Language Beliefs

I believe that language is a critical tool for getting by in the the world. I think that when people understand what you say, the most important aspect of language is covered. Although I say this, I also believe that using correct grammar makes it much easier for people to understand what you are saying. This belief comes from my mom because she is always talking about the importance of grammar.


We watched a video in class that interviewed many people from around the U.S. about accents. I learned a ton from the movie. A few things include: Some accents may only be present in a few hundred people isolated because of water or mountains. A second thing was that although there is no such thing as a better accent, there is one that is favored by actors and speakers. This is called the voice from nowhere. This concept confuses me. It makes sense that one way of speaking is most common and accepted, but I wonder what this "voice from nowhere" is based on. It wouldn't make sense to combine all ways of speaking through some software, because this would just create one really odd sounding voice. I guess there can be a close to accent-less voice, but it seems to me that the voice has to be based off of some accent somewhere.

Source: The movie we watched was called "American Tongues".