Georgia

INTRODUCTION

My breakdowns are structured around accent features and influences described by Knight-Thompson Speechwork, a 21st-century, skills-based approach to speech and accents that celebrates language diversity. KT Speechwork offers the “4 Ps” below as a framework for exploring many different facets of an accent:

    • PEOPLE. Who speaks with this accent? Where does this accent come from, historically? What common cultural elements might influence people’s manner of speaking?
    • POSTURE. What is the habitual shape of the vocal tract for speakers of the accent? We all have a habitual way of resting our mouths that allows us to move it into the speech actions of our accent as economically as possible. The posture of this accent might be different from your habitual one.
    • PRONUNCIATION. What are the sounds of this accent? I’ll be using both recordings and the International Phonetic Alphabet to describe speech actions and the sounds they produce. As you listen and read, listen with your mouth–can you make the shapes the speaker is making as you listen?
    • PROSODY. What are the musicality and rhythm of the accent like? What are the intonation, stress, and pitch patterns that speakers might use? This is the soul of the accent. We could nail the pronunciation, but it’s not a manner of speaking until we find how it flows.

 

PEOPLE

This breakdown is for Towson University’s mainstage production of John Proctor Is the Villain, directed by Teresa Spencer with undergraduate dialect coach David Norris. All the characters in this play, with the exception of Nell, are from a fictionalized northern Georgia small town; Nell is from Atlanta, Georgia. The play takes place in 2019, when the student characters are around sixteen years old, and the teachers are 24 and early 30s. So, we’re looking in this breakdown at how Gen Z and young Millenials speak in Georgia pretty close to the present day. Probably most of us have a general, maybe even stereotypical, idea of a “southern accent” in our heads. Some features are probably accurate and will be useful to us in this production; many are “too far” for accuracy. As you go through the native speaker recordings in this breakdown, you may be surprised that you barely hear an accent. That’s what we’re going for in this production: subtlety. Probably your work will be less about adopting southern features and more about becoming aware of the features of your native speech that signal that you’re from somewhere other that Georgia, and shifting away from those features.

tldr: The American southern accent is disappearing among Gen Z speakers. There are lots of reasons for this. Here’s a bit more about it from a very recent research study.

Here are several recordings that I (Teresa) asked a colleague who teaches at Georgia Southern University to make of her students. These “accent donors” are from various parts of Georgia, recorded in the summer of 2023.

As you play the sound files and listen to the speech patterns, try listening with your mouth. In other words, try echoing the speakers. See if you can make the articulator shapes they’re making and the sounds they’re making.

 

Gabby: Augusta, Georgia; Black; she/her/hers; early 20s.

 

Also named Gabby: Savannah, Georgia; white and Filipina American; she/her/hers; early 20s.

 

Kaberra: Macon, Georgia; Black; she/her/hers; early 20s.

 

Tristan: Statesboro, Georgia: white; he/him/his; early 20s.

 

POSTURE

Because we’re aiming for less-is-more with this accent, let’s prioritize vocal tract posture shifts over pronunciation. We’ll still think about pronunciation (in the section below) but you can accomplish a large part of this accent just by holding your mouth a little differently than you do unconsciously right now.

Take a look at this GIF of Kaberra, our accent donor from Macon, Georgia:

Try mirroring the shape of her lips and jaw. Here are some things to notice in particular:

    • jaw: slightly raised. Notice that her upper and lower teeth are relatively close together. This might not be too much of change from your own habitual vocal tract posture, especially if you’re from Maryland.
    • lip corners: retracted. Kaberra is smiling a little, which accounts for some of the lip corner movement you see, but I think a sense of the lip corners being subtly pinned back a lot of the time, with less frequent lip rounding, will help us.
    • tongue root: retracted. You can’t see this in the video, but you can hear it. Imagine that the tip of your tongue rests a little back from your lower front teeth. This may also contribute to a little bit of lowering of the velum, or soft palate, producing a very slight nasality, especially as compared to Maryland accents.

Sometimes the filler or hesitation sounds we make when we’re thinking, like uh and um, are useful for finding the position speakers might rest their articulators in. Here are hesitation sounds from Gabby from Augusta, who tends to say ooh when she’s thinking. In the recording, you’ll hear the sound first at normal speed, then slowed down 50%. You can really hear the tongue root retraction here. Can you echo it?

