Activity 6

This was a very interesting activity. Before this, I did not realize all the different accents that existed in the United States. I knew of the Southern and New England accents and because of that, I had the easiest time picking out those two accents. The Southern accent extended the /i/ and the New England accent dropped the /r/ sound in one of the sound clips.

I was slightly aware that the North had an accent. I had been told by some friends that live outside of Wisconsin that I had an accent, but never really believed them until I took this quiz. It was then that I realized in the North we pronounce our /o/’s differently. After thinking about it, I realize that this is true about me and others in the North, as well.

I had never heard of the rest of the areas having an accent before. This made it very hard to place them in a particular area, and as a result, I got most of them wrong. I found it very interesting that the midland region is considered “General American”. I never realized there was an area in the United States that was considered to have no accent. After listening to all the sound clips, I now understand why it can sometimes be very difficult to communicate with someone, even if they are speaking the same language but are from a different area of the country. I have had several experiences speaking with people from the southern states where it is difficult for me to understand them and visa versa. I think these types of situations are even more frustrating than the difficulty communicating due to speaking different languages.

I did pretty well on the quiz of identifying words. I needed the hints to figure out most of them, however. I had the most problems with the “grade” one. Even with the hint, I could not figure this out. I think it was because of how fast it was spoken. At the end of the quiz when it gave the word in a complete sentence, the word seemed more obvious. I think this shows just how important context clues are when communicating with people from different regions of the United States. I found the writing below the quiz really interesting. I realized that some sounds were pronounced differently in different regions, but had assumed that as methods of mass communication increased over the past years, these regional differences would decrease. This, surprisingly, is not really the case according to the quiz. It said that dozens of different pronunciations are developing throughout the country. It also mentioned that some areas which had different pronunciations have been lost.

These quizzes made me realize just how diverse the language can be in one country. Another regional language issue that would be interesting to look at would be the connotations associated with various words in different regions of the United Sates. The different connotations can certainly be a communication barrier at times.

Have you ever had trouble communicating with someone from a different region of the United States because of how they pronounced certain words?