Louisiana

CONTENT WARNING: This accent analysis contains audio clips of real speakers discussing the racist and violent events that took place in Jena, Louisiana in 2007. Know that your boundaries are perfect exactly where they are. I can provide you with different ways of working if these sound files do not serve you.

 

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

Some Background on How We’ll Work

As Dominique Morisseau writes of Blood at the Root, “This story is inspired by a series of incidents, media reporting, and social action in Jena, Louisiana in 2007.” Because the story is inspired by real people and events–people whose manner of speaking is in the public record, in news media interviews–I’m using their real voices as a starting point, to help us build the fictional soundscape of Cedar, Louisiana in the late aughts. I want to be clear, however, that our goal is not to create a true-to-life impersonation of any of these real human beings. The characters of Blood at the Root and their stories are highly fictionalized, and as you build your character (their backstory, their physicality, their way of watching and listening and responding in the world, as well as their manner of speaking), I want to offer a kind of dance between two ideas. The first idea is that our hope, whether we ultimately hit the mark or just try our best to get there, is to honor real people by seeking to tell a story that illuminates their experience. The second idea . . . is that stories are not the same as real events. Your own life, experiences, memories, and emotions; your perspective on the world; your investigation of Dominique Morisseau’s words; and your collaboration with the ensemble and team of this production will meld together with the historical record to create an artistic interpretation. We may find that through this process, we express something that approaches truth, though not fact.

tldr; This accent breakdown is based on how real people in central Louisiana speak in the early 21st century, but this isn’t a rigid guide for how you should speak in this play. Together, we’ll build voices that honor the real region and people, that honor the story we are telling together, and that honor your artistic voice.

Here are the recordings we’ll work with, as an amuse bouche. As you play them, try listening with your mouth–can you move your mouth along with the sounds you hear, and discover physically what mouth shapes and speech actions these speakers might be making? We’ll break these recordings down in detail below, so this is just to let the accent wash over you. Don’t worry about doing anything “right.”

Some History of English in the American South

There is enormous variety in the English spoken in the American South, with influences from British English, particularly the southwest of England and Ireland, and the various forms of Pidgin English developed by people forcibly brought to the US from the African continent in the transatlantic slave trade. A pidgin language is a means of communication that develops between two groups who do not share a common language. Slave traders very often deliberately separated African people with shared language so that they could not collaborate. The forms of English these people developed evolved over time into African American Vernacular English or AAVE (itself a broad umbrella term that encompasses a vast amount of linguistic variation). The accents heard among speakers of many races across the American South today carry these early influences from Britain and from African languages.

After the Civil War and as a result of brutal “Jim Crow” segregation policies, African American communities began to move north and consolidate in urban centers in a decades-long process called the Great Migration. Wherever there is segregation of people, divergence in culture and language results. This is why AAVE emerged as its own American dialect, distinct from the varieties of American English spoken by white Americans, even white Americans living in the same town.

I’ve just condensed a great deal of complex and fascinating history into two paragraphs. Want to know more? Check out the documentary Talking Black in America–it’s awesome.

For this reason, I’ll note in this breakdown which accent features are more common for Black speakers or white speakers. But these are not hard and fast rules. We acquire our manner of speaking from our social groups, which means we might speak like other people of our race (or gender, class, religion, ethnicity, etc.)–or we might not. It depends on your community and your life experience. There might be characters in Blood at the Root (Asha and Justin, for example?) whose language use doesn’t stick to broad racial categories. We’ll make these choices together, and your and Ruben’s understanding of who your character is matters most.

Many other demographic features besides race and region of origin influence our manner of speaking. One I want to highlight particularly for this play is age. The South is at the tail end of a major dialect shift around a feature called rhoticity–do English speakers pronounce the “R” sound after a vowel, or drop it? By and large, as you’ll hear in the recordings, Southern American people of the most recent couple generations tend to use rhoticity in their speech. ( . . . Sometimes. There’s always a caveat with accents!) This is one way we might differentiate the high school students from the older authorities who surround them.

Jena, Louisiana is in central Louisiana, which does not have the same density of Cajun French or Louisiana Creole speakers as southern and coastal Louisiana. French language influences certainly exist in central Louisiana, but the accent we’re working on for this play is much more a variety of Lower Southern American English than Cajun.

A Sketch of Central Louisiana
First Baptist Church of Jena

Our culture deeply affects our language use, but we also want to be careful of oversimplifying that relationship with stereotypes like, “The rhythm of life is slower in the South, so people talk slower.” (In fact, there’s some research showing that people from southern states use about the same number of words per minute as people from northern states.) One way to start thinking about the interplay of culture and speech is just to bring the landscape of the place into your imagination, so that it can begin to affect your physicality. Here are just a few details to start with.

