Which North American accent is the most neutral sounding?
In your opinion, which of these five speakers has the most neutral sounding accent (for North America)? You can hear the recordings @
http://site1.afraid.org/~rom/neutral.wav
Now, I know that there is no such thing as a completely "neutral" accent, but I just wanted to know if people perceive the same accent as sounding the most neutral compared to other accents.
The most neutral is probably the fella introducing each of them.
The first one sounds like he could get himself a part in "Deliverance" should they ever decide to remake it.........."Squeal like a pig boy....eeh...eeh". The second sounds like a paedophile and the third.....well to be honest I couldn't really concentrate for that lisp!!
<<The most neutral is probably the fella introducing each of them.>>
Oh! It was you- I've just listened again Rom.
1) Southern US, probably Virginia, not neutral
2) annoying, but pretty neutral
3) sounded Canadian, not neutral
4) Eastern US or Texas, pretty neutral
5) within 200 miles of NYC, not neutral
I think #2 was the most neutral of the five, but #4 was the one that I naturally paid least attention to his voice, so it was pretty neutral and relatively pleasant sounding.
Which North American accent is the most neutral sounding?
None. The idea of a "neutral" accent is an entirely subjective construct.
Subjective or not, it's very important.
>>
1) Southern US, probably Virginia, not neutral
2) annoying, but pretty neutral
3) sounded Canadian, not neutral
4) Eastern US or Texas, pretty neutral
5) within 200 miles of NYC, not neutral
I think #2 was the most neutral of the five, but #4 was the one that I naturally paid least attention to his voice, so it was pretty neutral and relatively pleasant sounding.
<<
You were right the first one was a southern accent--Atlanta, Georgia. The second accent from Idaho Falls, Idaho--I've noticed that the accent from Eastern Washington to Montana has that funny twang to it. #3 was actually not Canadian--it was from Caribou, Maine. #4--lol. Not Eastern US or Texas. It was actually the Pacific NW accent (Vancouver, BC to be precise) I've noticed that this seems to be the hardest accent for people to identify correctly--as people who try to guess my accent tend to always guess Eastern US too. :) I wonder why-- people from the Pacific NW can easily recognize Eastern US accents. I guess people don't hear the Pacific NW accent that much or something. Like the Midwest, just about everyone from the Pacific NW assumes that the Pacific NW has the most "neutral" accent in North America, and that all television broadcasts are based on it. #5 was from St Louis, Missouri.
Seattle, where I'm living, speaks a very neutral English. For example, they say "ænt" for 'aunt' and my East Coast pronunciation of the word ("ahnt") sometimes causes raised eyebrows. 'Gasoline' is gæ-so-leen not GÆSS-leen like New York or "gæ-zo-leen like some parts of Maryland and Pennsylvania. 'Pretty little thing' is just "prit-ee lit-el thing" , nothing more colorful like the Texan "per-Dee liD-el thEng."
>>Seattle, where I'm living, speaks a very neutral English. For example, they say "ænt" for 'aunt' and my East Coast pronunciation of the word ("ahnt") sometimes causes raised eyebrows. 'Gasoline' is gæ-so-leen not GÆSS-leen like New York or "gæ-zo-leen like some parts of Maryland and Pennsylvania. 'Pretty little thing' is just "prit-ee lit-el thing" , nothing more colorful like the Texan "per-Dee liD-el thEng."<<
Except in places where the local dialect is specifically deprecated or somehow very noticably divergent (or very noticably conservative, conversely), most people think that their local dialect sounds "neutral", "standard", and or "accentless", even when their local dialect is really not such at all when one considers the actual dialect continuum which it exists in. Consequently, I would not consider your own subjective judgements about your dialect as particularly reliable with respect to judging how close your own dialect is to some sort of "average" North American English.
Travis, my friend,
It's not all subjective. The fact that virtually no references to the English of Seattle or other Pacific Northwestern cities exist in any of the linguistic literature that is out there says something about how most linguists perceive it. Though I live in Seattle, my own speech actually reflects the Maryland - Washington D.C. area where I was born.
<<The fact that virtually no references to the English of Seattle or other Pacific Northwestern cities exist in any of the linguistic literature that is out there says something about how most linguists perceive it.>>
That's untrue. I'm reading a book called "Acoustic Vowel Variation in New World English" right now which mentions some peculiarities of the Pacific Northwest speech. While historically there may have been little mention of features specific to this region, linguistic scholarship has in the relatively recent past started noting some emerging regional trends there. As the Pacific Northwest has become more settled and time has gone by, it's not surprising regional patterns have begun to spring up.
The fact that Rom's initial recording (he's from the Pacific Northwest) struck me as being clearly different than my speech (before he revealed where he was from) points to the fact that not all Western NAE dialects are the same and that regional differences do exist. This may not have been as true or the results inconclusive even 50 years ago but the differences are more obvious today and recent linguistic research has clearly pointed to that.
Kirk,
I'm not going to say that you're all wet, in fact, I would like to read the book you mentioned. Nevertheless, I think it's still too early to tell if English in the Pacific Northwest is changing despite the population build-up. In the long run, Seattle is probably going to lose population and will once again become somewhat of a backwater. Many Boeing jobs are going overseas; Microsoft is sinking and Los Angeles and Vancouver B.C. both have better harbors than Seattle so you can tell right now where all the trade and the money are headed.
The main differences I have noticed between the American English of California and the Pacific Northwest are not in accent or pronunciation but just the slang. For example, I've heard transplanted Californians up here use 'lobsterized" for "sunburned" (Who but a Californian would think up something like that?) which I think is kind of cute then there's "Yes! Duh, retarded and way cool" which native Washingtonians don't seem to be adopting. They are more conservative today than they were in the 1960's and '70's when new Californianisms associated with pop culture were adopted virtually over night.
I'm running out of time right now but will be happy to continue the discussion with you in another post. It's always good to hear from you whether we agree or not and I don't think that I ever totally disagree with you.
Take Care!
Brennus
"Subjective or not, it's very important."
Why?
>>That's untrue. I'm reading a book called "Acoustic Vowel Variation in New World English" right now which mentions some peculiarities of the Pacific Northwest speech.<<
Which peculiarities does it mention?
Have listened all five accents in Rom's recordings. The first is definitely a southern accent, always the easiest to discern. The other four sound like what many linguists call "Emerging General American" to me. I heard nothing that indicates Canada or the northeastern United States. Men I've met from Chicago in Seattle have a bit of an accent (i.e. "Lenora is four blæks over" = Lenora is four blocks over") but I heard nothing here that sounded like them.
Of course, listening to recordings are not exactly the same thing as listening to these people in person for about 20 or 30 minutes where I might pick up more subtle variations but I think it's safe to say that the last four speakers all spoke in essence, a neutral (General American) type English. If I had to really narrow it down to which speaker was the most neutral sounding, I would say it was number 2.
Rom - Thanks for posting this.