Local dialects, or “accents” as they are usually called, can lead to an array of assumptions by listeners. To someone from Alabama, a nice southern drawl sounds warm and inviting. Maybe reminding the listener of childhood weekends spent at their grandparent’s home, overhearing late night conversations spoken in a near-melodic tone. This same conversation heard by someone who speaks a different dialect can sound completely different, and lead to a set of assumptions that are completely opposite. Hearing someone speak like a “hillbilly” may lead the listener to assume the speaker is ignorant and uneducated; overstressing odd syllables, and drawing out vowels to nearly torturous lengths. A listener’s place of origin and previous life experiences greatly dictates how they interpret the way a speaker sounds, and the assumptions they create in their mind based on these interpretations.
People often stereotype when they hear a person with a specific dialect. There can be many reasons for this. In our current time, the media has a huge role in these stereotypes. Southern people are often shown in the media as stupid and slow. Characters in such movies such as Sling Blade are hard to forget, especially if the listener has no other exposure to the dialect. Stereotypes from media can also be positive. Hearing a English accent usually instills calm and comfort in a listener. If they were to meet a fairly-well dressed man on the street with an English accent, they may never dream him to be a serial killer, even if that is what he is. Simply hearing the way he talks leads to a specific image in their head of who the person is and what kind of life they have lived.
Another way people learn stereotypes is experience. This could come as meeting a few people throughout their lives with the same dialect who have certain characteristics in common, or from overhearing family member’s stereotypes of a certain group. If you grow up hearing that Australians are criminals who were outcast from Britain years ago, you will probably have a very different view when meeting someone with and Australian accent, than someone who may have vacationed in Australia as a child, equating the accent with happy times.
I have a personal experience in meeting people and learning not to judge a book by its cover, and in this case, its voice. A number of months ago on vacation I met a couple from South Carolina. They both had extreme southern accents and even seemed to over-exaggerate their accents even more than normal. Since they were just wearing jeans and t-shirts I automatically assumed they were low class, probably from somewhere in the mountains (does South Carolina even have mountains?). Later, upon sitting down at dinner with come, to my surprise, she worked as a paralegal, and he was attending graduate school for chemistry. I quickly remembered that I shouldn’t be so hasty in my assumptions. Just because people sound a certain way means nothing. They could be the nicest people, or the worst people in the world, accent has nothing to do with character.
I agree that the media plays the biggest role in anything we do. It helps us start to judge other people with "accents" different then us. I think that people would judge other by the way that they spoke. People would think that other people were stupid because maybe that spoke differently. I have always been taught not to judge a book by its cover and that goes for voice to. If I am going to judge someone by the way that they talk what does that make me. I ask myself what would people think of me if they judged me by the way I talked or my "accent".
ReplyDeleteIt’s hard not to judge a book by it’s cover sometimes because it often comes as a first reaction. I’ve heard that people tend to make judgements on you within the first 30 seconds of meeting you. Think of all the things you DON’T know about someone in the first 30 seconds of meeting them. Isn’t it insane that we just make such radical assumptions? I remember the first time I met my boyfriend was a lot like the way that you met that South Carolina couple. He had a southern accent and he was from Texas. I, having lived here all my life, figured he must live on a farm in the middle of nowhere. I figured most of his family must work this farm and they probably have huge family dinners and wear jeans and cowboy hats and even little spurs on cowboy boots. I thought his high school probably had all of 40 people too. Come to find out he’s an inner city kid from Houston and he’s never worn cowboy boots or a cowboy hat in his life and his high school had more than 1000 students. So yes, it is definitely not wise to judge a book by it's cover!
ReplyDeleteIt's incredible how much we judge people just based on their physical appearance, the way they speak, what they appear to be. It's unlikely that we stop doing it altogether because we all have preconceived notions and we judge unconsciously.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I try not to do it, I often find myself passing judgment even when I've told myself I wasn't going to. I work in a fast food restaurant on the 14 Freeway and I come across a lot of people, especially a lot of tourists being that this leads to various tourist attractions. With that said, I often find myself talking to these people and assuming that they are a certain way or that their life is a certain way. I assume that because they come from afar they must be well off financially. I've come across customers who seem rude because they have an accent and a tone of voice that makes what they say sound demanding and imposing. It is incredible, however, when you get to know someone and it turns out that everything you once thought about them was completely incorrect. Not everyone is a certain way. You can't figure out how someone is as a person based on a first impression.
I was also in the same situation as you a while back. A foreign exchange student from London came to our school and of course she had that awesome British accent. At first I didn’t know what to think of her but since she hung out with my friends and me I had to make an effort to get to know her. We wore uniforms so I didn’t know her usual dress code. One day she came in ripped jeans, a shirt too small for her body and tangled hair. I automatically thought she was some weird child sent to the States to straighten her out. I mean why else would her parents send her to an all girls, private, Catholic, uniform wearing high school? But the truth was that her father was in the military and she came with him for a couple of months. She acted the total opposite of the way she dressed.
ReplyDeleteThat was my moment of realizing that we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. We hear it all the time, but it’s so funny when the first thing we do is judge. I guess it just takes time to get a grip on those judgmental thoughts. I will be honest, sometimes my imaginations races before I can stop my thoughts whenever I see a person who doesn’t flow with the so-called “status quo.”