Do You Speak American? - Episode Summary and Notes

Do You Speak American? A Journey Through American English

This documentary series explores the rich, diverse, and lively nature of American English, which features $65$ distinct dialects across the nation. The host, a native of Nova Scotia, Canada, with a Maritime Canada dialect, recounts his personal experience of consciously changing his speech after moving to the U.S. and working on "The Story of English" in the 1980s. Fascinated by language's evolution, he embarks on a journey to understand how American English, now a dominant global form of the language, stands today and how people answer the question, "Do you speak American?"

Regional Dialects and Their Resilience

The journey begins in coastal Maine, where linguists observe that while principal regional dialects remain strong, some distinctive local dialects are diminishing. The laconic, terse New England speaking style is still present among lobstermen in South Freeport, Maine. However, due to mass communications and population changes, there is concern that the unique Maine dialect might become rare. An example of the Maine accent is the pronunciation of "yes" as "A-Y-U-H." Linguistically, this speech pattern is part of a regional style centered on Boston, stemming from early British colonists who did not pronounce the 'r' at the end of words like 'father.' Local dialects typically thrive in isolated communities but change with an influx of outsiders.

The Host's Personal Linguistic Shift

The host revisits the Priscilla Beach Theater in Massachusetts, where he first learned that his Nova Scotian pronunciation of words like "out" (pronounced "oat") and "about" (pronounced "a boat") was not considered "correct" for the stage. This experience at age $21$ led him to consciously alter his speech.

New York City: A Global Linguistic Generator

New York City is presented as an enormous generator of language, fueled by its creative energy, Wall Street jargon, advertising slogans, and publishing empires. Operating $24/7$ through TV, cable, radio, and electronic media, it produces words and ideas that define American culture and market it globally, arguably making it the global capital of the English language. This language is characterized as restless, slangy, constantly changing, and increasingly informal.

Prescriptivism vs. Descriptivism

John Simon, an acerbic theater critic and Yugoslav immigrant, represents the prescriptivist view, fearing that American English's disregard for syntax and grammar rules will lead to its destruction. He describes the language's state as "unhealthy, poor, sad, depressing, and probably fairly hopeless," believing there is no bottom and it can always disintegrate further.

In contrast, Jesse Shidlow, the American editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, embodies the descriptivist approach. The Oxford Dictionary maintains a full-time office in New York City due to American English's global influence and inventiveness. Shidlow's work in places like the New York Public Library involves seeking new usages from diverse sources, including specialized magazines on tattooing, body piercing, and hip-hop. He notes that American English has historically embraced slang, with figures like Walt Whitman praising its poetic quality in the $19^{th}$ century. Descriptivists, like Shin, describe language as it changes, while prescriptivists, like Simon (who curses their "race"), believe in prescribed rules to preserve it. Simon argues that descriptivists elevate "uneducated" usage to law, leading society to be led "by the nose" by the uneducated. Descriptivists, however, state they label such usage as non-standard while still recording it.

The Influence of Hip-Hop and Black English

Hip-hop is identified as a major influence on mainstream American English. Dr. Cutler, an academic, explains its appeal to white suburban teenage boys who, in forming their identities, may emulate the "urban black male" as a symbol of masculinity. This can lead to the adoption of hip-hop language and cultural trappings, including derogatory terms like "hoes" as a way to resolve anxieties about young women. Examples of words that have crossed over from hip-hop into the mainstream include:

• "$mad$" as a quantifier (e.g., "mad real," "mad raining")

• "$my ext{ } bad$" (meaning "I made a mistake")

• "$bling-bling$" (referring to expensive jewelry)

• "$what's ext{ } up, ext{ } B?$"

The Evolution of Written English

While written English traditionally preserved Standard English, it is currently undergoing significant changes. Instant messaging (IMing) is presented as a recent "threat" to written standards, with common abbreviations like "$OMG$" (Oh My God), "$G2G$" (got to go), "$JC$" (just chilling), and "$LOL$" (laugh out loud). Teenagers, who spend considerable time IMing, often forgo capitalization, periods, and punctuation. Even formal publications like The New Yorker and The New York Times now feature a wide variety of colloquial or slangy language in their articles, reflecting a general increase in informality in written English over the last $100$ years, particularly the last $30$ to $40$ years. Despite criticisms from prescriptivists like John Simon, descriptivists argue that language change is inevitable.

