Big Question Abstract

How does geography influence accent and social belonging?

                Before the times of internet, telephones and personal, when geography caused groups of people to be isolated from others, people began to adopt their own unique accents and dialects depending on the factors were present in these regions. An accent is a distinctive mode of pronunciation of a language.  These groups of people also developed their own niches in society, i.e. royalty had their own adopted accent in England, while the working class spoke with a cockney accent. To understand why people who speak the same language can speak it so different and to see how this affects how they’re seen in society, you have to look at how these accents developed; and one of the major factors of the development of different dialects and accents was geography. This lets us see why, for example, a person from the Southern United States and a person from the Northern United States not only speak the same language in a different way, but also how they view their own roles in society.  Linguistics and sociology are subjects that have been looked into since the earliest civilizations. The study of linguistics can be seen in ancient India, and sociological studies are thought to of began in ancient Greece. Understanding the effects that geography had on people gives insight into the development of the unique speech and societal belonging of these people.