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It has increasingly become known as a Mid-Atlantic accent, [7] [4] [5] or Transatlantic accent, [11] [6] [2] terms that refer to its perceived mixture of American and British features. In specifically theatrical contexts, it is also sometimes known by names like American Theatre Standard [ 10 ] [ 8 ] or American stage speech . [ 12 ]
Any accent of English, including more recent ones, perceived as a mixture of American and British English, and often perceived as incorporating the prestige speech of one or both countries; Mid-Atlantic accent may also refer to: Philadelphia English, the dialect spoken in the Mid-Atlantic region (Delaware Valley) of the United States
The Mid-Atlantic split of /æ/ into two separate phonemes, similar to but not exactly the same as New York City English, is one major defining feature of the dialect region, as is a resistance to the Mary–marry–merry merger and cot-caught merger (a raising and diphthongizing of the "caught" vowel), and a maintained distinction between ...
Both types of accent are most commonly labeled a Mid-Atlantic accent [8] [9] or Transatlantic accent. On the other hand, the linguist Geoff Lindsey argues that many Northern elite accents were not explicitly taught but rather persisted naturally among the upper class; [10] the linguist John McWhorter expresses a middle-ground possibility. [11]
Philadelphia English shares certain features with New York City English and Midland American English, although it remains a distinct dialect of its own. Philadelphia and Baltimore accents together fall under what Labov described as a single Mid-Atlantic dialect, encompassing the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States.
Having been settled longer than the American West Coast, the East Coast has had more time to develop unique accents, and it currently comprises three or four linguistically significant regions, each of which possesses English varieties both different from each other as well as quite internally diverse: New England, the Mid-Atlantic states ...
Midland American English is a regional dialect or ... the South Midland with a larger mid-20th-century Southern accent ... specific to the Mid-Atlantic ...
English-language scholar William A. Kretzschmar Jr. explains in a 2004 article that the term "General American" came to refer to "a presumed most common or 'default' form of American English, especially to be distinguished from marked regional speech of New England or the South" and referring especially to speech associated with the vaguely-defined "Midwest", despite any historical or present ...