Good American Speech

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Good American Speech, a Mid-Atlantic accent,[1][2][3] or a Transatlantic accent[4][5][6] is a consciously learned accent of English that was promoted in certain American courses on acting, voice, and elocution from the early to mid-20th century. As a result, it has become associated with particular announcers and Hollywood actors,[7][6][8][2] especially evident in American mass media recorded from the 1920s through the 1950s.[3][5] This speaking style was largely influenced by and overlapped with Northeastern elite accents from that era and earlier.[3][6] Due to conflation of the two types of accents, both are most commonly known as Mid-Atlantic or Transatlantic accents.[6][1] Proponents of such accents additionally incorporated features from Received Pronunciation, the prestige accent of British English,[6][3][1] in an effort to make them sound like they transcended regional and even national borders.

During the early half of the 20th century, Mid-Atlantic classroom speech was designed, codified, and advocated by certain phoneticians and teachers in the U.S., linguistic prescriptivists who felt that it was the best or most proper way to speak English.[9][1][10] According to voice and drama professor Dudley Knight, "its earliest advocates bragged that its chief quality was that no Americans actually spoke it unless educated to do so".[10] During the period when Mid-Atlantic accents acquired cachet within the American entertainment industry, certain stage and film actors performed them in classical works or when undertaking serious, formal, or upper-class roles,[11] while others adopted them more permanently in their public lives. After the mid-20th century, the accent became regarded as affected and is now rare.

Terminology

No consistent label exists for this type of speech, particularly in its own era. It has increasingly become known as a Mid-Atlantic accent,[1][2][3] or Transatlantic accent,[12][5][6] terms that refer to its perceived mixture of American and British features. In specifically theatrical contexts, it is also sometimes known by names like American Theatre Standard[11][9] or American stage speech.[13] Its promoters variously called it World (Standard) English, Good (American) Speech, Eastern (American) Standard, or simply Standard English.[14][10][15]

History

According to the vocal coach and drama professor

British Commonwealth.[11]

Even before the early 20th century, ordinary Eastern New England accents as well as Northeastern elite accents spoken by groups like the New York elite and the Boston Brahmins, the coastal New England upper class, already shared notable features with RP such as non-rhoticity and the trap–bath split. Boston was the American center for training in elocution, public speaking, and acting at this time;[19][11][6] therefore, these Northeastern-originated accents also likely contributed to the sound then becoming popular in the American theatre. In particular, elite Northeastern American and RP accents already held established connotations of high education and refinement in and before the early 20th century.

The codification of a Mid-Atlantic accent for American classrooms is largely credited to the Australian phonetician William Tilly (

né Tilley), who championed a version of the accent that, for the first time, was standardized with an extreme and conscious level of phonetic consistency. Teaching in Columbia University's extension program in New York City from 1918 to around the time of his death in 1935, he sought to popularize his standard of a "proper" American pronunciation for teaching in public schools and using in one's public life.[20] A proponent of precise phonetic transcription, Tilly was perhaps the most influential speech instructor in the U.S. in the first half of the 20th century.[21] Calling his new standard World English, he mostly attracted a following of English-language learners and New York City public-school teachers.[22] Ordinary Americans have the tendency to perceive World English as sounding British, which Tilly's students sometimes acknowledged and other times denied.[23] According to Dudley Knight:

World English was a speech pattern that very specifically did not derive from any regional dialect pattern in England or America, although it clearly bears some resemblance to the speech patterns that were spoken in a few areas of New England, and a very considerable resemblance ... to the pattern in England which was becoming defined in the 1920s as "RP" or "Received Pronunciation". World English, then, was a creation of speech teachers, and boldly labeled as a class-based accent: the speech of persons variously described as "educated," "cultivated," or "cultured"; the speech of persons who moved in rarefied social or intellectual circles; and the speech of those who might aspire to do so.[24]

Linguistic prescriptivists, Tilly and his adherents emphatically promoted World English in their courses. While Tilly did not specifically work with actors himself, several prominent students of his ended up doing so, establishing this pronunciation among classical actors in the U.S. for roughly three decades. Among Tilly's several disciples who popularized the Mid-Atlantic accent in the American theatre were Windsor Daggett, Margaret Prendergast McLean, and Edith Warman Skinner.[6][10]

