Stereotypes Of American Tongues

American Tongues Essay There are so many different types of people in the world. Meaning there are many different dialects and accents. Accents and dialects are the words we use when we speak, as well as the way we pronounce them. The film American tongues specifically focuses on these different accents and dialects. It is quite amazing that there can be so many different ways of speaking in just one country. This specific film focuses a lot on stereotypes of people in different areas. These stereotypes are strongly based off of these accents. Many different examples are shown from all over the world. Surprisingly all discriminations that come from how a person talks carries out throughout all of the United States of America; each state saying

All accents and dialects tend to originate from where people came from. A largely known accent that is often stereotyped is the southern accent. Although there are many different kinds of southern accents, people often associate the southern accent with stupidity, or someone that is “slow”. The southern accent comes from most southern states such as Georgia, Tennessee, Mississippi as well as many others. In the film American Tongues, they show an example of a woman (from the north with a northern type accent) that says that she was once dating a man that was originally from the south and had asked her to come visit his family, that was still living in the south. She decided to go, and as they got closer to his home town, the mans southern accent began to grow stronger. She then told him to stop the car and immediately got a flight back home. She then stated that she was not going to have babies that spoke like that. This is a great example of how people will strictly judge you from your accent and the way you speak. While the woman in this example believed that the man had a strong accent, people from the south would believe that she was the one that had the accent. Everyone has an accent, and everyone believes everyone else has and accent, therefore judging them on it, thinking their way of speaking is the only way. One of the most common judgements would be judging a person’s social class on their accent or dialect. For example, hearing someone talk with a southern accent (which is said to be slow) can make people think they have no money because they are thought to be a blue-collar worker, categorizing them into the lower class. Since most accents generally are concerned with the region, the south for example has more emphasis on agriculture than in the north, causing there to be less need for education. These stereotypes do not just go towards the south or