 

You can also hear it in Tristan’s hesitation sound here. Again, the recording is first at normal speed, then slowed down 50%.

 

PRONUNCIATION

As you play the example recordings below, “listen with your mouth.” Try “mirroring” the speech gestures you’re hearing with your own articulators; make sound if you like. Take them slowly at first, then build up to fluency.

In the example recordings of native speakers, you’ll hear the speakers at normal speed first, then slowed down 50%.

In David’s demonstration recordings, you’ll hear the example sounds at normal speed, then a pause so you can repeat and try the sounds yourself.

 

CONSONANTS

Initial /l/ → [ɫ] and post-vocalic /l/ → [ʊ̜]

If you’re from Maryland, this might not be a big shift or even a shift at all. Many Americans, and especially southerners, realize /l/ with some “velarization”: the back of the body of the tongue rises toward the velum while the tongue blade or tip meet the alveolar ridge. This is sometimes called a “dark /l/,” in contrast with a “clear /l/” in which the tongue body remains relatively relaxed. Especially after a vowel, this velarization might be so pronounced that the tongue tip doesn’t meet the alveolar ridge at all, producing a vowel sound more than a consonant sound.

Example words, accent donors: 

After a vowel: … drama of old …  pools reflect … drama of old … earth turns cold … you’re welcome …

Before a vowel: … I lay it … add a little bit of sugar

 

Example words, David’s demo: … vowel … old .. pool … welcome … lay … little … like …

 

VOWELS

To organize the vowel sounds I’m introducing, I’ll be using a tool called “lexical sets.” These sets, created by J.C. Wells, are lists of words whose vowel sounds tend to “behave” similarly within distinct dialects of English. For a full linguistic discussion of lexical sets, see Accents of English I: An Introduction by J.C. Wells (Cambridge University Press 1982). Or, for something geared specifically towards actors, check out Eric Armstrong’s (new!) open-source book, Lexical Sets for Actors. Or just google it! Believe it or not, the Wikipedia article on lexical sets will give you a decent introduction.

 

PIN/PEN → [ɪ]

KIT and DRESS vowels followed by nasals /m/ or /n/ tend to be realized with a semi-close front vowel: [ɪ].

Example words, accent donors: … and then … flocks of trembling sparrows … trembling sparrows …

 

Example words, David’s demo: … friend … men … ten … tender … then … when … empty … enemy …

 

GOAT → [a̽ʊ̜]

Example words, accent donors: … no actually … will you go, do you think … gravy, mashed potatoes, green beans …

 

Example words, David’s demo: … so … open … mobile … photo … road … home … only … both … most … close … explosion … social …

 

LOT/CLOTH/THOUGHT → [ɒ̜̽]

Example words, accent donors: … actually not the way she makes … probably … she’s also on like the dressing, yeah she’s on everything … brown fox took four … a fog of sudden … brown fox took four…

 

Example words, David’s demo: … top … job … not … ox … dog … watch … Roger … on … cross … wash … broth … off … audio … talk … author … awful … cause …

 

GOOSE → [u̜]

This is probably only a shift for actors born and raised in Baltimore City, who might use a more central vowel. These Georgian accent donors tend to realize this set with a close back vowel, notably less rounded: [u̜]

Example words, accent donors: … two students …

 

Example words, David’s demo: … two … who … do … group … route … include … mood … google … pooch … room … June … boost … use … use … truth … roof …

 

PRICE → [aː]

There’s a lot of variability in this set. Often speakers realize it as a monophthong [aː], perhaps a recognizably southern pronunciation to your ear. But not always. It’s usually realized as a diphthong if the vowel is “checked” or followed by a plosive /p/, /t/, /k/.

Example words, accent donors: … first years of my life in Virginia … why did you lie … all kinds of different things … or something like that …

 

Example words, David’s demo: … type … sight … guide … like … iTunes … time … online … life … wife … live … fie …

 

STRUT → [ɜ]

Example words, accent donors: … which I love … blood red barns… purplish looking stuff …

 

Example words, David’s demo: … up … public … what … study … luxury … drug … much … number … London … young … nothing … other … of … us … because …