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June 1995, Week 3

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Subject:
From:
"Edward R. O'Neill" <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Film and TV Studies Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Sat, 17 Jun 1995 16:31:00 PDT
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I do not think that Jenny Joy's comments about "Standard Speech" are
quite correct, at least insofar as the concept of "Midatlantic"
or "Standard" is fairly recent in the teaching of actors. It does
seem that in early sound cinema there are very distinctive ways of
speaking that are no longer identifiable solely with regional or
national accents: Cary Grant is anything but Cockney; Cagney's
accents involves bits of New York patterns but not entirely. I *am*
convinced that there were distinctive ways of speaking associated
particularly with the New York stage on which people like Edward
G. Robinson had experience. There were teachers of speech in this
period, but they did not teach exactly what is now taught as
"Standard"--which is actually closer to a British accent than to,
say, a Midwestern accent (which itself has changed significantly
over the course of the century).
In any case, this is my opinion after some investigations of the
history of acting teaching in New York, of speech textbooks from
the '20's forward, and various other sources. A really thorough
discussion of the topic is difficult, if only because of the
impressionistic nature of the perception of accents. Certainly
an expert in intonation patterns would have something to say after
doing some work on recordings, but otherwise I think such a
discussion is hobbled by lack of precision.
Cordially,
Edward R. O'Neill, UCLA
PS The rise of the Method and the Actor's Studio after the
second World War has something to do with the decline of earlier
stage speech patterns, as technical vocal training was often in
practice less important for Brando, Dean, Monroe, etc.
 
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