Regional Accent Reduction

There was a recent news item regarding the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, TN offering a Southern accent reduction class; this was canceled after numerous complainants found it to be offensive.  My first response was: How stupid and insensitive they were to offer such an offensive class.  And I got slightly pissed, besides.  (Sorry for the language.)  But, then, I wondered whether this was special negative treatment for Southern accents; or whether this kind of accent reduction treatment is given to other regional accents as well.

So I did a Google search.

I found that accent reduction classes were offered for reduction of Texas accents, New York accents, Boston accents, and several others in addition to Southern accents.  In general, some people in several different localities want to change how they sound.  It may be because they perceive their accents as burdened with certain lazy, media-supported stereotypes (i.e., the dumb Southerner, the brash, in-your-face New Yorker), or they see their accent as a handicap to career development.  In other words, accent reduction, for some, is part of a life or occupational strategy.

So is there a more desirable accent?  Apparently, it's a dialect called General American; most similar to a Midwestern accent.  Think of it as sounding like you're from Iowa, mid-state Illinois, or Nebraska.  Actually, this is what newscasters sound like.  One former newscaster, Linda Ellerbee, put it succinctly: "In television you're not supposed to sound like you're from anywhere."

I suspect that there are many who adopt a pattern of having a pattern more approximate to General American in occupational settings but switching to a back home accent or dialect when one returns to a familiar setting.  For example, the second person plural in the Southern dialect could be dropped when one hazards to go north of the Mason-Dixon line or west of Texas.  (Click on illustration to enlarge it.)  I had to learn not to sound Cajun and avoid New Orleans dialect terms.  

Okay, having been a little heavy about accents, I'll leave you with a joke about the Boston accent:

Researchers for the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority found over 200 dead crows near greater Boston recently, and there was concern that they may have died from Avian Flu. 

A Bird Pathologist examined the remains of all the crows, and, to everyone’s relief, confirmed the problem was definitely NOT Avian Flu. The cause of death appeared to be vehicular impacts. 

However, during the detailed analysis it was noted that varying colors of paints appeared on the bird’s beaks and claws. By analyzing these paint residues it was determined that 98% of the crows had been killed by impact with trucks, while only 2% were killed by an impact with a car. MTA then hired an Ornithological Behaviorist to determine if there was a cause for the disproportionate percentages of truck kills versus car kills. 

The Ornithological Behaviorist very quickly concluded the cause: when crows eat road kill, they always have a look-out crow in a nearby tree to warn of impending danger. They discovered that while all the lookout crows could shout “Cah”, not a single one could shout “Truck."