What's wrong with American accents?

This might just be my wrongful assumption but wouldn't most English actors already have the posh accent in their repertoire since let's be honest, that's their bread and butter in the film industry (period piece, villain, royalty biopic, etc).

 

For what it's worth, as an Englishman, I don't think there's anything wrong with the American accent at all. I think it's probably more the American directors who sometimes prefer to cast a Briton in certain roles. Luke & Han, two of the biggest & most important roles in the movies both had American accents.

 

The general trend of the accents overall is to be pretty flat and become more easily understood, I suppose. Regionally and off news TV you get the extreme stuff.

But if I understand correctly (not sure if you're from the US or not), you want that first-time "whoa! that's what it sounds like?" experience?

 

The general American accent is called, not surprisingly, "General American." Nebraska is considered the linguistic center of the country, I believe because there was a broadcasting school there where TV and Radio announcers would go to unlearn their regional accents. So they all sound like they'e from Omaha. Here is a really interesting clickable map of American and Canadian dialects. http://aschmann.net/AmEng/

It's interesting that General American is native to such a tiny area of the country, a little swath through Nebraska, Iowa & southern Illinois, basically.

 

Very subtle comments here. The American accent sounds bland, sometimes whiney and it has no personality. All words are pronounced excactly like they are spelled to make it easy. I also think Americans don't care so much about their language as the British. There are some good examples of language degredation in America such as the overuse of the word 'like'. I just can't stand this.
British accent has personality and flare and I could listen to it for hours. Basically the American accent is like a cats screech compared to British. Also besides what you read here, I think the consensus in England is pretty much that the American accent is an ugly version of their own. Now I'm not a native English speaker so my position on this is objective. And I'm not a USA hater. I love the USA for a lot of things but not for their accent.

 

You're speaking of General American really, which is more-or-less predominant (often forced in TV stuff) but isn't the only version, just like the Brits have different flavors. It's pretty much made to be bland, as I referenced in another comment, about general intelligibility.

I've heard some pretty terrible British accents (I'm reminded of a trip to London I took in which two girls kept exclaiming to me "It's not London, it's Laaaaandunnnn!! hehehehehehe!!" or something like that) just the same as some pretty terrible US accents.

Still, gotta give it to you that if we're going for sophistication the Brits have us beat. But like I said they can butcher it just as badly as we do.

 

I think you're basing your knowledge of American English primarily on TV, or a limited circle of American acquaintances. The over use of the word "like", for instance, is virtually unknown in anyone over the age of 30, and not very common in younger people with a college education. It's also quite regional.

And as for words being pronounced exactly as they are spelled- you could not be more wrong. George Bernard Shaw famously pointed out that you can actually spell fish "ghoti" (f sound as in "tough" , i sound as in "women" and sh sound as in "motion.") English (including American English) is notoriously hard to learn well because we have incorporated words from almost every language, so the "rules" only apply about half the time. (That would also be why Americans have spelling bees). Word snobs we are not. But English is much more concise than other languages. Compare the time it takes for the exact same information to be expressed in French, German or American English. We are by far the fastest. So perhaps we don't "care" about our language because we are willing to change it.


I will admit that we do pronounce place names like they are spelled, though, as a lot of them were named by French and Spanish explorers. I live not far from a town where people deliberately mispronounce the name of the town, because it was named after someone the townspeople didn't like. There is a river and a town named after the same guy, and yet spelled completely differently (Gardiner on the Gardner River). Lol, yes I guess Americans are not too picky about their language.

 

Yeah, a bit like when people mispronounce my birth state (Arkansas, which derived it's name from a French name and pronunciation) as if it were the same as Kansas with an "ar" on the front. Or when people say it correctly but spell it "Arkansaw". Drives me nuts sometimes.

Apparently it's taken some state laws in order to settle the pronunciation.

 

Yes, I heard about that! Arkansans take their pronunciations seriously!

 

Kirshner said explicitly that the Rebels were all supposed to speak with American accents, while imperials were given British accents, to the extent that they used ADR for certain actors that looked right and gave great performances, like the Rebel General on Hoth (who plays a colonel in Full metal jacket and has an obviously different voice)

This is kept fairly consistent in Star Wars, except for three major characters: Leia, Vader (at best a midatlantic accent), and classic British accent of the OG: Obi-Wan. The rebel pilots have American accents most of the time.

The only rebel who sticks out by having a British accent in ROTJ is Mon Mothma, but I've always let that go because, like Obi-Wan, Leia, and Tarkin, she had power as part of the Republic. Also, Marquand made a darn good film given the situation he had to deal with.

Kirshner (so?) was the only one who did everything he could to maintain the demarcation that Lucas had attempted to create.

Of course, he is the only director in SW history with the skill and freedom to make a good movie and make it great for many reasons, including subtle things like accent consistency.

 

Leia had an accent in one scene,never appeared again. I think they realized Fisher couldn't do it and in the Prequels her adopted father is Jimmy Smits so that whole idea seemed like a mistake no one ever referenced again.

 

I'm English and we have some damn strange place names that are pronounced totally differently to their spellings. Please near my parents is called Trosley but is spelt Trottscliffe... i think that may beat Arkansas!!

wonders of the English language my friends.

 

Speaking of accents, everyone should check out Denis Lawson's real voice. Imagine Wedge Antilles fighting the Empire with that Scottish accent. Part of me likes the idea, but then part of me thinks it would be a distraction. Either way, I thought he did a fine job sounding like an American in Star Wars. I didn't realize he was Scottish till I saw him in New Tricks a couple of years ago.

 

I must add that as native of the American Deep South, accent variety, especially when correctly used to convey class identity or association with a geographical point, or both, is greatly appreciated, if only because it's rare.

A time to Kill has some of the worst accents in any film, and the PT are almost bad in that accents come and go by group (and character for no reason).

JJ has a bad track record with his actors having accents that make sense (see Star Trek and STID), so I am CONCERNED. abut it will likely be okay.

 

Yes, you Brits left out the middle syllable in Gloucester and Worcestershire, and then invented a syllable for Edinburgh!

 

So true. Why do non-Southern actors think Elvis' impression=Southern accent? It drives me nuts. I stopped watching Bones because I couldn't stand the accent of their Southern intern (played by a guy from Ohio).

 

As someone who works with, and spends hours on the phone with, people from all over the US, the UK, France, Germany, China, and South America on a regular basis, there are many subsets of American English which become apparent after listening to non-native speakers. Everyone speaks English, in one form or another, as the de facto lingua franca of business and technology, and it is a valuable skill to know where they hail from after a brief introduction.

For the most part American English isn't really as regionally accented among professionals as it is portrayed on film. Other than NY/NJ, some Bostonians, Texans (mostly), and the SE, it is very hard to guess where someone calls home or where they are originally from. Of all of the dialects, the South and South East has the most nuance to it. Once you get an ear for it, it is pretty obvious if someone is from North Carolina, Georgia, Texas/Oklahoma, Arkansas, Alabama, or Tennessee. And even these distinctions are not as apparent as they were some years ago.

That being said, dialects amongst those at the lower ends of the economic and educational spectrum are as thick as ever.

As mentioned by another poster, it can be quite striking to listen to a local news broadcaster in Little Rock speak as if they are from Iowa, and then have the clerk in the gas station lay it on so thick that you have to ask them to repeat themselves.

After all of that, I guess what I am really trying to say is that the big difference in American accents is more pronounced socioeconomically than regionally.