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 Sat May 27, 2006 15:48 pm Amanda Martin-Brock's accent? |
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| Torsten wrote: | | Hi, have you ever heard Amanda Martin-Brock speak? I think she is a former ENRON executive and earlier today I heard a BBC interview with her on the ENRON scandal. What struck me was her accent. She obviously is American but when you hear her talk she sounds quite British, at least to me. Does she have an East coast upper-class accent (if such a thing exists)? |
I haven't been able to find any audio of her, but it's very possible she has an accent from Boston, eastern Pennsylvania or somewhere in eastern New York. It doesn't have to be upper class, but just local.
Sometime after the British settled the North American continent, the habit of "dropping R's" after vowels and at the ends of words started to spread through England and eventually became part of the majority pronunciation. The East Coast of the United States still had a lot of contact with England at the time, and so they picked up this so-called R-dropping. Further inland, Americans did not lose those R's, and so our pronunciation is older and still similar to that of the English at the time the continent was first settled, before RP emerged.
Before World War II, this East Coast R-less accent was standard in broadcasting, and elite private schools taught kids an RP-based pronunciation. You'll notice that when Franklin D. Roosevelt spoke on the radio, his speech was more or less RP. American actresses in his day also used some variation on RP, but not quite RP.
After the war, for some reason the standard broadcasting accent became a Midwestern accent, more or less a Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago accent. Since that time, according to sociolinguistic studies, these "R-dropping" accents have gradually been disappearing in the more educated, affluent classes, but they are retained more in blue-collar or lower socio-economic classes. Now if we hear an American say car, far, here, where, etc. without an [r], we may assume -- but not be certain -- that the person came from humble beginnings. |
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Jamie (K)
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| Mon May 29, 2006 10:02 am Amanda Martin-Brock's accent? |
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| Jamie (K) wrote: | | Before World War II, this East Coast R-less accent was standard in broadcasting, and elite private schools taught kids an RP-based pronunciation. You'll notice that when Franklin D. Roosevelt spoke on the radio, his speech was more or less RP. American actresses in his day also used some variation on RP, but not quite RP. |
Jamie, many thanks for sharing all this information about English accents -- I have always wondered what factors influence the development of accents. It's interesting to examine how the standard pronunciation of English constantly changes. The Michigan State University operates the Vincent Voice Library which contains voice samples from people like Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson and I'll listen to them as soon as I have a litte more time.
Jamie, have you ever heard Dr. Maxwell Maltz speak? I doesn't have to seem a modern Midwestern accent. As a matter of fact, when I first heard his recordings of Psycho-Cybernetics I thought he might have been born and raised outside of the US. What do you think?
Regards
Torsten
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| Mon May 29, 2006 12:40 pm Amanda Martin-Brock's accent? |
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| Torsten wrote: | | Jamie, many thanks for sharing all this information about English accents -- I have always wondered what factors influence the development of accents. |
This is a very interesting study, and it's easy to get information on dialectology and how dialects spread.
| Torsten wrote: | | It's interesting to examine how the standard pronunciation of English constantly changes. |
One of the most important things to remember about American speech is that the elements of most of the accents pre-date RP. So, for example, the Americans didn't start pronouncing R in words like "far" and "horse"; people in England stopped. Americans didn't create the participle "gotten" on their own; the British lost it. This is the general pattern.
Many people think it was the opposite, that everybody from England arrived on American shores speaking exactly like Queen Elizabeth II does today, and that we Americans changed it. This is actually not true, and the speech in England changed substantially after North America was settled. Anyway, this misconception leads to some stupid phenomena: Tonight there will be a documentary on and reenactment of the life of George Washington on TV, and all of the characters -- even the foot soldiers -- speak with more or less the accents of today's British nobility. Of course, Americans didn't talk like this at that time, but the people producing the show have a problem: If they don't have the characters speaking RP, the average American will think the show is not "historical".
| Torsten wrote: | | Have you ever heard Dr. Maxwell Maltz speak? I doesn't have to seem a modern Midwestern accent. As a matter of fact, when I first heard his recordings of Psycho-Cybernetics I thought he might have been born and raised outside of the US. What do you think? |
I have succeeded in finding an online video of him talking. His accent is definitely American. He's obviously from somewhere in the Northeast, but I'm not sure if his accent is from New York City, Philadelphia or maybe Boston. I think I hear Philadelphia, but I could be wrong. The only biographical information I found said that he was "born and educated in Europe", but he definitely has a native-sounding American accent. |
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Jamie (K)
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| Wed May 31, 2006 12:05 pm Pronunciation of 'either' |
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Hi Jamie, listening to Dr. Maltz again I've noticed he pronounces the word either the British way (so it rhymes with fighter). How do you pronounce either?
