Do West Coast Americans have an Accent?

General Questions
#1

Yes yes, I realise that this sounds like snobbery, but I have specific reasons for thinking that they (we) don’t.

  1. When people sing (well) they sound like West Coast Americans. This is regardless of how heavy their accent is in speaking. For an example would be the songs in the movie The Commitments.

  2. An Australian friend talking with my mom said that he was softening his accent while in the US so he could be more easily understood. Further, he said that it was actual easier talking that way.

  3. As a West Coaster, I couldn’t “soften” or “lay on” the accent. I can’t even begin to think how I could try to do so. While as I can perfectly well think of how to do so with any other accent I can do myself.

  4. There is no “regional accents.” I couldn’t tell you if a person came from LA or Oregon, let alone which area of town he was born and raised in. The closest I have ever experienced was when I called the big interstate freeway “The Five” rather than “The I Five”, which is a dialect issue rather than one of accent.

And of course that everyone else from the area seems to agree that we don’t have an accent.

Why?

I notice that even just watching movies from the fifties, like Casablanca that there is some sort of accent (which I assume to be the Californian accent of the time (?)), like “Frankly my dear, I just don’t give a damn.” Or comparing Steven Hill to Peter Graves in Mission: Impossible, where Hill had it, while as Graves did not. What happened?

#2

Anyone who speaks any language has an accent. It’s difficult to ‘hear’ your own accent for the same reason it’s difficult for a fish to see water.

#3

I guess people on the west coast have an accent that is close to that considered neutral in American culture, so in that sense they have “no” accent, just like where I live the BBC kind of accent is the neutral one. To me, people who talk like that have no noticeable accent, but to you they sound like Limeys :wink:

#4

It’s “RIDE, Sally, RIDE!” not “ROY-ID, Sally, ROY-ID!”

#5

West Coast American’s possibly have an accent that is just more readily known through film and tv.

When someoneone outside America hears a Texican, New York, Boston, Southern etc accent they can tell it isn’t “that usual old American accent”. So maybe what West Coasters have is the generic American accent. It certainly is an accent but it is one many of us are used to hearing.

I have often had doofus moments when meeting Americans…“hmmmm it didn’t sound like that on tv” :smiley:

Your accent is still an accent and still a strong American accent.

New Zealanders have NO ACCENT at ALL though (haven’t you heard Peter Jackson speak!) :smiley:

#6

Well yes, certainly in the sense that we have a sound that is particular to a region, there is an “accent.” But I mean in terms of that it is one in which we aren’t emphasising any particular tonal quality. And again, pointing out the examples that there is no lessening or strengthening it, that when people sing it is how they sound (singing, supposedly using a different part of the brain), etc.

#7

I’ve never heard this term used outside of a historical* context. The people who fought alongside Sam Houston were Texicans, the people who live in Houston now are Texans.

*(I do, in fact, pronounce the ‘aitch’. ;))

#8

Yeah but did historical types have to put up with being crap typists? I hereby apologise to all Texans/Texicans :slight_smile:

#9

<ahem>

Valley-speak is rumored to still exist! You heard it here, folks.

A regional accent if I ever heard one.

#10

I grew up in LA and when I moved East there was clearly some accent, word choice, and rhythm issues people heard. And, let me add, that now, 20+ years later in Ohio still get me noticed from time-to-time. Notably, the way I pronounce words with ‘oo’ in them (boom, loom, vavoom, and so forth) is different from generic american sufficiently to cause note. I’m sure there are others.

Note, also, that when you speak of ‘west coast’ speech you’ll see a large difference between Los Angelese, San Francisco, Portland and Seattle. It’s not like it’s some large unity area or nothing.

#11

I couldn’t tell you where I read it but there is a theory that the NZ accent is where the English speaking accent is heading (though it was a NZ/Australia type article). Our accent is apparently the most recent English accent and encompasses all the lazy aspects of other accents so it absorbs parts of many accents. We are also the fastest English speaking accent around…American being the slowest (so the article I can’t quote said!).

You still probably have the most widely understood accent.

#12

[QUOTE=Jonathan Chance]
I grew up in LA and when I moved East there was clearly some accent, word choice, and rhythm issues people heard. And, let me add, that now, 20+ years later in Ohio still get me noticed from time-to-time. Notably, the way I pronounce words with ‘oo’ in them (boom, loom, vavoom, and so forth) is different from generic american sufficiently to cause note. I’m sure there are others.

[quote]

Pronunciation is a dialectical issue, as would be word choice. I can pronounce words just the same as I always do but using a French accent (i.e. nasal.)

I’ve been to all those cities, and have relatives from several, and I can’t admit to any differences. Well, beyond San Francisco Flamers, Valley Girls, Surfer Dudes, Gangstas, etc. But that’s not the West Coast “Accent”, those are Flamer, et. al. accents.

#13

if I could prevail on any mods passing through to fix that coding…

Just so it doesn’t sound like I am particularly trying to debate this, specifically I was wondering if there were any studies on the anomalies I noticed.

At the moment the closest I can come would be that, indeed there is an accent, but due to TV it has normalised in the area, and that for some reason it has become du jour to sing in such a style and most just do it because “it is the way it is done.” But that only handles two out of four points, and I’m not sure that I trust the idea that people are “all” adopting another accent to sing, particularly when it seems that people who maintain their own in singing seem to be losing a lot to do that.

#14

What do they lose?

What are they gaining? A bigger audience.

Isn’t that the answer?

If the mood ever takes you look into NZ hip hop. It is represented by many cultures some with NZ accents some without. Almost all sound American when they sing because that is the model…until you listen closer.

I think that many accents sound West Coastish when they sing because that is the model that they think is most widely understood. Money not accent.

#15

I’ve wondered the same thing. I mean… the Rolling Stones, The Who, Led Zeppelin, Rick Springfield, U2… when they sing, there’s no trace of their native accents. Before I was older I didn’t even realize they weren’t American. I’ve even noticed this of singers for whom English is not their native language. So this makes me wonder if west-coast US is the neutral ground that everyone gravitates toward when they’re singing English.

#16

[QUOTE=Sage Rat]
Well yes, certainly in the sense that we have a sound that is particular to a region, there is an “accent.” But I mean in terms of that it is one in which we aren’t emphasising any particular tonal quality.[/.QUOTE]
Yes, you do. Everyone who speaks English has an accent.

It blows me away, to be honest, that people still say “But I don’t have an accent.” Are you a mime?

#17

But then there are plenty of bands that retain their accents. Split Enz, Cold Play, Pink Floyd, Catatonia, just off the top of my head.

You must remember that a major musical influence has been American blues. Bands like the Rolling Stones were heavily influenced by the blues, it should come as no surprise that many english bands from the 60s and 70s sang with an american accent. They in turn were a major influence of many modern bands.

#18

I remember the scene where the singers were directed to pronounce “Roide Sally roide.”

#19

An Austrailian is hiking through New Zealand when he spies a local having sex with a sheep. The Australian laughs and says, ‘Back home we shear those!’ The Kiwi says, ‘Git yer own!’

#20

I should read the thread through before posting; bienville* remembered the Commitments scene more accurately. But what I remember is when he tried to correct the singers’ Irish pronunciation, he still wound up pronouncing it Irish (to my ears).