The southern accent is an American accent which is spoken in many states of the southern USA. It differs significantly from that of standard American English. One difference is the pronunciation of the diphthong in words such as time and nice. In the southern accent many speakers use a monophthong. However, it is not the vowel heard in words such as hat and dance.
The vowel in words such as hat and dance is a low front vowel. However, in words such as time and nice, the southern accent uses a low central vowel. The result is that the following words are clearly distinguished in the southern accent:
a/I
back/bike
bat/bite
cat/kite
fan/fine
had/hide
laugh/life
sad/side
sight/sat
vine/van
A common misperception of the southern accent is that the words illustrated are pronounced the same. However, this is inaccurate. Words such as cat and laugh have a low front vowel, and words such as kite and lfe have a low central vowel. The difference in tongue position results in different pronunciations.
No comments:
Post a Comment