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American Dialects

 Launch Media

ABOUT 

  • ABOUT Robert Easton

    Robert Easton's inventory of accents and talent for teaching are in high demand as audiences become increasingly sophisticated and expect greater accuracy in dialects. Easton has worked with over 2,000 actors, including Forest Whitaker for his Oscar, Golden Globe, BAFTA, NAACP, & SAG Award-winning Ugandan dialect in The Last King of Scotland. Profile

  • ABOUT Joan Houston Hall

    Joan Houston Hall earned her doctorate from Emory University, where she had the opportunity to interview people for the Dialect Survey of Rural Georgia. In addition to editing four volumes of the Dictionary of American Regional English, she has written widely about the project. She has served as President of the Dictionary Society of North America and is currently President of the American Dialect Society.

    Profile

  • ABOUT Simon Winchester

    Simon Winchester has worked as a foreign correspondent for most of his career. His work for The Guardian and The Sunday Times has seen him based in Belfast; Washington, D.C., New Delhi, New York, London, and Hong Kong. He’s covered such  as the Ulster crisis, the fall of President Marcos, the Watergate affair, the Jonestown Massacre, and the 1982 Falklands War.

    Profile
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Click play to listen. Recorded on November 5, 2005.

Language experts Robert Easton, Joan Houston Hall, and Simon Winchester demonstrate the vibrancy or regional dialects in America. Their discussion spans the evolution of various regional speech patterns and includes impersonations of some of history’s most famous leaders and their dialects.

Tags

linguistics, language, dialects, idiolects, American English, regionalism

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