Regional Accents

Huntn

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Thus could be a huge topic, but I’m posting because of an interview I heard on NPR.

Why do English singers typically lose their English accent when singing?
The discussion about the brain on National Public Radio asserted that our brains work differently when talking as compared to when singing. I found several links on line, here is one, reason 2 sounds good to me:


Reason #2: Because of the melodies and beats

Another interesting, and perhaps the more convincing theory, is that British singers lose their accents because of the melodies and beats they are trying to follow ase they sing. Linguist and author David Crystal said that the melody of a song neutralizes intonations while the beat takes away the usual rhythm associated with speech.

In casual speaking, everyone has full control over how to utter words, as unwittingly guided or nurtured by environmental factors. These environmental factors are mainly the usual people a person converses with and the usual conversations a person is exposed to. Verbalizing when speaking is different from verbalizing when singing. In the former, it’s the thought or the message being conveyed that counts. In the latter, it’s the melody and beat that matter. Talking is the same regardless of the intonation, speed, and rhythm by which a person speaks. With singing, a song is not going to be the same song without the correct tune and beat.
 

lizkat

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The sounds used in song may well be choiceful and so set to a purpose at hand, not only in popular but other forms of music.

The British singer/songwriter David Gray generally doesn't sound like an American when he sings. He may not sound exactly like a Welshman or a lad from Manchester either, to natives of those two areas of the UK where he has spent time, but he does not sound American. He may or may not have spent a whole lot of time listening to American pop/rock.

Still, at least in popular mode, it's true that if you listen to enough of a certain genre of singing, the particulars of what you hear tend to inform your brain that that's how sound production is to be managed when you generate it.

But that does hold true for spoken language as well. So that's why if you move to Colorado or Louisiana, you will eventually not sound so much like you hail from Boston any more. Our brains transfer a lot of stuff to autopilot unless we interfere, so what you hear is what you'll sound like after awhile.

Professional musicians, actors, broadcasters and narrators can and do learn to adopt an accent that is free of regional influence. And with help of dialogue coaches, they can also learn to apply particular sung or spoken language techniques (and so intonations, accents etc) to a purpose. Meryl Streep's a good example. Jennifer Lawrence comes to mind as well.
 

Herdfan

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The wife was a language major in college, French & Spanish. Her French was so good when she lived there, they knew she wasn't native, but couldn't tell she was American.

The downside is she picks up accents wherever we go. Go to the Bahamas and she will start talking with their accent, go to Mexico and it is the same. So I always think people think she is mocking them but she really isn't, just the way her brain works.
 

DT

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The discussion about the brain on National Public Radio asserted that our brains work differently when talking as compared to when singing. I found several links on line, here is one, reason 2 sounds good to me:

It's also a thing with people who stutter, like the country singer Mel Tillis, stuttered when he spoke, sang without a hint of a stutter.
 

Yoused

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It's also a thing with people who stutter, like the country singer Mel Tillis, stuttered when he spoke, sang without a hint of a stutter.
That is why Lewis Black is so angry all the time. He has a stutter, so he goes into angry mode on stage so that it goes away. For a few years there, I felt like he was narrating my life.
 

DT

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That is why Lewis Black is so angry all the time. He has a stutter, so he goes into angry mode on stage so that it goes away. For a few years there, I felt like he was narrating my life.

I had no idea, that's fascinating.

Hahaha, and anytime I think of singing with a stutter, all I can think about is this scene (specifically at 0:58 ...)

 

DT

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My wife's family is from Pittsburgh and there's a very notable regional accent (though she has basically none), like pronouncing 'down' as 'don' (in fact most of the -own as -on, and then lots of unique expressions, so for example (using the aforementioned ...):

"We're goin' donton an'at."

i.e.,

"We are headed to the downtown area."

:LOL:
 

Herdfan

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My wife's family is from Pittsburgh and there's a very notable regional accent (though she has basically none), like pronouncing 'down' as 'don' (in fact most of the -own as -on, and then lots of unique expressions, so for example (using the aforementioned ...):

"We're goin' donton an'at."

i.e.,

"We are headed to the downtown area."

:LOL:

And the use of the word "Yens". As in "Are yens goin' donton?" So much worse than "yall".
 

Yoused

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The West Coast accent can be difficult for a lot of people. The short "o" is pronounced the same as the "ah" sound, and lifelong Coasters have difficulty distinguishing the difference when Interiors pronounce certain words. I knew a Wisconsinite living in Portland Oregon at the time who complained about newscasters speaking of "WinterHawks Hockey", where to a native Portlander, "hawk" and "hockey" have an identical vowel sound but to someone from Wisconsin they are supposed to sound different. This is know as the "caught/cot" divide.
 

Cmaier

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I totally failed my Pittsburgh-ese example by not using Yinz. :cry:

My wife is from pittsburgh. Thank god she doesn't talk like it. "I'm going to get the sweeper to rid up yinz rooms."

She does leave off "to be" though. "The room needs swept."
 

rdrr

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Nothing beats the Boston accent, and no one can seem to reproduce it properly in a movie (I am looking at you Laura Linney). Outside of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck of course.
 

DT

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My wife is from pittsburgh. Thank god she doesn't talk like it. "I'm going to get the sweeper to rid up yinz rooms."

She does leave off "to be" though. "The room needs swept."

Hahaha, sharing this with the wife :D I appreciate the use of the term "sweeper" as well, I heard that about 1000 times up there.

Yeah, she has none (but can turn it on), pretty much the same with her brothers. I think hers got diluted through her education (she went to CMU), spent time in the DC area in political communications, and about 1/2 her life has been down here in Florida.
 

lizkat

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We recently went on a road trip to Scotland. I cannot understand the people in Glasgow. It's English, apparently, but it does not sound like it.

One of my brothers was a long haul trucker of construction materials between northern and southern regions of the USA in his youth, and another worked Mississippi River barges between southern Illinois and New Orleans as a deckhand to help pay for college. They grew up on the shores of Lake Ontario and neither one of them could ever understand what was said to them when a waitress would hand a menu to them at the counters in New Orleans diners they had sampled. "Only by inference could she have been asking if I wanted a glass of water" is how one of the bros put it.
 
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