U10 Exercises Variation of Ascents Across the United States

Listening to the data that was collected, it was a very effective tool when comparing the different accents across our nation. When listening to the clips of people from the New England area, there is a dialect that places emphasis on the sound of r, and there is a different pronunciation in words like hawk, cot, and caught. Also, they put less emphasis on the sounds at the end of the word.  The New England area was settled by people from England and Ireland and they brought their patterns of speech with them (O’Grady, 2010, 490). The people from the southern part of the United States pronounce their words with a softer accent, where words blend together. They also use double modals, like might should (494), in order to sound less forceful to the people they’re talking to. I think the accent is influenced by the agricultural living from the past. We tend to think of the south as farmlands and hardworking people. The accents probably took place due to a lack of experience in formal environments. They used their language to communicate what has to be done, but there was never a need for the formal pronunciation of words. When listening to the audio clip of someone from California, it became very difficult for me to hear an accent. Their pronunciation of words was clear, and I did not notice any variations in their speech pattern that would classify this area of the country as different.  O’Grady states that places like California are beginning to shift the way the vowels are pronounced (496). This could be due to less emphasis being placed on pronunciation in schools and more emphasis being placed on content. The different dialects of our country represent the immigrants who came to our country and settled in different areas. The dialects give us an understanding of how our country evolved and where people settled and formed their own dialect of the English language.

The IPA could be used to capture the accents by forming a section called the American variation of the English language. The section could be very effective for the native speakers of English who are traveling to different parts of the country or an international student who will be studying in Milwaukee. People who travel to different parts of our country will experience a language that has a diversity of dialects and pronunciations. The section of American dialect will provide the person with more awareness of the language and a better understanding for how people communicate in that section of the United States.