by Giselle Sparks

Created on: October 09, 2009

I was astonished after watching the documentary American Tongues. Which I highly recommend you to watch to grasp a better understanding. Now like most Americans today, I had once viewed the "English" language is just the English language. I knew of the common accents around the United States and how some people did label people because of their accent. However to my new knowledge, I have a better understanding of "dialect" and how there is so much more to the English language then most expect. Linguistics defines dialect as a variety of a language that is distinguished from other varieties of the same language by features of phonology, grammar, and vocabulary and by it's use among a group of speakers who are different than each other. Basically down to the point dialect is a special variety of language.

In American Tongues the documentary, there is a scene with a lady venting into the camera about how she was once engaged. Now off subject little, but when I think of someone being engaged, I think of love and commitment. So I was thinking wow this women is in love. However, the lady started talking about taking a trip with her fiancee. The women described the time she traveled with this man to the "south" to see his family and how it started to have effects on him. She began to elaborate about how the man started talking completely different. She quoted "His accent got heavier and heavier, it began to get filled with these hillbilly regionalisms, and hand gestures." The lady goes on to quote " The man started to become a different person, mostly language. By the time we got to our destination, I had had enough. I just knew someone with those little accents were not going to crawl around inside me. I was not going to have little southern babies who talk like that. So I got on a plane home. No questions about it."

After listening to this lady I was bewildered. I have never put much thought into accents and different stereotypes. I don't even know how my reaction would be if I was put in her situation. Nevertheless, it baffles me that she could not stand his changing dialect so much that she broke off the engagement! Where would you like me to start off on the emphasis on interpersonal communication?

Patterns of thought could have swayed the lady into making her decision to leave this man. The way members of a culture are taught to think and reason shapes the way they interpret others. She could have felt like he was a outcast and a down-right hillbilly. Which

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