Words: 478
My father’s grandmother was from Georgia and apparently had a very prominent twang when she spoke. This passed on to my dad, but when he was in school he was teased for the way he spoke. This made him change his “twang” and now there are only a few words that are “accented”. This is the reason I pronounce certain words with an accent. For example, I say “harsh” instead of “wash”, “share” in place of “shower”, and “inured” for “introduce. ” My grandmother also exposed me to common “deep south” phrases that I use.
If something Is down the road, it is “on down a bit”; An ugly person “fell off the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down”; something quick Is “Faster than greased lightning. “; and I use let alone Instead of much less: “He can’t even hold a Job and support himself, let alone support a family. ” My family has also had an effect on my conversational style. In my family, we have a high involvement style of speaking. In conversations with each other, there is usually a lot of interrupting and talking over people.
I speak loudly in conversations and tend to interrupt others when they are speaking because that is how my family communicates. If you want to join the conversation, you have to but your way in. However, I have been able to put a handle on this “rudeness” by engaging in conversation with my neighbors and friends. The neighborhood I grew up in allowed me to learn the more “polite” way of speaking, and also Instilled in my speech the frequent use of “sir” and “ma’am”. My environment has had an Immense Influence on my Idiolect.
Besides the ways f speech I picked up In my suburban neighborhood, my conversations with my group of friends has influenced my idiolect greatly. My group of friends and I all come from middle class backgrounds and all attended private, same sex Catholic schools. We were also in the same type of AP classes together and frequently had discussions on politics, religion, and philosophy. That would Just be on a typical Friday night. Because of these conversations with such intellectual people, my vocabulary and sentence structure has become strongly academic.
We correct other people’s grammar constantly, so my conversational use of grammar is quite accurate in most cases. However, for every different register that I have, I must use a different style of communication. I have many different circles of friends, and I pride myself on the ability to get along with most people. The various registers that I use In these circles can be very different from each other. For example, while I am with my Blarneyed friends, sarcasm and teasing is the primary means of communication.