Windsor Daggett was a Northeastern American speech teacher and theatre critic who campaigned for this accent in the American entertainment world in his weekly

Carnegie Institute of Technology (now, Carnegie Mellon) and, later, the Juilliard School.[10]

From the 1920s to 1950s, the Mid-Atlantic accent was a popular affectation onstage, in many New York City schools, and in forms of high culture in North America.

talkies beginning in the late 1920s. Hollywood studios encouraged actors to learn this accent into the 1940s.[2] Hollywood over time became less of a New York City-influenced enclave as it grew and attracted actors from everywhere,[11] plus the film industry moved away from studio control over its artists,[5] causing Mid-Atlantic speech to fall out of fashion by the mid-20th century. Since then, the majority class of rhotic accents, General American English
, has dominated the American entertainment industry.

Examples of performers

Examples of old-time actors known for publicly using this accent include

King James Bible completed in 1953. Scourby was often employed as a voice actor and narrator in advertisements and in media put out by the National Geographic Society with his refined Mid-Atlantic accent considered desirable for such roles.[32]

Cary Grant had an accent that is often popularly described as "Mid-Atlantic", though his specific accent more naturally and unconsciously mixed British and American features, because he arrived in the United States from England at age 16.[40][11]

Performed examples in 20th-century media

Performed examples in 21st-century media

Although it has disappeared as a standard of high society and high culture, the Transatlantic accent has still been heard in some media in the 21st century for the sake of historical, humorous, or other stylistic reasons.

Phonology

Phonetic transcriptions for the Mid-Atlantic theatre accent were published by voice coaches like Margaret Prendergast McLean and Edith Skinner ("Good Speech" as she called it). These were once widely taught in Northeastern American acting schools of the early mid-20th century.[46]

Vowels

English diaphoneme
 		Good American Speech Franklin D.
Roosevelt's Northeastern
elite accent
(for comparison)[9] 		Example
According to Skinner[47] According to McLean[48]
Monophthongs
/æ/ [æ] [æ] trap
[æ̝] pan
/ɑː/ [a] [a], [ɑː][49] [a] bath
[æ̈] dance
[ɑː] [ɑə][9] father
/ɒ/ [ɒ] lot, top
[ɔə][9] cloth, gone
/ɔː/ [ɔː] all, taught, saw
/ɛ/ [e] [e̞] [ɛ] dress, met, bread
/ə/ [ə] about, syrup
[o] [o̞] no data obey, melody
/ɪ/ [ɪ] [ɪ] [ɪ̈] hit, skim, tip
[ɪ̞] response
/i/ city
/iː/ [iː] beam, fleet, chic
/ʌ/ [ɐ] [ʌ̈] bus, gus, coven
/ʊ/ [ʊ] book, put, would
/uː/ [uː] glue, dew
Diphthongs
/aɪ/ [aɪ] [äɪ] shine, try
bright, dice, pike, ride
/aʊ/ [ɑʊ] [ɑ̈ʊ] ouch, scout, now
/eɪ/ [eɪ] lake, paid, pain, rein
/ɔɪ/ [ɔɪ] boy, moist, choice
/oʊ/ [oʊ] [o̞ʊ] [ɔʊ] goat, oh, show
Vowels historically followed by /r/
/ɑːr/ [ɑə] [ɑː] [ɑə] car, dark, barn
/ɪər/ [ɪə] fear, peer, tier
/ɛər/ [ɛə] [ɛə~ɛː] [ɛə] fare, pair, rare
/ʊər/ [ʊə] sure, tour, pure
/ɔːr/ [ɔə] [ɔə~ɔː] [ɔə] torn, short, port
/ɜːr/ [ɜː~əː] burn, first, herd
/ər/ [ə] doctor, martyr, surprise

Vowels before /r/

Mid-Atlantic accents are non-rhotic, meaning the

linking r's undergo liaison
.

