Introduction to Accents 1: Accent vs Dialect vs Idiolect

Part 1 of 6 - Introducing how to learn an accent. This session gives a quick overview of what the terms Dialect & Accent mean, and an explanation of how an accent/dialect is a generalization based on bringing together a bunch of accents under a single heading, and how actors then need to bring it back to being a personalized accent (or idiolect).

Part 1: Accent vs Dialect vs Idiolect
Part 2: Phonetics
Part 3: Placement
Part 4: Intonation
Part 5: Helpful Hints
Part 6: Prioritizing Learning Accents

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Accent vs Dialect - Which Term to Use?

I wanted to clarify a couple of things about accents or dialects overall. One of them is the difference between an accent and a dialect, which I've talked a little bit about before. The really brief version of it is there's a couple of ways that those are used.

An accent is the way that you speak a second language, or another way that's used is the accent is the way that you pronounce words.

Whereas a dialect is the way that you speak your own language, or it also includes getting into word changes, like whether you say soda or pop. Something along that line, okay?

So accent, second language or just the sound changes. Dialect, also getting into the word changes, talking about speaking your own accent.

That said a lot of people use them totally interchangeably. I'm very comfortable using accent for all of them. I'm less comfortable using dialect for all of them because often times you are dealing with people who speak with that heavy foreign language influence and also may not have a handle on the words. So I prefer my default word to be accent. Thus, Accent Help.

That said there's, how do you categorize accents and how do you categorize dialects?

Really anytime that you're dealing with a dialect or an accent, you are grouping a bunch of things together. Like many times people will say, "I want to learn a British accent." Well there are a lot of British accents.

That said there's a general thought of what people mean when they say that, but then there are a lot of accents or dialects in England that violate our thought of what British accents are.

Like down in the southwest there are rhotic accents where you say the R. If you think about Hagrid from Harry Potter. There the Rs are coming on, so that is a rhotic accent, whereas most of England drops the Rs instead, so they'll do the dropping of the Rs. 

Whereas in the US it's the opposite. Most accents are rhotic. We say our Rs, but then there's some where you drop the Rs, right? So there's variations in that.

Anytime that you want to talk about a dialect, you're really looking at what is the subdivision I want to look at.

You can look at a Southern accent and generalize about that. And then you can get much more specific. Well, there are non-rhotic Southern accents where they drop the R, and there are rhotic Southern accents, which is much more common these days, where they keep the R after a vowel. And that's, for example, very common in the mountains, and actually throughout almost all of the South, is that rhotic accent with the Rs.

And then really you can get into bigger subdivisions.

You can get into into, well, Louisiana accents. But even in Louisiana there are huge variations in accents. You can get a huge difference between the Central and North and the Southern part, where you get into more of a Cajun influence.

You'll also hear something that sounds really rather Texan.

You'll hear some things that sound a little bit more of that classic dropping the R kind of Southern from some folks, primarily older speakers.

And you'll also get something totally different when you get to New Orleans. And even now if we just talk about a New Orleans accent, that New Orleans accent or dialect can get subdivided into all these little subdivisions as well. If you go there, some people will say. "Nah, that's a Yat accent" and that's totally different from another accent that you hear in New Orleans.

So it's about, well, how specific are you going to get.

And then you also need to realize that there are violations to these accents all the time. Just because I live in Texas right now doesn't mean that everybody that I meet has a Texas accent, even if they were born and raised in Texas. Often times it's not quite what you would expect it to be.

Actors Learning Accents

So when I'm teaching an accent or a dialect, I'm usually working on the generalization of what that is, and then we want to get that sense of it, that sort of pure element of it, and then you start to turn it into your own accent. So what I'm really doing is taking a grouping of a bunch of idiolects, individuals' way of speaking who live in this area, bringing them together and saying what are their commonalities? Figuring those things out and what are those things that strongest indicate that they are from this place, New Orleans? That then allows you to listen to those things, figure out a basic New Orleans accent, and then turn it back into your own individual accent, your own idiolect all over again. And that's what actors have to do. They have to take that and personalize it.