Immigration and the Spanish Question

New York City has historically been a major point of entry for immigrants. Today, Spanish is widely spoken, raising the practical question of whether Hispanic immigrants will adopt English as previous immigrant groups did, or if Spanish is beginning to replace or significantly alter English. The documentary hints at revisiting this question later in its journey.

The Quest for Standard American English

The journey continues to Philadelphia, considered a "cradle" of American democracy and speech. Bill Leof, director of the Atlas of North American English, discusses the concept of a "broadcast standard pronunciation." This standard, though not fixed, converges towards a non-local pattern that has evolved. It originally drew from British Received Pronunciation, modeled in London in the early $19^{th}$ century, influencing major U.S. cities like Boston, New York, Savannah, Charleston, and Richmond. This pattern included "r-less" pronunciation, where "car" was "cah" and "store" was "stoah." Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) is cited as a prime example of this upper-class "r-less" New York speech pattern where the 'r' was only pronounced if followed by a vowel, as heard in his use of "storm" not "storm." This British-modeled 't' pronunciation (e.g., "shattering" and "utter good faith") persisted until the end of World War I. Post-World War II, a significant "flip" occurred: New Yorkers and others began to pronounce their 'r's when speaking carefully, marking a shift away from imitating British speech. Leof posits that Philadelphia uniquely shaped American speech due to its original 'r'-pronouncing pattern, which then migrated westward across the continent.

The Midland Dialect and Linguistic Insecurity

Moving west to Ohio, the program introduces the Midland dialect, bridging northern and southern speech varieties. Linguist Dennis Preston highlights a deep-seated American linguistic insecurity: feeling that because English was not invented in America, Americans might not speak it "best." This is balanced by American populism and a desire not to be "stuffy" or overly correct. Preston's experiments involve asking people to draw maps identifying dialect areas and pinpointing where they believe "least correct" or "most correct" English is spoken. Often, the U.S. South and New York City are cited for "bad" English, while the Midland region (Ohio, Michigan, Northern Indiana, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska) is generally perceived as the home of "normal" or "correct" American English— "without an accent." Despite negative perceptions, Southern and New York accents can also be found charming.

Pittsburghese: A Badge of Identity

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, offers an example of a community clinging to its accent as a badge of identity and local pride. Linguist Barbara Johnstone studies "Pittsburghese," a distinctive way of talking specific to the area. Examples include:

• "$Yin$" (or "$Yinz$"), derived from old Scotch-Irish words, meaning the plural of "you" (e.g., "$ext{Yinz } goin' ext{ } dahntahn?$ ").

• Pronunciation of "out" as "oat," "in" as "een," "down" as "dar," and "town" as "tarn."

• Terms like "$Babushka$" (headscarf).

• "$Blitzburgh$" (drinking town with a football team).

• "$chip ext{ } tam ext{ } D$" (sliced ham).

• "$jag-off$" (anyone who annoys a Pittsburgher, often invoked with phrases like "tell them the Steelers suck").

Johnstone emphasizes that local accents connect people to places and communities, reaffirming the importance of place in a globalized world.

The Pursuit of Correctness and the Northern Cities Vowel Shift

Americans express considerable concern for linguistic correctness, especially in written language. Evidence includes "grammar hotlines" across the U.S. and Canada, which receive calls from various sources including the United Nations, lawyers, and even the White House. While spoken English boasts roughly $60$ dialects globally (e.g., Scottish brogue, Texas drawl, Nigerian clipped speech), maintaining a common "graph" (written rules) is seen as essential for universal communication.

Newspapers, like Ohio's Columbus Dispatch, play a crucial role in upholding written standards. Assistant Managing Editor Kirk Arnau acts as a "language watchdog." While advocating for informal and conversational language to be accessible, he stresses the need to prevent the language from "sliding into the abyss" by policing misuse. Common misuses include:

• "$importantly$ " when "important" is meant (as "importantly" means to act as though one is important).

• "$nonplussed$ " misunderstood to mean "unperturbed," actually meaning "bewildered."

• "$bemused$ " misunderstood to mean "amused," actually meaning "bewildered" or "preoccupied."

Arnau notes that pervasive spoken journalism from radio and TV can infect newspaper copy, highlighting the distinct discipline of written versus spoken communication.

