No such thing as a neutral/non accent (plantation, area)
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Everyone has an accent. The 'Midwestern/neutral' accent is only 'neutral' sounding to a North American English speaker, and only because it's an average of all the linguistic features of the continent and it's the dialect used in media. It's approximately halfway between a Canadian and a southern accent and maybe 1/4 of the way between a western and an east coast accent.
The idea that it's not an accent at all though is ridiculous. I can tell that the 'neutral' speech spoken in Iowa is somewhat different sounding than the way people in Oregon talk. And being a highly mobile American doesn't guarantee you'll speak a neutral Midlands accent, generally you'll speak either the accent of where you grow up, the accent you inherit from your family or more likely a mix of both. So aside from on television, the 'neutral' accent is geographically limited, to the middle latitudes of the Midwest from Columbus to Lincoln. Though the speech of the Western US is only slightly different and most people couldn't tell the difference.
The 'neutral' American accent sounds quite 'strong' to someone who isn't an American or a Canadian anyways.
thats because the midwestern accent is not neutral. the pacific northwestern one is. people from oregon or washington sound like they could be from anywhere. its the most neutral american accent. the most neutral canadian accent imo is the one people in vancouver have. the most neutral british accent .. see where im going with this? theres not one universal neutral accent for the entire english language. there are however standardized versions/accents of each of its "denominations".
(theyre actually dialects but im just gonna go ahead and say accent like everyone else)
source: my personal opinion/experience,not actual data/facts
Location: The western periphery of Terra Australis
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There is no 'neutral accent', just more common accents or 'more standard' 'more neutral.' I'd say the Midlands, Middle Midwest, and most of the West falls into this category.
Everybody has an accent. I have said this many times when an ignorant person comes on and says that some area does not. When you think an area does not have an accent, it just means that most people in that area have the same accent you do.
Some accents are more pleasant to listen to. Some are more pronounced than others, but everybody that speaks has some kind of accent.
We are getting ready to make about a 2,000 mile road trip and I am expecting to hear a lot of different accents on the trip, but I bet most of the people I meet will think that we are the people with an accent because our accent is Southern, although I have been told by some that my accent is not as Southern as other people they have met. They think that is a compliment, but I don't. I like being Southern and my accent is part of that.
I was once told that I sound like the people on Mayberry RFD. Well, I should. I grew up less than 100 miles from where Andy was born. My accent has changed through the years. The North Carolina mountain accent is different from the North Carolina plantation accent. I worked with the public in one of the fastest growing counties in America and met people from all over on a daily basis. Different places use different phrases and I was able to pick and choose which phrases I want to use.
^^People will think you are the ones with the accent b/c you will be out of your native habitat. I agree, yes, everyone has an accent, even these Oregonians and others who think they don't.
Of course there is no such thing as a true "neutral" accent. How do you define "neutral"? There is no absolute reference standard for neutrality; accents and dialects within a language can only be defined relative to each other, and each of them has its own unique patterns of speech and intonation. Some might be generally considered to be "neutral" but this is just an 'agreed upon' standard; it doesn't exist in reality.
If English were a phonetic language then I think there would be a true neutral dialect, where everything is pronounced the way it's "supposed to"
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