When preceded by a long vowel, the /r/ is vocalized to [ə], commonly known as schwa, while the long vowel itself is laxed. However, when preceded by a short vowel, the /ə/ is elided. Therefore, tense and lax vowels before /r/ are typically only distinguished by the presence/absence of /ə/. The following distinctions are examples of this concept:

  • "Marry" is pronounced with a different vowel altogether. See further in the bullet list below.

Other distinctions before /r/ include the following:

  • Mary–marry–merry distinction: Like in RP, New York City, and Philadelphia, marry is pronounced as /æ/, which is distinct from the vowels of both Mary and merry.[30]
  • Cure–force–north distinction: The vowels in cure and force–north are distinguished, the former being realized as [ʊə] and the latter as [ɔə], like conservative RP.
  • Thought–force distinction: The vowels in thought and force–north are distinguished, the former being realized as [ɔː] and the latter as [ɔə]. Hence saw [sɔː], sauce [sɔːs] but sore/soar [sɔə], source [sɔəs].[60] This does not precisely agree with /ɔː/ horse and /ɔə/ for hoarse in traditional Received Pronunciation.
  • Hurry–furry distinction: The vowels in hurry and furry are distinguished, with the former pronounced as /ʌ/ and the latter pronounced as /ɜː/. (listenⓘ)
  • Palm–start distinction: The vowels in palm and start are distinguished, the former being realized as [ɑː] and the latter as [ɑə]. Hence spa [spɑː], alms [ɑːmz] but spar [spɑə], arms [ɑəmz].[61] This keeps the distinction observed in rhotic accents like General American, but not made in RP. Also, some New Englanders, particularly in Eastern New England, could pronounce the vowel in start more fronted: [aː~aə]. However, in the mid-20th century and later, this came to be associated with non-elite Boston accents.
  • Distinction of /ɒr/ and /ɔːr/ in words like orange and oral

Consonants

A table containing the consonant phonemes is given below:[46]

Consonant phonemes
Labial Dental Alveolar Post-alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal
Nasal m
n
 		ŋ
Stop
 		p b
t
d
 		k ɡ
Affricate
 		tʃ dʒ
Fricative
 		f v θ ð s z ʃ ʒ h
Approximant
l
ɹ
 		j ʍ w
  • Wine-whine distinction: The Mid-Atlantic accent showed some vestigial resistance to the modern
    wine–whine merger. In other words, the consonants spelled w and wh could be pronounced slightly differently; words spelled with wh are pronounced as "hw" (/ʍ/). The distinction is a feature found in conservative RP and New England English, as well as in some Canadian and Southern United States accents, and sporadically across the Mid-West and the West. However, it is rarely heard in contemporary RP.[62]
  • Pronunciation of /t/: the alveolar stop /t/ can be pronounced as a glottal stop, [ʔ], only if it is followed by a consonant in either the same word or the following word. Thus grateful can be pronounced [ˈɡɹeɪʔfɫ̩] ⓘ. However, Skinner recommended avoiding the glottal stop altogether; she also recommended a "lightly aspirated" /t/ in place of the flapped /t/ typical of American speakers whenever /t/ appears between vowels.[63] Likewise, winter [ˈwɪntə] is not pronounced similarly or identically to winner [ˈwɪnə], as it is by some Americans.[64] Generally, Skinner advocated for articulating /t/ with some degree of aspiration in most contexts.
  • Resistance to
    yod-dropping: Dropping of /j/ only occurs after /r/, and optionally after /s/ and /l/.[65][66] Mid-Atlantic also lacks palatalization, so duke is pronounced [djuːk] rather than [dʒuːk] (the first variant versus the second one hereⓘ).[67]
    All of this mirrors (conservative) RP.
  • A "dark L" sound, [
    ɫ], may be heard for /l/ in all contexts, more like General American than RP. However, Skinner explicitly discouraged darker articulations for actors.[68]
  • A
    tapped articulation of post-consonantal or inter-vocalic /r/ is heard in many of the very earliest recordings of formal performative or theatrical speakers born in the mid-19th century, likely a dramatic effect employed in public speaking then. However, it was rare in speakers born after that time, and Skinner disapproved of its usage.[69]

