Date:  Mon, 22 Nov 1993 21:15:41 -0700

From:  Rudy Troike <RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET>

Subject: Re: Diversity of accents



Joan,

    It's not so simple as we dialectologists, always going for the larger

picture, like to make out. Individuals will be individuals, at least at times,

no matter how much we try to squeeze them into our isoglosses or sociolinguis-

tic variables. I remember reading an interview some years ago with someone

who grew up in Brooklyn, in which he commented that his friends early on said

that he was eventually going to leave Brooklyn when he grew up, because he did

not sound like his peers. And he did leave. Unfortunately the interview was

printed, so there was no way to prove this, but it does suggest people are

not Skinner-conditioned, and may select which aspects of the environment they

will attend to as most salient. I have a colleague from Montana who sounds

like a Britisher.

        Rudy Troike