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Can someone please explain the Southern Drawl to me?

Clint

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It's sad that I live in the deep south, but don't understand what this means. I was reading about Southern American English and I don't comprehend what the following means:

* The Southern Drawl, or the diphthongization or triphthongization of the traditional short front vowels as in the words pat, pet, and pit: these develop a glide up from their original starting position to [j], and then in some cases back down to schwa.

/æ/ → [æjə]
/ɛ/ → [ɛjə]
/ɪ/ → [ɪjə]

Particularly since I've met a lot of hillbillies and rednecks with deplorable English skills and accents so thick that you can't understand them (Just last night there was a kid talking about something, but all I could get was a tree fell on his house or something like that) and I've NEVER heard anyone pronounce pat, pet, and pit as anything other than pat, pet, or pit, unless I'm not understanding what Wikipedia is saying.

And what is the difference between a "Drawl" and an accent? Can you have one without the other?
 
im not a linguist so cant help you with the Wiki definition but in this case drawl = accent more or less.......drawl is just a method of speaking......the way i think of it a drawl is more fluid than regular structured speech......fewer words are spoken in away that they do have a sharp clear ending, they sorta trail off more than ending........

i have lil rouble understanding most accents.......dealt with Saudi's when i was in college, deal with French Canadian types every so ofter, dealt with southerners with a thick accent and drawl, generally have no problem even know a scotish guy. my wife has a hell of a time with them cause prolly like you she listens to the individual words and not the context as i seem to do. however as good as i am at understanding most heavy accents, even though im half Norwegian, when the old Norwegian farmers come to the paper that came from Norway to the US and i cant understand a word they are saying
 
I've lived in the south almost my whole life and I can't figure out what you're talking about.

LOL

Every part of the country has a little different way to talk. Most of the time I can tell you where somebody is from just by hearing them talk. Sometimes I can even tell you what part to the state they live in. I can tell the difference from somebody from northern ohio and southern ohio.

I guess it's like Darwinism, you isolate a group of people and their speech evolves to fit their needs.
Accents are not as dramatic as they use to be, I guess because of TV.
 
I am actually taking a course on American varieties of speech right now, and this is something that we have discussed. It is actually a very complex subject, and I could talk to you about it more if you want, but as of right now I'll just give a very simple explanation...

What you are meaning by a 'drawl' and an 'accent' is actually one in the same. In the United States, there is no actual 'proper' form of English, rather, we have developed an accepted 'standard' English. In some foreign countries, there are actually academies which debate what should be allowed in a language, whats changes should be made, standard pronunciation, etc. (France to name one) I digress. There are two types of sounds the mouth can make, consonants, and vowels. In consonants, air flow is slowed or stopped. Try it, make the "t" noise or the "f" noise. Vowels, on the other hand, are formed by the shape of the mouth. Please see the following diagram...



This diagram represents the mouth, and where each vowel is formed. using international phonetic symbols. What you were mentioning above is called 'vowel shifting' and it actually occurs frequently, but is a very slow process. It is the main reason that English spelling and pronunciation are different. A long time ago, after the invent of the printing press, there was a vowel shift which changed our pronunciation, but left spelling the same.

Anyways, a vowel shift starts when one sound begins to move to another portion of the mouth. This can be illustrated from the word 'bit' as with the southern accent it sounds more like, 'beet.' Try and say it. "The dog bit him." So when one sound shifts, it takes the place of another, which then must shift over and take another's place, and so on. That is essentially how that form of the southern dialect formed. There's a bunch of other stuff relating to it, such as differences in grammar, but the vowel shift is what people recognize when they hear southern speech.
 
I don't know what you're talking about, I've never heard anyone say "bit" as "beet" either. I've heard people say "biting" as "biding" (as in "I'm biding my time" ) but never "bit" and "beet" I've heard something like "The dog bid em" but never "beet". Intervocalic alveolar flapping. Is there a place online that has these examples I can listen to?

If you pronounce your words perfectly, or rather standardly, is it possible to have an accent? Consider someone very proper, and speaks perfectly (or rather standardly), yet still has a British or Australian accent; can this happen with southern accents?
 
lol, Like I said I lived in the south almost my whole life and I have never heard anybody say "The dog beet him"

???
 
I know, It's like the people making up these rules have never heard a heavy southern accent.


Basically, I'm trying to dissect my voice. I don't have much of an accent according to what other people have told me (Of course someone who's from somewhere else would probably say I have a noticeable accent) but I'm really trying to standardize my speech and eliminate any trace of an accent I do have. I know that I flap, but some pronunciations are so similar (like morning and mourning) that I'm not sure if I pronounce those properly or not!

Maybe I'm a sell out. I just don't want people to think I'm uneducated and ignorant at first impressions. I don't say things like 'Ain't" and "Y'all" (or worse), but I don't like the stereotypes of southern people, and would like to standardize my speech. Without going to a speech therapist, that is.
 
I don't think it's being a sell out, there are mannerisms in all types of speech that can become distracting and unprofessional. Correcting those things, from it being a location based tone, to a habitual phrase will only help you.

Personally I always catch myself ending phrases with "you know?" or adding "like" all over the place. The you know? part is probably from that awesome upper Wisconsin (fargo) tone, that I almost wish I did have. "Oh golly, those folks up there are just somethin don't-cha know?" My relatives crack me up when I get to visit them.

