Do American Accents "blend"?
O.K. I know this sounds wierd but whenever I watch a movie with one American actor and the rest British (providing these British all have the same accent, RP, Scouse, Cockney, whatever) I ususally don't even notice that one guy is American. When it is called to my attention I'd probably be able to tell what state he's from and everything, but usually I just don't notice until the movie is over. Any other Americans do that? I know this sounds really dumb, and any Brits reading this are going to give me a serious tongue-lashing, but oh well>
P.S. the ones that seem to blend the most to my ear are RP and Californian. I may watch the movie three times before noticing the Californian among all those "Tony Blairish" speakers.
Hmm, where are you from?
I'm from Singapore. Before I turned 11, I was essentially unaware of different accents. I had American, British, and Australian classmates... and they all sounded the same to me. They all seemed to "blend" into each other, as you described =p
I think that different accents are probably more obvious to a native speaker of the language, or at least to someone's who grown up in an environment where ONE accent is dominant over all others.
In Singapore, there are people from all over the world with their own accents. Even within our own population, our Chinese, Malays, and Indians all have different accents. This has a blending effect which probably reduced my young ears' sensitivity to accensts =p
However, when I went to the US on vacation when I was 11, other children who were my age said things like: "Hey, you have an accent! It sounds funny! Oh, you're from Singapore? Do you have a British teacher?"
That was the first time I became aware of different accents.
We were all the same age, but the American children were more sensitive to accents because:
1. They're native speakers.
2. They grew up in a place where a SINGLE accent - General American - is dominant. Their ears are attuned to General American, so other accents sound odd and foreign to them.
Does my hypothesis make sense?
I'm from California, a native English speaker, and not particularly accostumed to being around people with other accents. I notice other people's accents, just not mine.
I'm a native of the Boston area (Eastern Mass.). I now reside in Florida, and my Boston accent sticks out like a sore thumb. People pick it up right away. American accents don't always blend. I know that, when I lived in Massachusetts, the many newcomers to the area had a great deal of difficulty understanding the native accent.
I don't particularly have an ear for accents. Most Americans sound the same to me, and I wouldn't be able to pin their accents down by state. Maybe by region, but not by specific state.
When I lived in North Carolina, I got pretty good at identifying which part of the South people were from. I was quite pleased the time I correctly guessed that someone was from Atlanta! (It was actually easy, since she sounded just like someone I knew who was from there.)
I myself generally just mentally separate North American English-speakers into people 1) from here or 2) not from here, even though I do generally distinguish speakers from 1) California and 2) Southern and Midland dialect areas. I more notice things like more GAE-like phonologies (yes, a purely GAE phonology comes off as rather marked to me), in particular a lack of Canadian Raising for /aI/, and preservation of the distinction between /w/ and /W/ than any specific dialect areas rather than any specific dialects' locations.
Whoops, that should just be "the distinction between /w/ and /W/ rather than any specific dialects' locations." at the end of my last post.
"the distinction between /w/ and /W/ ''
Newscasters in Calgary have it ;)
hi there.
Im from England. I can determine what accents people from England have...most of the time, like welsh, scotish, cockney, scouse & irish etc. But when it comes to American accents, say like for example Boston and Florida...I have no idea! The same goes with Canadian & American accents, I cant tell the difference. But I must admit that I've been listening very carefully ever since I heard that Canadians apparently say 'aboot'. :-) Just some thoughts.
As soon as a Californian opens his mouth you know it.
;_)
>>As soon as a Californian opens his mouth you know it.<<
Tis true (as long as one really means "their" by "his"), but then, from the perspective of many a Californian, the same is true with Upper Midwesterners.