Dialects And The Difference In Accents In America

Different dialects are found all over the world, regardless of whether you are a new immigrant or a person who was born in the country of his/her nationality. America has many different accents. The United States is a country composed of many immigrants from all over the world. The country includes many ethnic and cultural groups that interact constantly to form American culture. English is the language spoken by both immigrants and US-born Americans. Besides newsreaders on television and actors on stage, in movies, etc. there is no standard American-English accent, because learners of English as a Second Language (ESL) mimic the accent used in the place where they live. There are also regional accents, in places like Boston (New England) and in the south (Alabama) which are difficult for people from other places to understand.

The first reason for American regional accents sounding so different is people who are coming from so many different places to the USA to work, study, or avoid conflict. When they get here, they learn that the words used in the classroom are not necessarily, what the locals use. Richard Lederer, in “All-American Dialects”, gives some examples: ” “In Philadelphia, we washed our hoagies down with soda. In New England we did it with tonic, and by that word I don’t mean medicine. Soda and tonic in other parts are known as pop, soda pop, a soft drink, Coke, and quinine”. For example, here in the USA there are many students coming from all over the world to get a better education; for example, some want to work for one of the big three automobile companies such as GM, Ford, or Chrysler. When they arrive, they speak with an accent that has sounds from their native language. Furthermore, many bilingual people combine American English with their native language.

For instance, in California there are many Latinos, many from Mexico, who use a combination of both Spanish and English. In addition to that, when they raise a family in the USA and their children are born and raised in the USA, they become familiar with the American accent. Another common accent used in the USA is the African American accent. African Americans use some words like "y’all" which is you all, and "bro" which means a man talking to another man, akin to ‘’bloke’’ in England or Australia. Although these words are not grammatically correct in English, they are still using them. When other people talk with African-Americans, they may try to simulate their accent to be understood. It is not easy for a person to try to change his/her accent; most people just want to be able to carry on with a conversation. The second reason American accents sound different is the media influence on people. The accents used by actors differ from the colloquial accent.

For example, the comedy duo Cheech & Chong has one actor saying “Hey, man!” while the other uses Spanglish. In my point of view, the influence of the media in American English is strong. It stems from children when they are beginning to talk communicating by using the words they hear from celebrities. The media needs to use a standard language in order to communicate with the national audience and the American English accent is appropriate. For example, the news announcers are using a standard accent to help all the listeners to understand the news reports. There are some programs that use the informal accent. Talk show programs are sometimes using slang because they are inviting celebrities to talk with them in the colloquial. Talk show hosts are trying to use informal language to make their guests feel at ease. Sometimes a news reporter has to deliver the news with the general tone of the situation. For instance, some reporters are trying to cover a bad situation like a hurricane or a conflict and that may lead them to use the informal accent. There are many dialects used in the media, but they all tend to convey the message in the simplest way to the viewer. The third reason is American citizens becoming more mobile all the time.

In Detroit, many people come from the South to find work in automobile factories in the 1950s. Now that Michigan is part of what is known as the “rust belt”, many people are new heading in the opposite direction, to the “sun belt”. People in Detroit do not say “y’all” as much as they used to; people arriving in Texas to start working on a new job will begin to use the word in conversations with people they meet at work and on the street. If they stay there long enough their children will mimic a “Texas” accent; vesting friends and family back in Michigan, people will notice the change in vocabulary. Linguists tell us that language is “fluid”, changing all the time. The work people do is becoming more specialized, so it is common for someone from Detroit to move to Texas while at the same time someone from China or India finds work at Wayne State, bringing a “foreign” accent with him/her. This is the American “melting pot” a “multi-cultural” society composed of so many different demographic groups that it is difficult to keep track of all of them. Just take a stroll around the Wayne State campus and many different languages are being spoken, in addition to all the regional accents spoken there, for example Canadian. Avid hockey fans, they use words like “blue line” and “hooking” which are unfamiliar to their classmates who play soccer, but do know what “offside” means. Richard Lederer, in “All-American Dialects” agrees when he writes, “One aspect of American rugged individualism is that not all of us say the same word in the same way”. He goes on to list several different words for pancake, depending on the place.

To conclude, nowadays English exists as a method for a worldwide correspondence and furthermore as a route for individuals of different social groups to communicate with one another. To achieve this function, the difference in accents needs to be reduced to a certain extent. As such, if the dialect turns out to be heavily accented, many of the different social groups will not comprehend it. Some dialects have tiny variations, and other dialects have significant differences, which make understanding the speaker difficult. America is a "magnet" for foreign talent. Many people want to work in Silicon Valley, and that is not about to change. In the future, there will be more people in America who speak with a "foreign" accent. Because they are emigrating for economic reasons, and employers cannot find enough highly skilled workers in America.