4 ms·

What's puzzling to me is that I'm from South Florida while my parents are from the South, of which S Florida is not a part. They have the pin-pen merger. Howeve

What's puzzling to me is that I'm from South Florida while my parents are from the South, of which S Florida is not a part. They have the pin-pen merger. However, they are distinct for me. I've always wondered how much of a role parents' speech patterns vs. peers' and teachers' play in phonological development.

quercusa 5y ago
I had a friend in high school who was from Long Island. I think talking to him pulled my speech patterns less Southern. But if I'm talking to my mom on the phone, it all comes back.
- 8fGTBjZxBcHq 5y ago
  Code switching. Super common with southerners living outside the south in my experience. We all have various degrees we let the accents out depending on who we're talking to. I can almost completely hide it at work if I want but I let some through bc people like a little. If I talked to my coworkers the way I talk to my siblings though it would be a disaster because of prejudice around our dialect.
  - quercusa 5y ago
    I didn't expect it to be automatic!
silicon2401 5y ago
According to Prof. Robert Sapolsky, children are the innovators of language, and children speak like their peers. A famous example is a sign language spontaneously invented by deaf schoolchildren in Child (iirc). The sign language persisted, but after a couple of generations the original generation couldn't even understand the way the new schoolchildren spoke. Children are adaptable and innovative, and both learn and invent new speech. In contrast, adults tend to be rather ossified in their speech and don't change with the times (generally).
- rjbwork 5y ago
  Speaking of Sapolsky - his lectures from his Human Behavioral Biology course at Stanford are on youtube and they are fantastic.
  - silicon2401 5y ago
    Exactly what I was referencing. Excellent series; I watched/listened to them maybe 4 years ago and couldn't stop. Honestly better than any college course I took myself by far

quercusa 5y ago

I had a friend in high school who was from Long Island. I think talking to him pulled my speech patterns less Southern. But if I'm talking to my mom on the phone, it all comes back.

8fGTBjZxBcHq 5y ago
Code switching. Super common with southerners living outside the south in my experience. We all have various degrees we let the accents out depending on who we're talking to. I can almost completely hide it at work if I want but I let some through bc people like a little. If I talked to my coworkers the way I talk to my siblings though it would be a disaster because of prejudice around our dialect.
- quercusa 5y ago
  I didn't expect it to be automatic!

silicon2401 5y ago

According to Prof. Robert Sapolsky, children are the innovators of language, and children speak like their peers. A famous example is a sign language spontaneously invented by deaf schoolchildren in Child (iirc). The sign language persisted, but after a couple of generations the original generation couldn't even understand the way the new schoolchildren spoke. Children are adaptable and innovative, and both learn and invent new speech. In contrast, adults tend to be rather ossified in their speech and don't change with the times (generally).

rjbwork 5y ago
Speaking of Sapolsky - his lectures from his Human Behavioral Biology course at Stanford are on youtube and they are fantastic.
- silicon2401 5y ago
  Exactly what I was referencing. Excellent series; I watched/listened to them maybe 4 years ago and couldn't stop. Honestly better than any college course I took myself by far