Trope of the Month July: Accents and Dialects

[Beth Pavell]

Accent and dialect - often a contentious subject in fiction. There's a tension between writing prose that is easy to comprehend, and writing evocative and/or authentic prose. But first, some terminology. Accent refers to how language is pronounced, whereas dialect refers to the words, phrases, and idioms of a variety of language. Writing using so-called non-standard English (The idea of a standard, correct, form of English is an artificial construction that has more to do with politics than linguistics) can lend authenticity to writing - clearly, an American will not sound quite the same as an Englishman, and neither would sound the same as a New Zealander. Likewise, authors have deliberately used non-standard English to reflect experiences as minorities or subcultures.

Quite how to use this is a more difficult issue. Using dialect words is relatively straightforward, though it runs the risk of failing to get meaning across to the audience. Accent is harder to convey. English orthography (i.e: spelling and the method of conveying sounds with letters) is complex and contradictory, so writing an accent phonetically is prone to ending in confusion.

Some questions to begin the discussion:

• Where is non-standard language best used?
• Where have you seen it done well? Where have you seen it done badly?

 

[Greninjaman]

I will agree that accents are very tricky if not difficult to work with when it comes to writing a story. Dialects on the other hand, are much easier since they pertain to phrases as opposed to how a word is pronounced.

 

[TwinklingCupcake]

I feel like accents are very tricky in writing, and it is very easy to make it offensive. And a lot of authors DO make it offensive.

Like, one thing I notice a lot of authors doing is that fair-skinned characters do not speak with any phonetic accent or dialect... while they make the darker-skinned characters speaking with an accent of dialect. Or, to make it even WORSE, I've seen authors who only make their dark-skinned VILLAINS or rivals speak with an accent or dialect.
I don't think I need to go into detail on how racist/colorist that is.

Or like, I remember seeing a Scottish OC who had her accent written out, and it was made out to be a joke about how "incomprehensible" she was.

There's obviously ways to do it non-offensively but I've seen it done for a joke or to show "haha villains/black people talk weird/don't have good grammar" and it's so rage-inducing.

On a more positive note, I've seen some great dialects written out. There's a Brave author I like who took time to research various Scottish dialects to get Young MacGuffin's dialect right, and it came out great. (Such as saying things like "dinnae" instead of "didn't").

 

[Beth Pavell]

Like, one thing I notice a lot of authors doing is that fair-skinned characters do not speak with any phonetic accent or dialect... while they make the darker-skinned characters speaking with an accent of dialect. Or, to make it even WORSE, I've seen authors who only make their dark-skinned VILLAINS or rivals speak with an accent or dialect. I don't think I need to go into detail on how racist/colorist that is.

This speaks to the heart of the issue of language and politics. There is no such thing as a standard, unaccented/undialected English - what we learn is a variety of English accepted as standard. Standard British English has more or less always been the variety spoken by well-to-do Londoners, for example. This goes some way to explaining why some authors choose to write their stories partly or even entirely in dialect. Sometimes it's about making a point, refusing to accept that their way of speaking is somehow unfit or inappropriate for proper art.

I wouldn't presume to such political statements myself, but this is is partly why I wanted to have one of my protagonists speak in Yam Yam in The Long Walk. I am rather fed-up of accent snobbery - my own native (If you like) Yam Yam is usually at or near the bottom of the prestige totem pole when it comes to British English accents. But, and here is the flip side of the coin, transliterating Yam Yam into written English isn't easy. A big chunk of my audience are Americans, who not unreasonably would never have heard spoken Yam Yam. So I had to compromise with a more generic 'Northern' dialect, using as many Yam Yam words as I could.

 

[Juliko]

I only have one thing to add to this discussion: If you do decide to write a character with an accent, DO NOT write it so that their speech is nigh incomprehensible to understand! I read two books that were guilty of this: The Yearling and The Wee Free Men, both of which had most, if not all their characters speaking in accents and vernacular, but the way their speech is written makes it so that it's almost impossible to understand anything that they're saying at all! I mean, good lord! Trying to make out what the characters were saying in those books was like trying to translate Latin using an outdated translation guide! And those two books in particular go WAY overboard with having the vernacular take up literally the entire book, so reading them was a massive chore for me as a result. But yeah, also echoing what everyone else said.

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

I find that spelling out the phonetics of very strong dialects stops me in my tracks half the time. I remember the moles of Redwall as a child perplexing me greatly. That's just the reality of using non-standard ways of representing speech in prose fiction. There's not even a safe way to ensure that every reader will know how the accent is supposed to be read. It's also generally unnecessary, as you can simply narrate that the accent is in place without trying to render it.

Some good points have been made about what accents get to be prestigious or marginalised or even relegated to use by villains in fiction. It's good to watch out for this sort of thing, and ask yourself why it's so important that a character has a strong accent, and whether your personal biases are showing. I am acutely aware of what my own accent implies about me, and would be loathe to centre my own speech as preferable and correct, intentionally or otherwise.

 

[Nitro Indigo]

I've seen several My Little Pony fanfic writers say that it's better to portray Applejack's "ranch" accent using slang rather than a phonetic accent.