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I haven't seen Justified, so I took a look at it in IMDB and eventually found a link to a trailer on YouTube. I think now I understand your question. But I'm not from Kentucky. Having seen many movies set in the rural south, it sounds as good as any to me. Don't know why ... maybe it's Raylan's tough guy attitude, but it flashed me back to Billy Jack ca. 70's. I might just catch me an episode or two. Trailer hooked me.
So maybe what you're hearing, and enjoy so much, is the same thing I enjoy when listening to British dialog (accent, cadence, word choices). Same thing with Australian and South African.
Guys, I am not sure ideas of this kind are always so great. Imagine someone telling you that your everyday's manners of speech are so interesting, your everyday's ways of life are so exotic and cute and oh so lovely. Your response would be , hey, that's just the way I am, fuck off already! -- the same kind of reaction the annoying tourists get when they take photos of people's private homes because they look so indigenous and cute, or when they make a gigantic issue out of some Japanese cherry blossoms that to the locals are nothing to be excited about. That's not to mention that most of what you see from the movies and such, are way way exaggerated stereotypes, probably insulting.
The only time that it makes sense to discuss features of cultures is when it's in the interests of scholarship, or some practical needs, as opposed to just seeing the mannerisms of 'other peoples' as curios for your amusement and entertainment. I am not saying the comments above are quite that, but the tones get mighty close.
RobertB said: The only time that it makes sense to discuss features of cultures is when it’s in the interests of scholarship, or some practical needs, as opposed to just seeing the mannerisms of ‘other peoples’ as curios for your amusement and entertainment. I am not saying the comments above are quite that, but the tones get mighty close.
Not even close, imho. I believe this forum is about "scholarship." I was just giving an honest answer to an honest question about the sound of a dialect. Can't really help if I like the sound of certain dialects or not. And I'm pretty sure my comments are "protected" by the spirit of this forum. Same as honest discussion about terms normally considered vulgar (like the "fuck off" in your first paragraph) or racist or chauvinistic. As Grant (and the admins) have often pointed out, anything is up for discussion here, as long as it's done with respect.
I've been told (since moving to Arizona) that I have a "typical Midwestern accent that sounds slightly nasal." Doesn't bother me a bit. If somebody told me they liked the sound of my accent, that wouldn't bother me either.
If I'd said that British/Australian/S.African dialects were "amusing" to me ... well, that would be disrespectful.
Heimhenge said
So maybe what you're hearing, and enjoy so much, is the same thing I enjoy when listening to British dialog (accent, cadence, word choices). Same thing with Australian and South African.
My point of view may be different from y'alls since I know English as a second language. And strangely enough, I can not do accents.
Roberto
Dialog in what is loosely categorized as "literature" is often stylized for the genre. I live the was Spenser and Hawk talk, the way characters in a Louis L'Amour talk.
Is this how real people talk? Of course not. In real life, people often carry on multiple conversations simultaneously, and there are a lot of inside jokes, irrelevancies, snarks, verbal startic, etc., that don't advance a story, so authors substitute "synthetic" dialog. Teleplays have more latitude, because how something is said can be a wat to advance the plot.
I signed an email to my sister yesterday "John Beresford Tipton, Jr." and told her that I thought my atrial fibrilation was cured by having contracted Ebola, but I was still suffering from poison ivy, because the AIDS she recommended didn't suppress my allergic response. Her response? She couldn't remember who John Veresford Tipton, Jr was. You could NEVER get away with that kind of insanity in fiction; unlike real life, the writer needs to maintain a willing suspension of disbelief.
Michael Anthony: [Anthony enters the trophy room, where he discovers Tipton, hidden behind a puppet stage, holding up two puppets]
[Anthony, smiling, peers into the bottom of the stage]
Michael Anthony: You sent for me, sir?
John Beresford Tipton: Mike, I want you to meet two friends.
[the puppets bow to Anthony, who bows back. Tipton chuckles]
John Beresford Tipton: Do you recognize them?
Michael Anthony: Yes, sir - Punch and Judy. Every child the world over knows them.
John Beresford Tipton: Mike, for centuries they've made people laugh and cry. Yet, of their own feelings, we know nothing. If they had life, would they have been happy, discontent, hopeful, afraid?
Michael Anthony: I'm sure I don't know, sir.
John Beresford Tipton: I want to know, Mike. I want to know what they would do if they had the chance.
Very unreal dialog, and rather amusing, and nobody is being insulted.
deaconB said: Very unreal dialog, and rather amusing, and nobody is being insulted.
Exactly my point ... it's all about having fun with, and enjoying, dialogs in other dialects. No disrespect there. It's just a literary device.
Roberto Sepulveda said: My point of view may be different from y’alls since I know English as a second language. And strangely enough, I can not do accents.
Well, British/Australian/S.African English sounds like a second language to me, though it takes only a little study to pick up on some of the specialized words (like "lift" instead of "elevator"). But I also find it difficult to reproduce that accent. I think that's just a talent some people have. Especially actors who enjoy the benefit of a speech coach.
I have a good friend who works as a carpenter. He never had any voice training, but easily duplicates British, Scottish, East Asian, and Indian accents. Might be because he's also a musician and singer? He does a joke version of a tech support call to an Indian call center that always cracks me up. That's probably disrespectful, but hey ... it's a joke, so that comes with the territory.
Heimhenge, I think that your notes so far are good and due clarifications of your points. But in turn, the direction you are going requires a little elaboration on my part:
Literatures perpetually strive for cultural realism, mainly by invoking dialects and quirky customs. And even there is whole comic genre based on insults to cultures: the insults are so open and outrageous they're funny.
It is not all that I was talking about. See, it's the apparently benign embracing of the exotic that's the problem. When you say that you like someone's culture , the thought process behind that is really you asserting de facto superiority over that "other" person. Not always, granted, but often enough.
Out loud, that thought process might be like this dialog between you two:
--You have that little quirk to your way there, it's funny, we'd love to see more of it.
--Whatever it is, it's the same all my life.
--Oh don't be defensive, we love it anyway, it's beautiful.
--Regardless, it's nothing remarkable to me.
--But it is remarkable to us. Why else do you think we love you so much?
--I have nothing to say to that. Not my concerns.
--Well, aren't you appreciative of our great love for you, a freak you are ?
--How so that I am a freak?
--How else? You are not like anything we've ever seen before.
You can admire and love or ridicule and laugh all you want in private. It only becomes an insult when you make it public in a way that triggers the kind of unspoken dialog like the above. One of the ways to accomplish that is by directly addressing members of the culture you have in mind, with loving statements like, Oh do please tell us more about your beautiful culture! When you translate that to the subtext that is its true language, it is: You freako you! Get undressed and turn round so we can see just how freaky you really are! -- few surer ways to insult.
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
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