Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
The Accent Code: Unlocking the Mysteries of How We Talk and What It Says about Who We Are

The Accent Code: Unlocking the Mysteries of How We Talk and What It Says about Who We Are

Singer, Erik

Hardcover

General ReferenceLinguisticsGeneral Racism & Ethnic Studies

Publisher Price: $30.00

PREORDER - Expected ship date April 13, 2027

ISBN10: 0593833341
ISBN13: 9780593833346
Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group
Published: Apr 13 2027
Pages: 416
Weight: 1.30
Height: 0.97 Width: 6.13 Depth: 9.25
Language: English
In a dazzling blend of history and linguistics, a Hollywood dialect coach reveals the unexpected ways that accents shape our lives.

Why do so many movie villains have British accents? Why do some New Englanders say carr and others cahh? Why does Alaskan Sarah Palin sound like she's from Minnesota?

Where do accents come from, and why do people speak with different accents in the first place? Dialect coach Erik Singer has spent decades training Hollywood actors in the nuances of accents. How we pronounce our words isn't just a matter of how we move our mouths. Accents come with a host of associations--geography, class, intelligence, attitude--that influence how we express our identities and how we perceive those of others. In The Accent Code, Singer offers an irresistible guide to how accents work and what they mean, revealing the hidden ways accents shape our lives.

Language never stops changing: it reflects the churn of human striving and conflict, from sweeping developments like migration and war to the more quotidian intrigue of the high school cafeteria. With wit, erudition, and inexhaustible curiosity, Singer leaps across time and geography to bring a symphony of past and present accents to life. Along the way, he examines what accents might have to do with political polarization, deconstructs the dangerous biases we apply to the ways people speak, and spotlights the ingenuity of the linguists who documented language change in real time. Armed with a dialect coach's grasp of language from the inside out, we come to understand that an accent says so much more about us than where we're from.

Drawing on history, linguistics, and pop culture, The Accent Code is an exhilarating tour of the rich variety of human communication and identity.

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