Clips from the documentary American Tongues

1. The research project was done in 1986. If you were to re-do this project today, at the end of the first decade of the 21st century, what might a researcher do differently? What would you do the same?-  What I would do differently is interview more people from around the U.S. so I can get an even better understanding as to why they talk the way they do. I would ask questions as to why they talk the way they do, where did they get their accent from, what kind of things they had growing up compared to other groups, etc. I would get more involved in the study and ask questions and interview more people on a broader scale. What I would do the same is have people's opinions of other parts of the U.S., such as the South, Boston, New York, etc. I would have each group tell me what they thought of the other group, like they did in the clips.

2. What are some of the flaws with the study? Are there any groups that are under-represented? Over-represented? How might you make the study more appealing to an audience?- Some of the flaws in the study seem to be some groups are over-represented, such as southerners and New Yorkers. The study interviews more people from these particular parts of the U.S. as compared to other groups, like Bostonians. The thing that would make this study much better is to interview more people and get more opinions from people concerning other regions of the U.S. If the study added this quality, the study would be much more appealing and give a better depiction of what people really think about each other.

3. In your opinion (and based on some of the things discussed in the clips), how important is language in terms of how we perceive others? What is revealed (or others think is revealed) about us when we talk?- Language is very important in terms of how we perceive others. When people from Indiana talk to people from the South, their first impression is are they dumb and why have they never been taught proper grammar and English? This is one thing that people look at when it comes to looking at other groups. People tend to judge other people based on how they talk. Also, how a person talks tells a person what kind of a person they are. For example, if you hear someone with a Southern accent, you expect that person to be very nice and have southern hospitality like other southerners. When we talk, we reveal our attitude as well as what we believe and how we feel about certain things because certain parts of the U.S. have characteristics that go with their particular culture, an example being southern hospitality.