Other pronunciation patterns
Example Mid-Atlantic[30]
military -ary [əɹɪ]
bakery -ery
inventory -ory
Canterbury -bury [bəɹɪ]
blueberry -berry
testimony -mony [mənɪ]
innovative -ative [ətɪv ~ ˌeɪtɪv]

See also

Citations

  1. ^ a b c d e Boberg, Charles (2021). "Accent in North American Film and Television". Cambridge University Press. p. 126.
  2. ^ a b c d e Tsai, Michelle (28 February 2008). "Why Did William F. Buckley Jr. talk like that?". Slate. Retrieved 28 February 2008.
  3. ^ a b c d e MacNeil, Robert; Cran, William (2007). Do You Speak American?. Knopf Doubleday Publishing. p. 51.
  4. ^ Drum, Kevin (2011). "Oh, That Old-Timey Movie Accent!". Mother Jones.
  5. ^
    ISBN 9780470659922
    .
  6. ^
    ISBN 978-0-19-531138-9
    .
  7. ^ a b Boberg, Charles (2020). "Diva diction: Hollywood’s leading ladies and the rise of General American English". American Speech: A Quarterly of Linguistic Usage, 95(4), 441-484: "Kelly was from Philadelphia. Rogers, from Independence, Missouri, and Shearer, from Montreal, are about half R-less. Adoption of /r/ vocalization by these actresses from r-ful regions presumably reflects both formal dramatic training and the generally high prestige of this feature in the early twentieth century" (455); "Rogers, Kelly, and Shearer produce an [a:] quality in BATH words out of respect for the British or Boston standard" (465).
  8. ^ a b c Tham, Su Fang (2018; updated 2021). "From the Archives: Behind the Accent with Dialect Coach Jessica Drake". FilmIndependent.
  9. ^ a b c d e f Urban, Mateusz (2021). "Franklin D. Roosevelt and the American Theatre Standard: The low vowels". Studia Linguistica Universitatis Iagellonicae Cracoviensis, 2021(4), 227-245.
  10. ^
    Hal Leonard Corporation
    . pp. 174–77.
  11. ^
    YouTube
    .
  12. ^ Drum, Kevin (2011). "Oh, That Old-Timey Movie Accent!". Mother Jones.
  13. ^
    doi:10.1215/01610775-25-1-78
    .
  14. ^ Deacon, 2007.
  15. ^ a b Skinner, Monich & Mansell (1990:334)
  16. Hal Leonard Corporation
    . p. 159.
  17. ^ Knight, 1997, p. 171.
  18. ^ Labov, William et al. (2006). "The restoration of post-vocalic /r/". The Atlas of North American English Phonetics, Phonology and Sound Change. Mouton de Gruyter: "The basic vernacular of New York City was consistently r-less in the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth. r-less pronunciation, as a characteristic of British Received Pronunciation, was also taught as a model of correct, international English by schools of speech, acting, and elocution in the United States up to the end of World War II. It was the standard model for most radio announcers and used as a high prestige form by Franklin Roosevelt".
  19. ^ Knight, 1997, p. 159.
  20. ^ Knight, 1997, p. 163.
  21. ^ Deacon, 2007, pp. 74, 78.
  22. ^ Knight, 1997, pp. 157–158.
  23. ^ Knight, 1997, p. 161.
  24. ^ Knight, 1997, p. 160.
  25. ^ Deacon, 2007, p. 73.
  26. ^ Knight, 1997, p. 172.
  27. ^ Deacon, 2007, pp. 73-74, 80.
  28. ^ Knight, 1997, p. 174.
  29. ^ Knight, 1997, pp. 165, 174.
  30. ^
    ISBN 9781557830470
    .
  31. ISSN 0882-7729
    . Retrieved 30 October 2018.
  32. ^ a b Anderegg, Michael. “Orson Welles, Shakespeare, and Popular Culture.” Columbia University Press. New York. 2015. (p. 15)
  33. ^ Fallows, James (7 June 2015). "That Weirdo Announcer-Voice Accent: Where It Came From and Why It Went Away. Is your language rhotic? How to find out, and whether you should care". The Atlantic. Washington DC.
