Are accents inherited or developmental?

[Arachnidus]

This question came up in my Psych class today and I can't get it out of my head. I've been debating what the possible causes for both sides could be, but the nature vs nurture argument has a lot of angle. Personally, I'm leaning towards a combination, for these reasons;

-Genetics determine the design and use of vocal chords, so speech is inherently influenced in one way or another...
-...however, speech patterns, language and diction can cause alterations in accent over a lifespan.
-In addition, that mystery syndrome where people wind up speaking entirely different accents or even languages after brain trauma seems to point towards some type of brain/body mixture that plays into it.

Inevitably, this leads to a middle ground where an accent can either be fully present or partially. Thing is, I don't really have much experience in the field to comment. Take, for example, this. A boy is born in London and moves to the United States at the age of four. What would his accent sound like at the age of eighteen? I'd like to hear what you guys think.

[Samuel]

He would sound like an American. Accents are not inherited. Speech impediments might be and kids might pick up an accent from their parents, but in general their peers would correct for the second cause.

[Stark]

This is fucking stupid. Maybe you live in a single-ethnicity area, but when you meet black guys from Liverpool and asian girls from the ditch your mind might be a tiny bit expanded. Hell, I knew a kid in primary school with a heavy American accent because he learned to talk by watching Seasame Street.

Crazy old Duckie could even explain what characteristics of a language lead to accents, since it's the crossover between sounds and pronounciation that lead to it.

[Rye]

Adults' accents, let alone those of children going through lots of development, change over time relative to their location. My brother, for instance, has developed a "southern voice" for dealing with people on the Isle of Wight and Southampton, and it takes a couple of days of being back in the North before his native voice returns.

[Arachnidus]

This is fucking stupid. Maybe you live in a single-ethnicity area, but when you meet black guys from Liverpool and asian girls from the ditch your mind might be a tiny bit expanded. Hell, I knew a kid in primary school with a heavy American accent because he learned to talk by watching Seasame Street.

Crazy old Duckie could even explain what characteristics of a language lead to accents, since it's the crossover between sounds and pronounciation that lead to it.

I live in NYC, everybody has different accents. It's just that, some with different accents were born in the US as second generation children, while others were born overseas and have obvious american accents.

[Formless]

I'm in agreement with Stark and Samuel here. You are speculating on the counterfactual: accents are learned, not inherited. End of story. Where I live there are tons of kids from Mexican families, who speak Spanish at home, but speak English with no discernible "Mexican accent" whatsoever relative to the rest of the population; that is to say, they speak it with an American Midwestern accent like everyone else in this state. Nor does anyone from the related minority of people descended from Mexicans but who speak English in the home as well. In fact, if accent were inherited there should not be an "American" accent-- this country is populated almost completely by immigrants. Ditto for Aussies.

In fact, you can learn how to speak in another accent pretty trivially. There are tons of actors who make their living playing roles that speak in accents other than their own; Hugh Laurie is a great example. So is James Doohan (hint: Scotty was Scottish, Doohan wasn't). It all comes down to how you move your mouth, nothing more.

[CaptainChewbacca]

On the flip side, a friend of mine DOES have a slight speech impediment/quirk that causes him to have a bit of a Liverpool lilt. He's not english, he's never been there, and his parents are both American.

But we call him English Shawn anyway. Its awesome, cuz nobody believes he's from here.

[Lord of the Abyss]

There's also "foreign accent syndrome", where people who suffer brain damage suddenly develop what sounds like a foreign accent.

[Formless]

Sounds like =! is. If the "accent" developed is random or corresponds to no real life accent (e.g. many Americans who try to do a generic "British" accent fail because there is no "generic British accent"-- you have to be more specific then that or anyone actually fluent in that culture will know you're just a stupid American), then its not evidence that accents are inherited genetically or biologically-- its evidence that the brain tends to screw up in weird ways when physically damaged. We already knew that.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Its not FAS, he's had it since childhood. I know its not a 'genetic accent', its just odd.

[Ariphaos]

I have a few black friends who switch between Minnesotan and African vernacular on a dime. Was rather jarring the first time I heard it.

A large part of accents is where in your mouth they resonate. British accents reverberate in the front of the mouth, American accents tend to reverberate in the middle, and eastern European and Indian accents tend to reverberate in the back of the mouth. It's a learned trait and habit rolled up into one.

[Ilya Muromets]

In fact, you can learn how to speak in another accent pretty trivially. There are tons of actors who make their living playing roles that speak in accents other than their own; Hugh Laurie is a great example. So is James Doohan (hint: Scotty was Scottish, Doohan wasn't). It all comes down to how you move your mouth, nothing more.

Some actors can even lose and gain accents after long-term exposure. Arnie's distinctive accent? Maintained by regular visits to a language coach for the sake of his popular image, otherwise all that living in the US among the various American accents would've annihilated all vestiges of his original accent a long time ago.

