When I saw "The Glass Menagerie," the actors were talking with absolutely charming accents. Maybe it's just me, but I thought their accent was different from the stereotypical Southern accent that you hear on TV. Was it because they were middle class, or maybe from a different region...? I just hate it when people discredit that dreamy sort of English...
Are there different Southern accents?
I quite like the Southern American accent - the long, drawn out, laid back draaaahhhwwwwlll sounds so cool, reflecting a relaxed, rather lazy sort of easy going lifestyle. They all seem to talk as if they have all the time in the world to get those words out as they sit out in their rocking chairs on their porches sipping mint juleps and eating jambalaya and gazing out at the cotton fields shimmering in the blazing sunshine of an Alabama afternoon. Sounds like sheer unadulterated bliss.....pro tem.
People along the Atlantic coast tend to have a non-rhotic dialect... This is similar to the dialect of many in the deep south (southern Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama). However, in Texas, Tennessee, and the northern regions of the aforementioned states, it is a rhotic dialect...
So yes, there are several different Southern American varieties, but you can tell they are all similar. Also, it varies according to race and economic situation typically.
So yes, there are several different Southern American varieties, but you can tell they are all similar. Also, it varies according to race and economic situation typically.
Yes, there certainly are different Southern accents. Different social classes also may have different accents.
That's not standard Texan at all. She's speaking a Texan variety of AAVE, but do not think that is how a typical person from Texas would speak (maybe a typical person from Dallas :-P)
The accents in Glass Menagerie are similar--but not identical--to my favorite American dialect, Virginia Tidewater.
I'd read someplace that there were some 26 different dialects in the South. Non-rhotic Southern American English--which is the type you're describing--is reputed to be rapidly disappearing.
I'd read someplace that there were some 26 different dialects in the South. Non-rhotic Southern American English--which is the type you're describing--is reputed to be rapidly disappearing.
"So yes, there are several different Southern American varieties, but you can tell they are all similar. Also, it varies according to race and economic situation typically."
To my ears Upland Southern or Appalachian speech bears little resemblance to the Tidewater accent--at least no more than New England speech resembles Middle Atlantic. I think our tendency to lump them together under the geographic term "Southern" confuses things.
To my ears Upland Southern or Appalachian speech bears little resemblance to the Tidewater accent--at least no more than New England speech resembles Middle Atlantic. I think our tendency to lump them together under the geographic term "Southern" confuses things.
This is an example of a North Carolina accent
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj3iNxZ8Dww
Is she from upper class or lower class? hmmmm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj3iNxZ8Dww
Is she from upper class or lower class? hmmmm
"To my ears Upland Southern or Appalachian speech bears little resemblance to the Tidewater accent--at least no more than New England speech resembles Middle Atlantic. I think our tendency to lump them together under the geographic term "Southern" confuses things."
Appalachian isn't really Southern in the traditional sense, although it has definitely influenced the coastal south somewhat in the same way that midwestern English influenced middle-class speakers in northern areas like Boston and New York.
Appalachian English derives from the Scots-Irish, the ancestors of what are now considered the Ulster Scots in Northern Ireland, dating from about 1730.
Appalachian isn't really Southern in the traditional sense, although it has definitely influenced the coastal south somewhat in the same way that midwestern English influenced middle-class speakers in northern areas like Boston and New York.
Appalachian English derives from the Scots-Irish, the ancestors of what are now considered the Ulster Scots in Northern Ireland, dating from about 1730.
The clip of the South Carolina teen doesn't show any kind of Southern accent; the speaker speaks General American.
She's probably a military brat.
She's probably a military brat.
Are we referring to the same clip?
The pretty girl doesn't have a Southern accent; I should know, I was born and raised in Tennessee. Miss Teen USA from South Carolina? That is the one, isn't it?
The pretty girl doesn't have a Southern accent; I should know, I was born and raised in Tennessee. Miss Teen USA from South Carolina? That is the one, isn't it?
Yes, she's the one, and she does NOT sound like a girl from Illinois or Massachusetts would.