Accents.

[iluvben]

Could someone enlighten me into how accents came about and why people who live in different places have different accents ? Thanks :]

[blaster.]

Whats with all these threads i dnt like them :(
How the heck would i know this :s and the map thread
U all silly billyz

[iluvben]

Whats with all these threads i dnt like them :(
How the heck would i know this :s and the map thread
U all silly billyz
I've always wondered this though , so I thought I would see if anyone knew :p and hopefully someone will know so then you can know too ;D

[Virgin Mary]

Accent comes from dialect I think, which is when languages are mixed. For example, scouse is a mix of irish and lancashire. We speak received pronounciation here so meh.

[blaster.]

Accents come from tesco

[ilovejordan]

dno
all i no about accents is that mine is gay

[blaster.]

dno
all i no about accents is that mine is gay
sex line

[ilovejordan]

sex line

roflmao :(

[blaster.]

roflmao :(
"Hello this is cassie, im wearing my best for you tonight"

[ilovejordan]

roflmao no i sent one to jord before though :P

[Kasabian]

I wouldn't have a clue about my accent.
Seeing as some people from Telford speak like;
"ALRYT JOCKEY. HOW R U KID?"

[ilovejordan]

I wouldn't have a clue about my accent.
Seeing as all the people from the rough end of Telford speak like;
"ALRYT JOCKEY. HOW R U KID?"

Na your voice isn't like that

[brandon]

Separate development accounts for some accent variation. But sometimes we need to talk about the first generation of speakers of a particular language brought up in a new place. The first children to grow up in a new place are very important. The children who grow up together are a 'peer group'. They want to speak the same as each other to express their group identity. The accent they develop as they go through their childhood will become the basis for the accents of the new place. So where does their accent come from?

The first generation of children will draw on the accents of the adults around them, and will create something new. If people move to a new place in groups (as English speakers did to America, Australia and New Zealand) that group usually brings several different accents with them. The children will draw on the mixture of accents they hear and create their own accent out of what they hear. The modern accents of Australia are more similar to London accents of English than to any other accent from England -- this is probably because the founder generation (in the eighteenth century) had a large component drawn from the poor of London, who were transported to Australia as convicts. The accents of New Zealand are similar to Australian accents because a large proportion of the early English-speaking settlers of New Zealand came from Australia.

The mix found in the speech of the settlers of a new place establishes the kind of accent that their children will develop. But the first generation born in the new place will not keep the diversity of their parents' generation -- they will speak with similar accents to the others of their age group. And if the population grows slowly enough, the children will be able to absorb subsequent children into their group, so that even quite large migrations of other groups (such as Irish people into Australia) will not make much difference to the accent of the new place. Most parents know this. If someone from New York (US) marries someone from Glasgow (Scotland, UK), and these two parents raise a child in Leeds (England, UK), that child will not speak like either of the parents, but will speak like the children he (I know of such a child!) is at school with.

To understand what happened in the past we need strong evidence from both language and history. We need to know about the places that migrants came from, and something about the kinds of accents they are likely to have had.

[ilovejordan]

Either way my accents ew.

[Kasabian]

My accent sucks big time.

[Expanding]

I think accents of come form the abberiginies (spelt wrong probably) These are the first people to have lived on the land. Well thats the case in australia as my dad tells me. But where did the abbergines get there accents from, I dont know

[Zenzi]

I got mine from eBay.. It's better than yours and i got free postage.

[ilovejordan]

I got mine from eBay.. It's better than yours and i got free postage.

Thats so old ;l

[Expanding]

I dont like my accent either

[ilovejordan]

My accent sucks big time.
na its cool

[brandon]

Either way my accents ew.
Accents are not fixed. Our accents change over time as our needs change and as our sense of who we are changes and develops. Usually this happens naturally, and often unconsciously. Accents can be expected to change until we are in our early twenties. This is usually the time we come to some sort of decision about who we are. But even after that, if you want (and need) to change your accent, you can.

To change your accent you have to want to. Really want to, deep down. This usually happens without much effort because you move to a new place, mix with different people, or develop new aspirations.

If a change hasn't happened naturally but you want to change your accent, you should ask yourself why. What is it about the messages you give to people that you don't like? Are you finding it difficult to be a member of a group you want to join because you don't speak in the way the group expects? Do you need to change your badge of identity?

Sometimes it is other people's prejudice that you are responding to. Some popular prejudiced against certain groups (many Ask-A-Linguist postings suggest that a lot of people in the US are prejudiced against people from the Southern US). Do you want to accept other people's prejudice? I myself changed my pronunciation of words like book, look because of pressure. I used to pronounce look the same as Luke (/lu:k/), which a lot of people found funny, so I changed look (to the vowel of 'put') to be more like other people. But it is sad to succumb to pressure like this -- it is no different from dark skinned people using skin whitening creams to look like pale skinned people, or East Asian people having their eyelids operated on to get European looking eyes.

Anyway, if you do decide you have good reasons for changing your accent, and you want to put in some effort these are some things to do.