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| Wed May 31, 2006 12:18 pm Pronunciation of 'either' |
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| Torsten wrote: | | Hi Jamie, listening to Dr. Maltz again I've noticed he pronounces the word either the British way (so it rhymes with fighter). How do you pronounce either? |
Americans pronounce it [i:thr] or [ajthr]. There seems to be no regional or dialect difference. Some people say one, some people say the other, and some people say whichever one they feel like saying at the moment. I always say [i:thr], but some people who grew up in the same town and went to the same schools say [ajthr], and some say both. There is no "American" or "British" way to pronounce either. |
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| Wed May 31, 2006 13:17 pm Amanda Martin-Brock's accent? |
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Hi Jamie
I find it curious that you mention a Philadelphia accent and a Boston accent in the same breath.
Having spent the better part of my childhood living 20 miles away from Philly, I can't imagine anyone confusing a Philadelphia accent with a Boston accent..... Or are you referring possibly to a particular upper crust element of Philadelphia society?
Amy |
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| Wed May 31, 2006 13:34 pm Amanda Martin-Brock's accent? |
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| Yankee wrote: | | I find it curious that you mention a Philadelphia accent and a Boston accent in the same breath. |
I don't live in the east, and I haven't traveled in the northeast farther than Gettysburg. I only know people's accents as I hear them on TV or meet them in real life when people come here. I also know something from the study of dialectology. Given that, my ability to make distinctions between dialects in the east are better than those of the typical Midwesterner, who would probably not be able to tell Philadelphia from Brooklyn from Boston and would call all of those accents "New York".
| Yankee wrote: | | Having spent the better part of my childhood living 20 miles away from Philly, I can't imagine anyone confusing a Philadelphia accent with a Boston accent..... Or are you referring possibly to a particular upper crust element of Philadelphia society? |
I'm talking about the kind of Philadelphian who would say, "With moy t^yste f^ ch^ysec^yke in fed^cc^yn^y, Oy decoyded t^ gao oan a doyeht." (The [^] is a schwa.) When these people say "fetuccini", it has six syllables. Coming from the Philadelphia area, you can decide who it is who talks like that. I am very good at imitating that accent (my younger sister is even better at it), and when I do it, people from Pennsylvania immediately say, "That's Phili!" |
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Conchita
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| Wed May 31, 2006 19:54 pm Feytowcheyney |
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| Conchita wrote: | | Jamie (K) wrote: | | When these people say "fetuccini", it has six syllables. |
The English rendition of the word can even have eight syllables, if you ask me  ! |
When Midwesterners say it it has four syllables.
The accent doesn't even sound remotely British. |
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Jamie (K)
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| Thu Jun 01, 2006 0:41 am Amanda Martin-Brock's accent? |
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Hi Jamie,
Thanks, that was really interesting about r-dropping.
I like American accent much better, but I always get stuff like: those Americans don't speak the REAL English, they don't know grammar, this and that.
Please tell me more things like this, let me teach them ONCE AND FOR ALL 
Spencer |
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| Thu Jun 01, 2006 1:01 am Amanda Martin-Brock's accent? |
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| spencer wrote: | | "those Americans don't speak the REAL English, they don't know grammar," this and that. |
People who think Americans talk worse than the British should just visit England. This will cure them of this notion. |
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Jamie (K)
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| Thu Jun 01, 2006 1:22 am Amanda Martin-Brock's accent? |
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Those people have been there.
I don't think Americans speak better, or English, or Irish, or Australians, but I like the idea that the American is closer to the original English than British in this matter (r-dropping)
Everybody says the opposite.
Tomorrow my firs thing will be calling my co-worker, she's an English teacher, and British-fan.
She's gonna be so sad!
HAHAHAHAHA
Spencer |
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Spencer
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Jamie (K)
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