In a fascinating discovery, Bill Leof and his colleagues have identified the "Northern Cities Vowel Shift" in the Great Lakes region (Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit), affecting approximately $34$ million people. This area, once close to network pronunciation, is now moving further away. This shift involves a revolutionary change in short vowel pronunciation, which has been stable for a thousand years. For example, the word "black" is increasingly being pronounced like "block." This shift has a domino effect on other vowels, potentially leading to serious misunderstandings (e.g., "bosses" sounding like "basses"). This finding is surprising given the widespread influence of mass media and suggests that North Americans in different regions may be growing further apart linguistically.

African-American English and Linguistic Profiling

Detroit, the former home of Motown and current thriving hip-hop scene, provides context for examining African-American English. John Baugh, a professor of linguistics from Stanford University, demonstrates "linguistic profiling" via an experiment involving rental housing inquiries. He calls advertisers using an African-American accent, then a Latino accent, and finally his natural, neutral American accent. His results generally show that minority dialects, particularly in affluent communities, fare less well, indicating prejudice based on both race and economic class.

Black English is often mistakenly considered "bad" or "lazy" English. However, its history and grammar are as deep and consistent as any other English dialect globally. Its origins trace back to the $18^{th}$ and $19^{th}$ century slave trade, where British and American slavers introduced English to African middlemen, leading to pidgin English. On Bunce Island, Sierra Leone, a slave fort, traders deliberately separated slaves speaking different languages to prevent revolt, forcing them to create their own pidgin. This early "slave English" is the very origin of contemporary African-American English. Faint whispers of this slave English, known as Gullah and Geechee, could still be heard $20$ years prior on South Carolina islands like Kiawah, Edisto, Daufuskie, and Wando, spoken by older residents like Benjamin Bigan and Janie Hunter. How does understanding about dialect relate to speech-language pathology?

The Ann Arbor Case and Ebonics Controversy

When rural Southern Black populations migrated to Northern cities, they brought their unique English. The documentary highlights a case in Ann Arbor, Michigan, $25$ years ago. At the Martin Luther King school, Black students from a housing project, including Dwayne, Asen, and Key, were being placed in special education classes because their teachers perceived their African-American English as a sign of inability, rather than a distinct linguistic background. Affected mothers, like Annie, filed a lawsuit, arguing their children were not being educated equally due to a language barrier. Social worker Ruth Rler, realizing the discrimination, consulted legal aid, leading to a landmark court decision. Lawyer Ken Lewis initially focused on poverty, but then tied the issue to race, arguing that the language barrier adversely impacted only Black youngsters. The federal judge formally acknowledged African-American Vernacular English as a significant linguistic barrier to academic achievement and confirmed the school district's insensitivity. Years later, a similar argument in Oakland, California, where Black English was termed "Ebonics" and claimed to be a separate language, caused a national storm. The importance of code-switching for professional success is underscored, demonstrating that while African-American English is a valid linguistic system, individuals might need to adapt their language skills for different audiences and job opportunities. Ken Lewis mentions grappling with his own $15$-year-old son's evolving language.

Hip-Hop and Urban Black English Today

Hip-hop artists, such as the Athletic League crew, demonstrate how "the street" continues to influence the linguistic mainstream. Urban Black English features specific grammatical structures like "$we ext{ } going$ " (for "we are going"), "$he ext{ } start$ " (for "he starts"), and "$we ext{ } be ext{ } going$ " (for habitual action). Beyond grammar, it exhibits a rich wordplay, spinning new meanings from words like "$stacked$ " (crowded venue), "$live$ " (energetic audience), "$vibing$ " (connecting), "$sick$ " and "$ill$ " (excellent), and "$nasty$ " (meaning high quality, even "$pro-nasty$ " for professional grade). These new meanings from hip-hop and rap are rapidly entering American English, shaping its ongoing evolution.

Conclusion and Future Journey

The episode concludes by teasing the next journey into the dialects of the American South, including Cajun and Texas talk, reinforcing the vast linguistic landscape of the United States. The program offers companion resources via its website, DVD, VHS, and a book to delve deeper into American English. How does understanding about dialect relate to speech-language pathology? 

Funding and Support

"Do You Speak American?" was made possible by funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, promoting excellence in the humanities. Additional support was provided by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Ford Foundation, Rosalyn P. Walter, and the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations.