Do western americans have accents?

[Charlemagne120]

NY accents accentuate the long E and short A sounds in words prominantly.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Apparently though the Professor at Harvard has some opponents when talking about whether California (especially Northern California) has a dialect.

This page is linked from the 'American Dialect' Link's page:

http://www.geocities.com/Broadway/1906/dialects.html

Pacific Southwest (15) -
The first English speakers arrived here from New York, Ohio, Missouri, New England, and other parts of the Northeast and Midwest in the 1840s, bringing the Northern and North Midland dialects with them. Words originally used by the gold miners of this period are still used today: pay dirt (valuable discovery), pan out (to succeed), and goner (doomed person). The early twentieth century saw an influx of people from the South and other parts of the West. The people here are particularly fond of creating new slang and expressions, and, since Hollywood is located here, these quickly get spread to the rest of the country and the world (the influence of Buffy the Vampire Slayer was examined in Verbatim : part one, part two). During the late 1970s and early 1980s, an extreme exaggeration of this dialect that came to be known as "Valley Girl" or "Surfer Dude" was popular among teenagers and much parodied in the media with phrases like "gag me with a spoon" and "barf me back to the stone age." Sean Penn in Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Whoopie Goldberg in her one women show are two famous examples.

Though San Francisco is different:

San Francisco Urban (8)
Unlike the rest of California, which in the early twentieth century saw an influx of people from the South and other parts of the West, San Francisco continued to be settled by people from the Northeast and Northern Midwest, and elements of their dialects (North Midland, Upper Midwestern, Inland Northern) can be found. Mission dialect, spoken by Irish Catholics in a specific part of the city is very much like the New York City dialect.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Charlemagne: from the site I just linked:

New York City (5)
Unlike Boston and other urban dialects, New York City stands by itself and bears little resemblence to the other dialects in this region. It is also the most disliked and parodied of any American dialect (even among New Yorkers), possibly because many Americans tend dislike large cities. When an R comes after a vowel, it is often dropped. IR becomes OI, but OI becomes IR, and TH becomes D as in "Dey sell tirlets on doity-doid street" and fugedaboudit (forget about it). This pronounciation is particularly associated with Brooklyn but exists to some extent throughout the city. The thickness of a speaker's dialect is directly related to their social class, but these features have been fading within all classes over recent decades. Famous speakers are Rosie Perez, Joe Pesci and Marisa Tomei in My Cousin Vinnie, Archie Bunker, Bugs Bunny, and (if you're old enough to remember) the Bowery Boys.

[DuncanK]

That's great Imran. Too bad that has nothing to do with accent and everything to do with dialect.

[Imran Siddiqui]

As you'll notice, accent and dialect aren't two really two distinct things. What is the difference between the Southern accent and the Southern dialect? Not much.

And you haven't responded to the FIRST link I provided you, about the accent most Californians share.

[DuncanK]

An accent is a pattern of speech. Californians don't use a common pattern of speech that is different.

[DuncanK]

Imran,

You're talking about words people use. I'm talking about the way people say them.

[Imran Siddiqui]

READ MY FIRST LINK! The Harvard one.

It says Californians do not have a dialect, but have definate accents.

Oh, and just another link:

http://www.ling.udel.edu/arena/sociolinguistics1.html

Accent (Pronunciation Differences)
(1) The characteristics of speech that convey information about the speaker's dialect, which may reveal in what country or what part of the country the speaker grew up or to which sociolinguistic group the speaker belongs, e.g. British accent or American accent.
(2) The speech of someone who speaks a language nonnatively. In this sense, accent refers to phonological differences of "interference" from a different language spoken elsewhere.

And accent is listed underneath 'dialect' (ie, as a part of it).

[DuncanK]

You still can not give me one example of how you can tell that some one is from California by the way they talk except for the words they use.

[SlowwHand]

Dialect is what you say. Accent is how it sounds.

[monolith94]

What do you consider to be the difference between dialect and accent?
And yes, Californians have accent. I can hear it VERY well - I meet alot of people from seattle, oregano, norcal and socal, and although the differences may be slight, they're there.

[Imran Siddiqui]

I told you to read the link... you have a problem with reading.

Californians do consistently possess a specific suite of pronunciation features (merger of A and  , centralization and unrounding of /o:/ and /u:/),

Just because others in the country have the same linguistic features, doesn't mean it isn't an accent!! By that logic, there is no such thing as a New England Accent!

And don't tell me you don't think 'surfer' and 'valley girl' can't be noticed simply by the way they talk .

[SlowwHand]

Dialect-manner or means of expressing oneself

Accent-an individual's distinctive or characteristic inflection, tone

[SlowwHand]

Read- to receive or take in the sense of (as letters or symbols) especially by sight or touch

Comprehend- to grasp the nature, significance, or meaning of

[DuncanK]

Imran,

Give me an example of a word. I have no idea what that means.