Neutral American English

Guest   Sun Oct 09, 2005 4:35 am GMT
>>The truth is that there is no such thing as a neutral accent as everyones perception is different.<<
Which accent do they use for television news then?
Guest   Sun Oct 09, 2005 8:51 am GMT
<<Which accent do they use for television news then?>>

If you realize that someone has an accent it negates any sense of neutrality because by definition an accent is a bias towards a particular speech pattern.
Kirk   Sun Oct 09, 2005 9:05 am GMT
<<Which accent do they use for television news then?>>

There isn't a single one, at least in the US. People speak differently. You'll notice clear differences in different reporters' and broadcasters' speech.
Adam   Sun Oct 09, 2005 10:26 am GMT
americans speak bad english
Guest   Sun Oct 09, 2005 10:28 am GMT
"americans speak bad english "

Not as bad as the Northern English.
Missy   Sun Oct 09, 2005 3:42 pm GMT
Northern Cities English? :)
Guest   Sun Oct 09, 2005 3:49 pm GMT
Northern Englishmen will do.
Guest   Sun Oct 09, 2005 4:03 pm GMT
>>There isn't a single one, at least in the US. People speak differently. You'll notice clear differences in different reporters' and broadcasters' speech.<<
I thought they trained them to remove the regional features of their accent.
Uriel   Sun Oct 09, 2005 5:04 pm GMT
I don't think there's some coherent "training program" out there!
Guest   Sun Oct 09, 2005 5:33 pm GMT
>>I don't think there's some coherent "training program" out there!<<
Then how do they know which features to remove? They just guess?
Adam   Sun Oct 09, 2005 5:43 pm GMT
"Not as bad as the Northern English. "

We speak English - the Yankee Doodle Dandies just try to.
Travis   Sun Oct 09, 2005 8:39 pm GMT
>>Maine? Yeah, those down-easterners sure have no accent whatsoever...why does this question even matter, anyway? To me, most people from both Iowa and Maine have accents. Even people here in SE MN have accents. I was playing the game Sorry with some people yesterday...they all kept saying 'sari' (as compared to 'soh-ree')...it got kind of hysterically annoying after a while. To everyone, every English speaker has an accent except those from where they live.<<

Long live ["so:.r\i]! And that said, I myself strongly notice when people pronounce "sorry" as something like ["sA:.r\i] or even ["sO:.r.\i], which I honestly find a bit annoying at times, despite such being in "General American".
Uriel   Sun Oct 09, 2005 10:52 pm GMT
I say "sari", Travis -- when I apologize at all.

I don't know that there is a concerted effort to standardize the accents of newscasters, so I don't know that there is a "list of banned dialectical features" per se. That said, you probably won't hear a lot of Southerners or New Englanders with heavy regional accents on the air, but as for minor variations within the rest of the country, I don't know how much people bother to weed them out, since most people won't notice them anyway, or care if they do.
Kirk   Sun Oct 09, 2005 11:25 pm GMT
<<I thought they trained them to remove the regional features of their accent.>>

Sure, they often try to, but if you listen carefully you'll hear little things which will tip off where they're from--the things to listen for are those features which aren't generally stigmatized but are still indicative of certain regions.

<<I don't know that there is a concerted effort to standardize the accents of newscasters, so I don't know that there is a "list of banned dialectical features" per se. That said, you probably won't hear a lot of Southerners or New Englanders with heavy regional accents on the air, but as for minor variations within the rest of the country, I don't know how much people bother to weed them out, since most people won't notice them anyway, or care if they do.>>

Exactly. I've always felt US Broadcast English is more defined but what it isn't than what it is. As you said, it's not noticeably Southern or from some other obviously regional dialect, but there are far more features that are permissible than those that aren't.
Travis   Sun Oct 09, 2005 11:29 pm GMT
>>I say "sari", Travis -- when I apologize at all.<<

That's the thing; /"sAri/ is far more common in the US than /"sori/, especially when pronounced with [o] rather than [O], which is why it's sort of weird that it still seems somewhat "off" to myself nonetheless.