I heard that the standard accent for the United States (the newscaster accent) is based on the accent of Nebraska/Kansas.
Does that mean that if you found some country bumpkin in Nebraska he would sound educated even if he had no formal education?
In contrast if you spoke to a Missisippi person they would have that drawwwwl.
But not the Omaha rednecks?
Nah, I’ve heard that newbie newscasters who want to go national are sent to California, since Californians have no accent.
~VOW
My idea of the perfect newscaster voice is actually Bob Costas, and he is, if I recall, from St. Louis.
To me, Tom Brokaw always sounded like the perfect newscaster. He’s from South Dakota.
Is having a standardized accent for newscasters something exclusive to US culture?
Johnny Carson was born in Iowa, but move to Nebraska at the age of eight. His distinct voice has often been credited as part of his success. The US may be more comfortable with regional accents and may have less regional variation now than 50 years ago, so the concept of a newscaster voice as a particular ideal may not be as important now. But Nebraskans to tend toward a clipped, distinct, and maybe slightly nasal speech that is easily understood.
Also, it’s just regional accents, not anything to do with education. Some people in parts of the country may be considered stupid illiterates because of things they say, which indirectly feeds the stereotypes about accent. But even the educated ones can say stupid things using any accent.
When my father was in the US Army Air Force (in WW2), he was teased because of his thick Georgian accent. Rather than spend time in the stockade for brawling, he decided to emulate the accent of the renowned radio broadcaster, Edward R. Murrow. When my younger sibling and I were taught how to speak, we were rigorously drilled in correct enunciation, pronunciation and usage. Later, in my adult life, few (if any) people realized that I was born in Georgia. They all thought I was either from the Midwest or from wherever they were from.
Curiously, Mr. Murrow was born in rural North Carolina and was later raised (from the age of 6) in western Washington state. I wonder where he developed his accent. It certainly is not indicative of a North Carolinian upbringing. I must assume that his years in Edison, Washington must have colored his speech patterns.
Costas was born in Queens, and grew up on Lawn Guyland:D
When I was studying broadcast journalism, the late Harry Reasoner was held up as the perfect example of American newscaster English.
Reasoner was born in western Iowa and grew up in Minneapolis. If you listen to him you can definitely hear some “Midwestern” in his speech, as you can with Johnny Carson, Tom Brokaw, Dick Cavett (born in Nebraska), Walter Cronkite (northwestern Missouri) and some others.
But it’s not just pronunciation, there’s also a rhythm and cadence to speech. I think that’s something acquired and you won’t necessarily hear it in the Missouri River valley.
Not as a direct answer to this, but regional newscasts (in the US) often feature accents. Many places in the south, for example, will have anchors/reporters with southern accents, though they are generally not severe.
Remember too that that ‘redneck hick farmer’ may well be (1) a city dweller working in IT, appliance fabrication, insurance, etc., or (2) at minimum a high school graduate and likely a college graduate able to run a small business (a commercial farm) with knowledge of accounting, business management, the ability to forecast industry trends, etc.
If he speaks in everyday life, it’s likely in a colloquial register, the same as any of the rest of us (other than the late William F. Bucjkley). If he’s making a speech, writing a local party platform, doing a blog on 21st centuryt agribusiness, or anything similar, he’s moving up to semiformal register and will sound much more like a newscaster.
The claim of this Wikipedia article is that General American English is the closest thing to being standard in the U.S. and that it is spoken in a smeary area from eastern Nebraska to western Illinois:
I’m not sure if this is the correct location though. I grew up on a farm in northwest Ohio. It was my contention that the English of rural northwest Ohio is the closest one can find to Standard American English. Incidentally, it is blatantly false that farmers, at least the ones that I grew up with, speak like redneck hicks. There wasn’t any correlation between living on a farm and sounding like a hick.
Does Britain not have a “Received Pronunciation”?
Okay, maybe it’s just a US and UK thing. I’ve never heard of there being a standard/newscaster Canadian accent, but I’ve only listened to newscasters in Ontario and I wouldn’t be surprised if that was our standard accent.
No, Spain’s “newscaster Spanish” is based on the Castillian dialect (which must not be confused with “Spanish as spoken in Spain” - this includes a bundle of dialects). The Castilian dialect includes some unique use of pronouns which is not present in Spain’s “newscaster Spanish”.
We don’t have that much variation compared to the US. There’s a lot going on in the Maritime provinces, but that’s only about 7% of the population. West of Québec there aren’t a whole lot of differences in accent.
Not as much as it used to (even the Queen’s accent has toned down substantially from the cut-glass quality of her youth) and not at all for newsreaders. In fact, a touch of regional accent seems to be preferable (see: Huw Edwards or James Naughtie) as long as it’s not impenetrable (see: the Geordie who did the UK Big Brother voiceovers).
Although they all typically have refined accents, it seems nowadays having a noticeably regional accent is desirable in British news reading and other broadcasting.
Newsreaders and other broadcasters in Ireland often display the Montrose accent, named for the location of the main state broadcaster.
In my experience there’s no distinctly Nebraskan accent, though there are certain words which tend to mark someone as being from the greater Midwest - e.g. “acrossed” rather than “across”, and “anymore” used positively.
And of course there’s the pronunciation of Norfolk, but that is Nebraska-specific to begin with.
Drat – you’d think by now I’d be smart enough to Wikipedia a guy before I spout off. He was indeed born in Queens.
I was confusing his place of birth with his first professional broadcasting job at KMOX in St. Louis.