  34. ^ Scheuer, Philip K. (8 November 1951). "Seeing His Worst Movie After 10 Years Assures Michael Rennie Part as Jean Valjean Is His Best". Los Angeles Times. p. D1.
  35. ISBN 9780520924024
    .
  36. ISBN 978-0-87910-967-7
    . Retrieved 3 April 2012.
  37. ^ Rawson, Christopher (28 January 2009). "Lane, Hamlisch among Theater Hall of Fame inductees" . Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Retrieved 2011-06-18.
  38. ^ McDonald, Shawn. "Milford Academy - History". Milfordacademy.org. Retrieved 19 November 2017.
  39. ^ Riedel, Michael (10 December 2010). "You don't know Jack (yet)". New York Post. Retrieved 17 May 2022. My dad was born in Queens but affected this mid-Atlantic accent. The old neighborhood accent only came out when he got mad at us.
  40. ^ "Philip French's screen legends: Cary Grant". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 18 June 2011.
  41. ^ Lane, James. "Aristocratic Villains And English-Speaking Nazis: Why Hollywood Loves Clichéd Accents". Babbel. Retrieved 23 January 2017.
  42. ^ Mallenbaum, Carly (30 May 2014). "Are all of Disney's female villains kinda British?". USA Today. Retrieved 17 August 2024.
  43. ^ "What Happened to the Mid-Atlantic Accent?". CMD. 3 May 2016. Retrieved 30 December 2017.
  44. ^ Robinson, Joanna (2015). "American Horror Story Just Gave Us a Glimpse of Leonardo DiCaprio’s Next Big Role". Vanity Fair. Condé Nast.
  45. ^ Feller, Madison (2020) "A Dialect Coach Breaks Down Moira Rose's Bonkers Schitt's Creek Accent". Elle. Hearst Magazine Media, Inc.
  46. ^ a b Skinner, Monich & Mansell (1990).
  47. ISBN 978-1-55783-047-0
    .
  48. ^ McLean, Margaret Prendergast (1952). Good American Speech. Internet Archive. New York, Dutton.
  49. ^ "Good american speech". New York, Dutton. 3 November 2023.
  50. ^ Fletcher (2005), p. 338
  51. ^ Fletcher (2005), p. 339
  52. ^ Skinner, Monich & Mansell (1990), p. 130.
  53. ^ Skinner, Monich & Mansell (1990)
  54. ^ E. Flemming & S. Johnson. Rosa's Roses: Reduced Vowels in American English, http://web.mit.edu/flemming/www/paper/rosasroses.pdf
  55. ^ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006)
  56. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary: Pronunciation Guide https://assets2.merriam-webster.com/mw/static/pdf/help/guide-to-pronunciation.pdf
  57. ^ Gimson (1962)
  58. ^ a b Skinner, Monich & Mansell (1990:102)
  59. ^ Skinner, Monich & Mansell (1990), pp. 113, 300.
  60. ^ Skinner, Monich & Mansell (1990), p. 125-126, 177–178.
  61. ^ Skinner, Monich & Mansell (1990), p. 182.
  62. ^ Wells (1982), pp. 228–9.
  63. ^ Skinner, Monich & Mansell (1990), pp. 194, 202, 250.
  64. ^ Mojsin, Lisa (2009), Mastering the American Accent, Barron's Education Series, Inc., p. 36: "The t after n is often silent in [regional] American pronunciation. Instead of saying internet [some] Americans will frequently say 'innernet.' This is fairly standard speech and is not considered overly casual or sloppy speech."
  65. ^ Skinner, Monich & Mansell (1990:336)
  66. ISBN 0-521-22919-7
    .
  67. ^ Skinner, Monich & Mansell (1990), p. 308.
  68. ^ Skinner, Monich & Mansell (1990), p. 247.
  69. ^ Skinner, Monich & Mansell (1990), p. 292.
  70. ^ Skinner, Monich & Mansell (1990), p. 66.
  71. ^ Fletcher (2013), p. 339
  72. ^ Skinner, Monich & Mansell (1990), pp. 348–9.

General and cited bibliography

Further reading
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