Let go of any images or experience you might have of the bayous of coastal Louisiana or the avenues of New Orleans. Central Louisiana is comprised of vast, flat prairies and a few forests. The winters are mild, and the summers are humid, rainy, and hot–very hot. There is a lot of farmland surrounding Jena, and the main center of commerce in town is a Walmart Supercenter. In the 2010 Census, 85% of people in Jena were white, 12% were African American, and the rest were from other races. In 2007, a large US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Detention Center began incarcerating people two miles north of Jena. In the last census, the median family income was around $40,000. The Pew Research Center found that 84% of adults in Louisiana are Christian, and the majority of those are Evangelical and Catholic. People care about sports in central Louisiana–especially football. Country rock and hip-hop are a bigger deal in central Louisiana than the jazz and blues of coastal Louisiana, but they all have their influence in the region, so start building your Blood at the Root playlist of Louisiana artists now, if you find music an inspiring place to start. (Some hints: Lil Wayne, Britney Spears, and Gnarls Barkley.)

 

POSTURE

Think about one of the hottest summer days you’ve experienced in Baltimore or Towson. Imagine the heaviness of the humidity sinking into the skin of your brow, your eyelids, your cheeks, and your jaw. Think about the bright hotness of the sunlight on your forehead. Allow this heat to soften your muscles like wax. Now dial it up another 5 degrees.

Imagine if someone handed you a tall glass of ice cold sweet tea right now. What would it be like to let your jaw stay loose from the heavy humidity, but to purse your lips around the rim of the glass and lift your soft palate so you can draw that refreshing, sweet liquid way into the back of your mouth. Make lots of space for the cool tea to swirl over the back of your tongue. You’re starting to approach the oral posture of central Louisiana.

Relative to other American accents, in central Louisiana…

    • the jaw is released and perhaps somewhat retracted
    • the lips are mobile and willing to round, especially around back vowels
    • the velum (or soft palate) is active and willing to raise, creating a lot of space and resonance at the back of the mouth and into the pharynx (throat)
    • there might be some bracing in the back of the tongue, maybe even some retraction of the tongue root

Sometimes “filler sounds,” the paralinguistic sounds we make when we’re searching for our words like uh or uhm, can give us an indication of “home base” in the vocal tract. In this clip, you’ll hear the say speaker say uh or uhm three times, once at a normal pace and once slowed down 50%. Try “listening with your mouth”–see if you can make the shape the speaker is making as you listen:

 

PRONUNCIATION

If you haven’t taken Speech & Dialect, don’t get hung up on the phonetic symbols. Focus on the recordings, listen with your mouth, and know that we’ll be going over your lines together one-on-one.

In the recordings, you’ll hear the sound I’m describing, first played at regular tempo, then slowed down 50%.

 

CONSONANTS

 

Consonant features of AAVE heard in central Louisiana:

 

/θ/ and /ð/ → [θ] or [ð] or [t̪] and [d̪]

The spelling TH may be realized as an unvoiced or voiced fricative, [θ] and [ð], as in things, another:

 

Post-vocalic /l/ → [ʊ] or [ʉ]

There may be velarization, meaning the back of the tongue might rise toward the soft palate, producing a vowel [ʊ] or [ʉ], as in fell, rail, school:

 

/t/ and /d/ → elision

After an /n/ in a stressed syllable and before a vowel, /t/ and /d/ may be elided, as in integrated, understood:

 

Plosives and Consonant Clusters

Plosives, consonant clusters (particularly /nt/ and /nd/), or /n/ at the end of a word may be elided or realized as a glottal stop [ʔ], as in back, town, ground, thought

 

Consonant features shared by Black and white speakers:

 

Final /ŋ/ → [n]

/ŋ/ in verbs and gerunds ending in -ing is very often realized as [n], as in going, feeling, morning, nothing, happening, painting:

 

Initial /l/ → [ɫ]

At the beginning of words or syllables, the tongue tip might meet the alveolar ridge with strong cupping in the front of the body of the tongue, producing a “dark /l/” [ɫ], as in feel like, evenly, fairly, little, laughed:

 

Consonant Clusters

Consonants may drop out of clusters, especially at the ends of words, and especially plosives, as in misconduct (note the /t/ is elided), world (dropped /d/), friends (dropped /d/):

 

VOWELS

In my listening, I’m noticing that there seems to be a lot of overlap in vowel usage between Black speakers and white speakers in central Louisiana, so I am not highlighting any features here as specific to AAVE. I will note a few places where certain features may diverge between racial groups.

Diphthongs and the “Southern drawl.” You might notice a pattern as you listen: that some vowel sounds have an “off-glide,” so that they are not a monophthong (one vowel sound by itself) but a diphthong (two vowel sounds merged into one). This might be the most distinctive feature that Americans think of when they think of a “Southern accent.” It’s absolutely a real feature–let’s just listen carefully and use it with specificity, rather than “diphthongalizing” willy nilly.