Identify the accent you want to speak.
Expose yourself to the accent you want as much as possible.
Try to get some friends who speak with the accent you want.
Try to make sure you are not mixing with people who will criticise you for changing your accent.

I suggest the following procedure, which has worked very well for many people:
Get a cassette tape of someone who speaks English with the accent that you would like to have, at least twenty minutes long.
Listen to the entire tape all the way through once or twice, just to become familiar with its content. Don't write it down or try to memorize it.
Listen to a brief sequence -- just a sentence or two. Rewind the tape to the beginning of that sentence.
Say the sentence aloud _with_ the tape. Don't repeat it after the tape as is done in traditional foreign language courses -- speak with the speaker. Don't worry about making mistakes, just do your best to speak simultaneously with the speaker.
Rewind to the beginning of the sentence and do this again, several times. (Ten times is not too many.)
Move to the next sentence and do the same thing.
Continue until you've worked your way through the whole tape speaking with your chosen model speaker.
The amount of time it takes for this to yield good results varies from one individual to another, depending on many factors. I'd suggest working in at least fifteen minute sessions and at least three days each week. When you become so familiar with the tape that you know it by heart or you're so bored with it that you can't stand it, choose a different tape that uses the same accent and repeat the process. Be careful not to work with any one tape so long that you start sounding as if you were trying to do an impersonation of the speaker.

[ilovejordan]

Accents are not fixed. Our accents change over time as our needs change and as our sense of who we are changes and develops. Usually this happens naturally, and often unconsciously. Accents can be expected to change until we are in our early twenties. This is usually the time we come to some sort of decision about who we are. But even after that, if you want (and need) to change your accent, you can.

To change your accent you have to want to. Really want to, deep down. This usually happens without much effort because you move to a new place, mix with different people, or develop new aspirations.

If a change hasn't happened naturally but you want to change your accent, you should ask yourself why. What is it about the messages you give to people that you don't like? Are you finding it difficult to be a member of a group you want to join because you don't speak in the way the group expects? Do you need to change your badge of identity?

Sometimes it is other people's prejudice that you are responding to. Some popular prejudiced against certain groups (many Ask-A-Linguist postings suggest that a lot of people in the US are prejudiced against people from the Southern US). Do you want to accept other people's prejudice? I myself changed my pronunciation of words like book, look because of pressure. I used to pronounce look the same as Luke (/lu:k/), which a lot of people found funny, so I changed look (to the vowel of 'put') to be more like other people. But it is sad to succumb to pressure like this -- it is no different from dark skinned people using skin whitening creams to look like pale skinned people, or East Asian people having their eyelids operated on to get European looking eyes.

Anyway, if you do decide you have good reasons for changing your accent, and you want to put in some effort these are some things to do.

Identify the accent you want to speak.
Expose yourself to the accent you want as much as possible.
Try to get some friends who speak with the accent you want.
Try to make sure you are not mixing with people who will criticise you for changing your accent.

I suggest the following procedure, which has worked very well for many people:
Get a cassette tape of someone who speaks English with the accent that you would like to have, at least twenty minutes long.
Listen to the entire tape all the way through once or twice, just to become familiar with its content. Don't write it down or try to memorize it.
Listen to a brief sequence -- just a sentence or two. Rewind the tape to the beginning of that sentence.
Say the sentence aloud _with_ the tape. Don't repeat it after the tape as is done in traditional foreign language courses -- speak with the speaker. Don't worry about making mistakes, just do your best to speak simultaneously with the speaker.
Rewind to the beginning of the sentence and do this again, several times. (Ten times is not too many.)
Move to the next sentence and do the same thing.
Continue until you've worked your way through the whole tape speaking with your chosen model speaker.
The amount of time it takes for this to yield good results varies from one individual to another, depending on many factors. I'd suggest working in at least fifteen minute sessions and at least three days each week. When you become so familiar with the tape that you know it by heart or you're so bored with it that you can't stand it, choose a different tape that uses the same accent and repeat the process. Be careful not to work with any one tape so long that you start sounding as if you were trying to do an impersonation of the speaker.

I cba to read that
someone sum it up for me ? :]

[Zenzi]

Thats so old ;l

Why're you picking at me? ;o

[Billay]

Whats with all these threads i dnt like them :(
How the heck would i know this :s and the map thread
U all silly billyz

am i a sillay billay?

[Zenzi]

I cba to read that
someone sum it up for me ? :]

get a good english speaking tape and listen to it. then write it all down. haha..


Just strap some books to your head and talk like the queen.. ;)

[ilovejordan]

Why're you picking at me? ;o

Because your annoying me


And lol at your above post

[Zenzi]

Because your annoying me


how am i doing that? i don't even know you.. ;o

[ilovejordan]

how am i doing that? i don't even know you.. ;o

I read your posts - i find them annoying

[Zenzi]

I read your posts - i find them annoying

Wow, cool. I didn't think my posts had that much impact - I should make more!

[ilovejordan]

Wow, cool. I didn't think my posts had that much impact - I should make more!

please dont :rolleyes:

[Zenzi]

please dont :rolleyes:

don't what? ^^

[iluvben]

Question answered , thread closed to prevent Cassie , I mean spam ;)