[Kanastrous]

What has long puzzled me is the 'gay accent,' by which I mean the sort of girlish-lispy speech patterns with which a proportion of gay men speak. It's distinctive, it's recognizable, and while I expect that not every last man who speaks that way is actually gay (and obviously not all gay men speak that way), there does appear to be a correlation. I have never been able to determine if it's affected, if it's an affected thing that over time becomes natural, or if it's entirely natural to the particular speakers who sound that way...or if it's a social construct pure and simple.

[Simon_Jester]

If I had to guess, it's in large part a social construct, a convention created by the media as a way to advertise that the character in question is very, very gay without actually having to make the guy wear an "I LIKE BUTTSEX" T-shirt or anything.

If there's any truth to it, and I have no evidence there is since I cannot remember ever encountering anyone who used it*, then I'd guess it's an affectation: life imitating art, as it were.

*Which proves nothing; the people I've met aren't a representative sample of any population I know of...

[RedImperator]

I can't believe someone's actually asking this question. Hey, my great-grandparents apparently sounded like the fucking Mario Brothers, so I guess that means I talk like, "It's-a me, RedImperator!"

[Themightytom]

I can't believe someone's actually asking this question. Hey, my great-grandparents apparently sounded like the fucking Mario Brothers, so I guess that means I talk like, "It's-a me, RedImperator!"

I think what's being proposed is that genetics play a role in how sounds are produced. psychology tries too hard sometimes to jerk off the biological perspective in order to sponge off the medical fields higher degree of credibility.

Not to be a troll but the nature versus nature concept is massively misunderstood in psychology. I just attended a three hour training on mental illness at which the presenter insisted ad naseum that mental illness was a "DNA problem" because she did genograms all the time which showed patterns of mental illness across generations.

Nature may influence nurture, and vice versa but behaviors seem to be a synthesis of the two. DNA can make a person susceptible to a mental illness, say if they are coded to have an overactive pituitary gland or something, or hell, if their family keeps coming up transvestites, but I've never heard of a genome that causes depression.

Back on point, if an ethnicity has been in an area for generations, maybe there has been some limited natural selection in terms of improved ability to communicate, be understood, and fit in with a society. Maybe this would make people slightly better at pronouncing words consistent with an accent in that region. I doubt however, that every person of Hispanic origin can fork their tongues because their language rolls the "r"s.

Natural selection, and the effect it has on genetics isn't really a short term process and language changes much to quickly in my mind for there to be a real possibility that accents would be genetic.

[Formless]

I think what's being proposed is that genetics play a role in how sounds are produced. psychology tries too hard sometimes to jerk off the biological perspective in order to sponge off the medical fields higher degree of credibili

Not just medicine-- I've complained about the misuse of Evolutionary Psychology in the past as well.

Not to be a troll but the nature versus nature concept is massively misunderstood in psychology. I just attended a three hour training on mental illness at which the presenter insisted ad naseum that mental illness was a "DNA problem" because she did genograms all the time which showed patterns of mental illness across generations.

Then she's a fucking imbecile. WHICH mental illness? Clinical Depression? Schizophrenia? Bipolar disorder? OCD? ADHD? Antisocial Personality Disorder? Autism? Dissociative Fugue? Psychological amnesia? Bulimia Nervosa? Insomnia? Conversion disorder? PTSD? Addiction? Phobias? Dementia? Erectile dysfunction? Dyslexia? Mental Retardation? Münchausen syndrome? Psychosis? Selective mutism? Hypochondria? Sleepwalking? Tourette's syndrome? Agoraphobia? There is such a wide variety of mental illnesses that you cannot make blanket statements about all of them like that. Some mental illnesses are inheritable to some degree or another such as schizophrenia, others (I'd take a risk and say most) aren't. And even if they are, all that means is that you are more likely to get it if you have a family history of said illness. Its no guarantee; its not 100% deterministic. Plus, you inherit lots of stuff from your parents through non-genetic means all the time like money and culture: geneograms are worthless evidence in light of that. And lets not get started on culture bound disorders and the hell they wreak on her hypothesis.

Nature may influence nurture, and vice versa but behaviors seem to be a synthesis of the two. DNA can make a person susceptible to a mental illness, say if they are coded to have an overactive pituitary gland or something, or hell, if their family keeps coming up transvestites, but I've never heard of a genome that causes depression.

"Which contributes more to the area of a rectangle: its length or its width?" --Donald Hebb, psychologist.

Yeah, this is nothing new. Most people who actually know anything about the field stopped seeing this as a black and white dichotomy long ago. The masses just have yet to catch up. Hell, they still think Freud is mainstream and that Subliminal Messaging is real! Little wonder they're so easily bamboozled by cranks and buzzwords ("Genetics! Drugs! Chemical imbalances! Parenting!" etc.). Personally, I've decided that any talk of "human nature" is going to be incomplete because the effects of chaos means no psychological theory is going to be able to make the kind of guarantees that people seem to hope for. Thats not to suggest that its a worthless field of study (if it was then I've been wasting my time learning so much about it), but its never going to be as simple as physics or chemistry.

[General Zod]

I can't believe someone's actually asking this question. Hey, my great-grandparents apparently sounded like the fucking Mario Brothers, so I guess that means I talk like, "It's-a me, RedImperator!"