 

KIT → [ijə̯], [iə̯], or [ɪ̝ə̯]

Listen for [ijə̯] in kids, [iə̯] in kill, and [ɪ̝ə̯] in been:

 

DRESS → [ɛə̯] or [ɛjə̯]

Listen for [ɛə̯] in step and [ɛjə̯] in said:

        • except when followed by /n/ – in that case, see the pin/pen substitution below
        • The glide in said [ɛjə̯] seems to be more common for Black speakers and white speakers of older generations.
        • Practice Words
          • mess          says          effort          death          sped

 

TRAP → [æə̯] or [æjə̯]

Listen for [æə̯] in passed and [æjə̯] in past and hand:

 

FOOT → [ʊ̽] or [ʊ̽ə̯]

Listen for [ʊ̽] in goodness and [ʊ̽ə̯] in understood:

 

FLEECE → [ɪ̯̽i]

Listen for [ɪ̯̽i] in week, believe, media:

 

FACE → [ɛ̞i̯] or [æi̯]

Listen for [ɛ̞i̯] or perhaps [æi̯] in racial, day, safe, say:

 

MOUTH → [æ̙ʊ̯]

Listen for [æ̙ʊ̯] in town, ground, outside:

 

CHOICE → [ɔ̹ɪ̝̆]

Listen for [ɔ̹ɪ̝̆] as in boys:

        • This is an interesting one. I have heard a centralized off-glide [ɔə̯] among older speakers in the lower South, but I just didn’t hear that in these recordings. It seems that younger speakers have shifted to a front, close off-glide.
        • Practice Words
          • voice          coin          employ          annoy          noisy

 

GOAT → [a̽ʊ̯]

Listen for [a̽ʊ̯] as in joked, know, old

 

PRICE → [aː]

An interesting exception, this set may be realized as a monophthong [aː] as in time, survived, abiding, I‘ve:

 

THOUGHT/LOT/CLOTH → [ɑɒ̹̽]

These sets seem to largely merge in this accent, and to lengthen and lip round [ɑɒ̹̽] as in on, long, gone, all, appalled:

 

STRUT → [ɜː] or [ɜə̯]

May be lowered and advanced and is often long [ɜː] as in judgment or diphthongalized [ɜə̯] as in but:

 

Pin/Pen Substitution

This is a feature that is heard throughout the South and Midwest. In KIT and DRESS words where the vowel is followed by /n/, speakers may swap /ɪ/ for /ɛ/ and vice versa. Listen for [ɪ̝] in tension, and [iə̯] in friend and pen:

 

Thing and Think

The vowel in these words is sometimes realized as [æ̙]:

 

Rhoticity (R-coloring)

This is a changing and fascinating feature in all English accents–do speakers “color” a vowel followed by an /ɹ/ with a bit of “r-ish-ness”? In the South historically, many dialects do not pronounce an /ɹ/. Today, young people in central Louisiana seem to be adding it back in. We can play with it. Here are some patterns to note.

      • AAVE Rhoticity after /ə/ – Often realized as [ə] rather than [ɚ] in words ending in -er, -or, and -ar as in either, after, other:
      • AAVE Dropped R – Older AAVE speakers may not pronounce a post-vocalic /ɹ/ in the NEAR, SQUARE, START, NORTH/FORCE, and CURE sets as well, as in for:
        • Practice Words
          • deer          career          weird          serious
          • care          their          prayer          scarce
          • far          large          barn          car
          • or          door          storm          adore
          • sure          pure          tour          endure
      • “Hard /ɹ/” – Most of the time, Black and white speakers use a “hard /ɹ/.” This means they use r-coloring following vowels in the NURSE, NEAR, SQUARE, START, NORTH/FORCE, and CURE sets and may even employ some tongue root retraction, strong bunching in the back of the body of the tongue, or tongue tip curling that gives the /ɹ/ a “strong” effect. There are a number of ways this effect might be produced physically; we’ll tinker with them together. Listen for here, scared, part, proportion, world:
        • Practice Words
          • church         turn         bird         rehearsal
          • deer          career          weird          serious
          • care          their          prayer          scarce
          • far          large          barn          car
          • or          door          storm          adore
          • sure          pure          tour          endure

 

PROSODY

Like many American dialects relative to British or Irish dialects, central Louisiana tends to stay within a pitch range of a few notes, rather than varying pitch a great deal over the course of a thought. Speakers might signal important words with volume or pace sooner than pitch, and in general, pitch tends to drop at the end of thoughts or phrases, even questions.

In these phrases, listen for the strong attack at the beginning of the thought, signaled by a slightly higher pitch, followed by a downward pitch trend to signal the end of the thought:

This falling inflection seems to hold across racial groups, but AAVE speakers may use more pitch variety. Listen to the pitch difference from the higher pitch at the beginning of these thoughts to the lower pitch at the end:

Word stress within a phrase or sentence may more often be signaled with pace. In these phrases, speakers give syllables at the ends of thoughts almost equal stress and time for emphasis:

 

Sources and Further Listening