And I found it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26351913 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26351913 The line about Bezos is in the linked article.
  - molsongolden 6y ago
    That's the one. Thank you!