Why do British singers lose their accents when singing

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Why do British singers lose their accents when singing?

Wide spreading of the English language in the world communication has been stimulated by rapid development of international, economic, scientific, and cultural relations which is called by the necessity to study the language intermediary. For a long time English has been studied in its well-known form - BBC / RP which received the status of national standard in the UK. Under the modern circumstances when contacts have become more personal it appears to be not enough to know the refined version of the standardized English language. People become more interested in local, regional, and social variations of language which they hear every day in different parts of the world. The varieties of English attract attentions not only for practical purposes but scientific cognitive too.

In different English speaking countries there always been people who advocated the specifics of local talk or at least tried to differentiate regional variant from that which is spoken in metropoly. Among the first most prominent scholars who dedicated himself to this task was Noam Webster. At present day philological studies one can observe the works dedicated both to regional variations of English and local its representations.

Variants of the English language are the differences in grammar, idioms, dialects, etc that can be attributed to location. The variations include British English, American English, Australian/New Zealand English and South African English. English is the major language in all countries, but the variations in each can make communication difficult at times.

There is Standard English - the official language of Great Britain taught at schools and universities, used by the press, the radio and the television and spoken by educated people may be" defined as that form of English which is current and literary, substantially uniform and recognized as acceptable wherever English is spoken or understood. Its vocabulary is contrasted to dialect words or dialectisms. Local dialects are varieties of the English language peculiar to some districts and having no normalized literary form. Regional varieties possessing a literary form are called variants. In Great Britain there are two variants, Scottish English and Irish English, and five main groups of dialects: Northern, Midland, Southeastern, Southwestern and Southern. Every group contains several (up to ten) dialects. There are also English Urban Dialects. The most commonly cited cases in Britain are Cockney (London), Geordie (Newcastle), Scouse (Liverpool) and Glaswegian (Glasgow).

The American variant of the English language differs from British English in pronunciation, some minor features of grammar, but chiefly in vocabulary (e.g. cosy -British spelling, cosy - American spelling; travelling - British spelling, traveling - American spelling). Because of these differences, among the scholars, there is an interesting question: Why do British singers lose their accents when singing?

People all over the world tend to perceive British English as more pleasant to hear, more difficult to imitate and generally more “appealing” than General American. However, in popular songs, it's not always possible to distinguish between the two and there are several interesting possible reasons for this. Some argue that the British sing with an American accent, which is not completely true, although many foreigners perceive popular songs this way. Adele's 2012 soundtrack for the newest James Bond movie, Skyfall, seems to be an obvious example. When Adele sings, her voice is devoid of any dialectal features and she almost sounds like an American. This is interesting because, in speech, Adele exhibits a strong London accent (Cockney accent). There are several reasons we notice accents `disappearing' in song, and why those singing accents seem to default to “American”. In a nutshell, it has a lot to do with phonetics, the pace at which they sing and speak, and the air pressure from one's vocal chords. As far as why American and not some other accent, it's simply because the generic American accent is fairly neutral.

For the specific details, we will turn to linguist and author, David Crystal, from Northern Ireland. According to Crystal, a song's melody cancels out the intonations of speech, followed by the beat of the music cancelling out the rhythm of speech. Once this takes place, singers are forced to stress syllables as they are accented in the music, which forces singers to elongate their vowels. Singers who speak with an accent, but sing it without, are not trying to throw their voice to be deceptive or to appeal to a different market, they are simply singing in a way that naturally comes easiest, which happens to be a more neutral way of speaking, which also just so happens to be the core of what many people consider an American accent.

To put it in another way, it's the pace of the music that affects the pace of the singer's delivery. A person's accent is easily detectable when they are speaking at normal speed. When singing, the pace is often slower. Words are drawn out and more powerfully pronounced and the accent becomes more neutral.

Another factor is that the air pressure we use to make sounds is much greater when we sing. Those who sing have to learn to breathe correctly to sustain notes for the right amount of time, and singing requires the air passages to expand and become larger. This changes the quality of the sound. When syllables are not emphasized like they are in a normal speaking pattern, they become neutralized. As a result, regional accents can disappear because syllables are stretched out and stresses fall differently than in normal speech. When Adele sings, “Never mind I'll find someone like you,” the long “I” in “mind” becomes elongated, making it difficult to pronounce in a London clip. “If I say `aBOUT,' you hear the stress on the second syllable,” Fioretta said. “But when you're singing, that stress is reduced.” Additionally, there are some phonetic explanations for why accents get lost in songs. Singing involves different speech qualities, so one will actually have difficulty maintaining his or her accent or other regionally-specific speech features when vocalizing melodically. According to David Crystal, the way singing voices sound is influenced by the fact that intonation and speech rhythm are lost in melody and vowel qualities are different (elongated).

Andy Gibson, a New Zealand researcher at AUT's University Institute of Culture, Discourse & Communication also believes the change in accent between speaking and singing is not a deliberate one, nor are artists even aware of the change. A 2010 study he conducted of singers with speaking accents showed indeed that they were not aware that they sounded any different, they felt they were singing naturally. Crystal says it is unusual for a singer to hold a regional accent through an entire song, resulting in what he calls mixed accents for most.

The research material leads us to the conclusion that the English language is very rich one. It has got different variants which can be noticed not only in speech but in singing as well.

language webster dialects

Literature

1. Науменко Л.П., Стрельнікова Л.Г. Регіональні варіанти та діалекти англійської мови // Ученые записки Таврического национального университета им. В.И. Вернадского. Серия «Филология. Социальные коммуникации» - 2012. - Т.25 (64). - № 1. Часть 1. С. 128-134

2. Why British Singers Lose Their Accents When Singing [Electronic resource] // Today I found out [Official website]. 2015. URL: http://www.todayifoundout.com

3. Why Do Singers Lose Their Accents When Singing? [Electronic resource] // EVE Forums [Official website]. 2015. URL: https://forums.eveonline.com

4. Why Don't British Singers Have British Accents When They Sing? [Electronic resource] // BuzzFeed [Official website]. 2015. URL: http://www.buzzfeed.com

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