Thank goodness I never picked up the Chicago accent and can still say wolf correctly.

Nate
 
I know, It's like the people making up these rules have never heard a heavy southern accent.

I heard Jeff Foxworthy say that before he was well known that he tried out for a movie. They told him to use a southern accent and so he did the audition. They stopped him and said "No use a real southern accent." He said, "I'm from Georgia, this is a real southern accent."

I listen to Howard Stern a lot and as much as I like him, he and almost everybody on his show is so ignorant about southern people. There is this image about the south that is so not true. I lived in Pa, Ky (near the IN. and Ill. state lines, so I don't consider that in the south.) and Ohio, and there are some differences, but not many and not ones you'd expect.
 
  • #10
Pronouncing an i as an e is correct in other European languages, but not in English. Although I don't remember bit being pronounced as beet when I lived in the south, I'm pretty sure more than a few people I knew could have turned it into two syllables.
 
  • #11
I wish I had an example for you to hear, because once you actually hear it pronounced that way, it will be very clear to you. Maybe once my computer stops being broken, I will find try and find/make a recording of it. It sounds closer to, "bi-yit" then the harsh sound of "beet."

In regards to 'standard' English and accents, everybody, and that is EVERYBODY speaks with some accent or another. There are just certain accents and dialects that are negatively stigmatized, hence people try to change their accent or dialect to a less stigmatized one. An unstigmatized dialect is also called "prestige." These prestige dialects are often what is spoken by the social class that has the most money, influence, power, etc. The idea of a 'proper' way to speak in America has arisen also through the media, as they try to speak a very bland standard English.
 
  • #12
There is an unfortunate stigma for the southern accent. I can personally attest that my parents think of anyone with a southern accent as less intelligent simply because of the way they talk. My father in particular has little good to say about southern folk. But who cares what those people think about you because of as something stupid and irrelevant as that? Sounds like you might be worrying too much about being judged.


Speaking of accents, I was born in new york and had a thick new york accent, but when we moved to the plains when young I was put in speech therapy for my perceived "speech impediment". I want it back, its is a testament of where I came from. I think you shouldn’t care about the people who let their biases get in the way. Just because someone thinks its an impediment doesn’t mean you should talk like them.
 
  • #13
It can affect opportunities in life, Finch.
 
  • #14
Only if you let it.


I am proud to be from the south and I'm proud of the way I talk.
 
  • #15
People with southern accents have been running the US for much of my life, so I think the days of widespread stigma are long gone. On the other hand, maybe the original opinion was correct, given what's become of our country during that time. Or maybe it's the rest of who are the idiots for letting their politicians become our politicians.
 
  • #16
I think it's pretty ignorant to think that it's always appropriate to present yourself in an original form. That's not how life works -period-, half the time life doesn't care who you are and that's how its going to be. There's always hoops to jump through at times, and you need to be prepared to do so when its time.

I'm proud that I wear casual clothing, my hair isn't done half the time, and that there probably paint on all of my jeans. But should I go a job interview looking like that? It's me after all! Sometimes being -me- is disrespectful for the thing I'm trying to do. There's just things that sometimes demand you do something different and I feel language is the same way.

And side note, I'm not proud to have Bush as a president for this very reason. Watching him go into every speech and mangle language is so painful to watch. When it comes time to say a foreign word, omg look out.

A few good Bush quotes:
"Rarely is the questioned asked: Is our children learning?" --Florence, South Carolina, Jan. 11, 2000

"There's an old saying in Tennessee -- I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee -- that says, fool me once, shame on --shame on you. Fool me -- you can't get fooled again." --Nashville, Tenn., Sept. 17, 2002

"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." --Washington, D.C., Aug. 5, 2004


-Nate
 
  • #17
Never claimed it was always appropriate, but at the same time its pretty ridiculous to label one single way of speaking the correct form. As if one is better than the other. Since we speak English, the original form of English is from England, naturally. If I said we got into a row, thats an English term for disagreement/ argument, but it would be slapped down here as inappropriate form. Or the English mangling their own language also, and need us Americans to tell them the proper way to speak?

No matter where you grow up, there are regional language differences in your area that others will define as mangling.

On the other hand, if I had a thick New York or French accent it would be harder for me to find a job in Texas. If I have a foreign accent it would make it hard to find a job, because of the negative view on foreigners. God forbid you go another country and sound as if you never came from there.


Edit: and its obvious that i need to work on my typing skills. I have good speech skills, but my typing and writing, not so much. The English thing is somewhat irrelevant, my point is that... um... yeh where was i going with that?
 
  • #18
Check out CPUK, under Talk About Anything. I initiated a topic about British accents and it spent some time on how our southern accent originated.
 
  • #19
I think accents are pretty cool. When I talk with someone who has an accent or even just see an area code I don't recognize on a phone call at work, I always try to figure out where the person is from. I probably ask about it more than is considered polite, but I'm interested and people usually like to tell me all about it.

Speaking of the president, ever notice how he's the only one of his siblings with the strong accent? Since he spent more of his formative years in CT & MA than in TX, he worked as hard as JLAP on his accent, but in reverse. But it worked for him - I can't imagine that people would have been so forgiving of his mangling of the language if he spoke like the New England blueblood that he is.
 
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