I think what's being proposed is that genetics play a role in how sounds are produced. psychology tries too hard sometimes to jerk off the biological perspective in order to sponge off the medical fields higher degree of credibility.

Not to be a troll but the nature versus nature concept is massively misunderstood in psychology. I just attended a three hour training on mental illness at which the presenter insisted ad naseum that mental illness was a "DNA problem" because she did genograms all the time which showed patterns of mental illness across generations.

Nature may influence nurture, and vice versa but behaviors seem to be a synthesis of the two. DNA can make a person susceptible to a mental illness, say if they are coded to have an overactive pituitary gland or something, or hell, if their family keeps coming up transvestites, but I've never heard of a genome that causes depression.

Back on point, if an ethnicity has been in an area for generations, maybe there has been some limited natural selection in terms of improved ability to communicate, be understood, and fit in with a society. Maybe this would make people slightly better at pronouncing words consistent with an accent in that region. I doubt however, that every person of Hispanic origin can fork their tongues because their language rolls the "r"s.

Natural selection, and the effect it has on genetics isn't really a short term process and language changes much to quickly in my mind for there to be a real possibility that accents would be genetic.

It's not like you could hope to cover anything worthwhile in a mere 3 hour training program. My Psych 101 class covers a lot of material but we barely have the time to scrape the surface from 3 hours a week, let alone to go into any kind of serious depth about mental illnesses in one 3 hour session.

[Alyrium Denryle]

This is fucking stupid. Maybe you live in a single-ethnicity area, but when you meet black guys from Liverpool and asian girls from the ditch your mind might be a tiny bit expanded. Hell, I knew a kid in primary school with a heavy American accent because he learned to talk by watching Seasame Street.

Crazy old Duckie could even explain what characteristics of a language lead to accents, since it's the crossover between sounds and pronounciation that lead to it.

I live in NYC, everybody has different accents. It's just that, some with different accents were born in the US as second generation children, while others were born overseas and have obvious american accents.

You are an idiot. Second generation children often speak the mother tongue at home, and live in communities of immigrants from their home regions. This means that the kids will have friends with their accent, and will be learning two languages at once in early development. Thus leading to accented speech.

It all depends on what the kid hears growing up. If they were born overseas but came to the US early, they may never develop one.

[Themightytom]

It's not like you could hope to cover anything worthwhile in a mere 3 hour training program. My Psych 101 class covers a lot of material but we barely have the time to scrape the surface from 3 hours a week, let alone to go into any kind of serious depth about mental illnesses in one 3 hour session.

She could have definitely covered more pragmatic topics like Risk management with medication, or understanding basic terms or whatever, but she jumped on the old pedestal and revealed her unique insight into solving mental illness and homelessness. I kind of knew she would do it, I was just trying to see how long she could resist, and it wasn't very long.

[someone_else]

In a week of exposure I change my own accent automatically (kinda scares me a little).
And italian accents are pretty different from region to region.
I think genetics have something to do with how fast you can change accent/language. But anyone changes accent if given enough time (if he hasn't brain problems).

[AniThyng]

In a week of exposure I change my own accent automatically (kinda scares me a little).
And italian accents are pretty different from region to region.
I think genetics have something to do with how fast you can change accent/language. But anyone changes accent if given enough time (if he hasn't brain problems).

Heck, I automatically change my accent (or perhaps more properly, my grammar and vocabulary) depending on who I'm speaking to...more proper english when with a westerner...and I'm told when I'm agitated and arguing a point my english goes up a level from normal.

[Phantasee]

I speak in an accent when I can't come up with a word in my mother tongue and have to use an English one, while speaking to my parents or other people in my community in the mother tongue. I speak with a bit of a country drawl when I'm talking to average Albertans in the trucking and construction industry (and farm kids going to Uni here in Edmonton). I speak like a black guy when I'm talking to the kids in my community, since we all grew up on rap music.

This of course varies with context and specific audience. All of these accents were learned, from listening to the people around me. My cousins pick up on it when I start talking with a drawl while talking about my work (since the context is a little mixed up), and they'll mock me when I can't say "casino" and other words with a proper Western Canadian accent, since I haven't heard them as much in that context.

[Shroom Man 777]

My accent changes when I'm talking with my elementary school buddies since we were taught to speak english in school, so we have English slang whatevers. But when we start mixing the local dialect with the english, the accent kinda changes and gets harder. I should ask Malachuschus to give awesome inputs.

[Ilya Muromets]

My accent changes when I'm talking with my elementary school buddies since we were taught to speak english in school, so we have English slang whatevers. But when we start mixing the local dialect with the english, the accent kinda changes and gets harder. I should ask Malachuschus to give awesome inputs.

What's there to say? Cebuano intonation and inflection differs widely from English, so English slang spoken in a mostly Cebuano conversation ends up sounding different since smoothly changing intonation styles for one or two words in the middle of speech is extremely difficult to do. Heck, that's why those locally-made English language commercials on the radio sound so singsong and weird--the guys they hired clearly aren't completely comfortable speaking English and read it with Cebuano inflection and intonation.