Hillary Clinton is taking a bit of stick over her tendency to change her accent to suit her audience while on the campaign trail. I say "taking a bit of stick," a British expression, because even though I've lived in Flarduh for 18 years and lived in the Carolinas (both of 'em) before that, my husband is English and I have visited England now and again myself and, well, I'm a bit of a linguistic polyglot myself.
I myself doubt it was intentional; somehow, when I go home to Carolina, I pretty soon find myself talking Carolina too. It just happens without my noticing it. In any case, talking Arkansas to a bunch of South Carolinians isn't going to win anyone any gold stars. I know that Rush Limbaugh and Wonkette probably can't tell the difference, but between the brogue of low country South Carolina ("like a Scot trying to imitate Br'er Rabbit" an English friend described it) and the hillbilly snarl of Arkansas there is a vast difference. She probably started talking southern reflexively, because you just do, because every southerner knows (and no northerner understands) that every southern accent is different.
Al Sharpton was asked what he thought about this.
[quote begins from Beth Fouhy, Breitbart.com, "Clinton's Headed South: Will Drawl?"]
For his part, Sharpton said he didn't notice Clinton's speech pattern changing much when she speaks to black audiences, but said it wouldn't bother him if it did.
"When she speaks on the Senate floor, she's not as animated," Sharpton said. "And it's normal for speech cadences to change because of the style of your speech. Maybe she learned it in Arkansas. But I don't think it's a programmed, intentional thing."
[quote ends]
He's so right. Besides, doing an Arkansas accent in lowcountry Carolina wouldn't cut a bit of ice with the locals. You might not be able to tell the difference, but we can.
When I was growing up in Lancaster, South Carolina, an upcountry milltown, we had endless fun mocking my mom's accent. She said "air" for "ear," "bear" for "beer," and pronounced her own name "Calline" instead of "Caroline." Her family's accents were even more outlandish: "stee-it" for "state" and "stow" for "store." But those same low country relatives secretly wondered why Calline was 'llowing her chirren to grow up talking with the vulgar accent of a no-account milltown in the South Carolina upcountry.
I mean, consider John Edwards. I knew the first time I heard him speak that he was from a certain part of North Carolina; the only thing that threw me was that he doesn't say "bovver" for "bother" or "eiver" for "either" the way my friend Mark (a well-educated tax attorney who grew up about 20 miles away from Edwards) does when he's "down home." I assume he trained himself not to, the way I trained myself to pronounce "want" and "wont" differently.
But there are some pronunciations that the southern accents of educated southerners who retained them have in common. I grew up saying "cain't" for "can't", "dawg" for "dog" (but never "Gawd" for "God" or "lawg" for "log," which is hillbilly), and "raing" for "ring." In fact, I was taught in school that the following words are homophones (words that sound alike but that are spelled differently): "wont" and "want" and "on" for "own."
I find if I'm around other southerners I just automatically
start pronouncing those words the way God intended. I also say
"ya'll" which means, when properly used, "you all," and is only ever
used collectively. If I say "Are you go'n' go to the sto'?" to a
friend, she knows that I am asking about her individual intentions. If
I say "Are ya'll go'n'' got to the sto'?" she knows I'm inquiring not
only about her own intentions, but those of a wider set of which she is
a member. Southerners instinctively know the difference; morons who
don't understand that "ya'll" fills a gap in the English language don't
ever get it and piss us off by saying to us, "Where did ya'll get those
sandals ya'll are wearing, Wal-Mart?"
To Rush Limbaugh and Wonkette, Hillary's "southern twang" may have sounded like "pandering," but every Southerner knows that this kind of pandering don't work. Just cause ya'll can't tell one for the other don't mean we can't. It's more likely just to be a wish not to sound like you're putting on a northern accent (I've been accused, I can assure you) out of the sense that the accent for your own people isn't good enough.
I've deliberately put on a Southern accent when it seemed like a good idea, although never while in the south, where it's wasted. The first time was when I was in New York City many years ago. Many New Yorkers find it charming and slow down their rapid-fire way of talking so that I can understand them because, you see, they assume that a southern accent means you're stupid. I doubt that's what Hillary was going for. I also have used it in England for the purpose of flirting. (Whereas the Brits roll their eyes at Americans who try to talk British, many English men like southern accents. They find them charming.)
Of course "multilingual" or a "polyglot" haven't till now included the ability to do many different accents, but hey, the language is constantly evolving, right?
Here's Wonkette:
[quote begins from Wonkette, Hillary tries to explain a way her tendency to accentuate her pandering]
People are starting to give Hillary Clinton all manners of heck for constantly changing up her dialects depending on who she’s speaking in front of. You know: a Southern “lilt” below the Mason Dixon, “black preacher” for African-American churches, a haunting and otherworldly keen when she meets with the ancient banshees that sustain her black heart with the souls of newly deceased infants… Well, the jokes on the critics because she’s got a breezy litlle explanation for all of it:
“I think America is ready for a multilingual president.”Argh! No, no, NO! You do NOT get to pass off your cohort of funny voices as DIFFERENT LANGUAGES. Not even the President, with his fake Texas accent, does that!
[quote ends]
Okay, fair point: multilingual doesn't really mean "able to speak in many different"---or as Wonkette would have it, "funny"---accents. But you, surely, can see Hillary's point. As for "linguistic polyglot," that phrase came from the newspaper article, not Hillary herself. But I'll accept it and I'm sure Hillary will as well.
Emulating the local accent---provided you get it right, which is crucial--- is a good way, of course, of creating rapport with an audience and to convey "I'm somehow like you." But of course you can't afford to get caught out doing it or people accuse you of trying to create rapport...as if that's a BAD thing. Anyway, I sort of doubt she'll be doing it again.
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