Re: This week on Dancing with the Stars Re: The Business Memoir - the ``whom'' question

27 Oct 2006 10:01:09 -0700: "Peter T. Daniels"
<grammatim@xxxxxxxxxxx>: in sci.lang:

27 Oct 2006 05:59:52 -0700: "Peter T. Daniels"
<grammatim@xxxxxxxxxxx>: in sci.lang:
Surely even in Britain it's still illegal to record the voices of
people (entire communities would be needed to get a feel for local
variation) without their knowledge or permission, let alone publish
that speech for distribution.

This was about an actor speaking with the express purpose of having
his acting filmed and his speech recorded. How can that be illegal?

An actor attempting to imitate an accent is absolutely, utterly
worthless as linguistic data.

If he imitates it, he does an awfully good job. What made you
think/where did I say he imitates the accent?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Nesbitt

I know you have a Wikipedia-inhibited browser, so I'll quote it for
you:
===
James Nesbitt (born January 15, 1965) also known as Jimmy Nesbitt, is
an actor from Coleraine in Northern Ireland, best known in the United
Kingdom for his role in the ITV drama series Cold Feet. He has starred
in award-winning film Bloody Sunday, film, Lucky Break starring
alongside Timothy Spall & Bill Nighy as well appearing in adverts for
the Yellow Pages. He also appeared in the film Waking Ned Divine
(1998) as Pig Finn.

Nesbitt is currently the star of the television series Murphy's Law.
In September 2006 he will begin filming Jekyll, a six-part updating of
the story of The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, written by
Steven Moffat and produced by Hartswood Films for BBC One.[1]

He is also featured in the UK Yellow Pages television adverts.

James Nesbitt is an ardent supporter of Manchester United and
Coleraine Football Club.

He is also a very good singer, with him singing in the film Lucky
Break and on Chris Evans' show OFI Sunday.

He is the uncle of Hathersage FC 2nd XI left-winger Mike Keys, and a
good personal friend of University of Sheffield Intra-Mural footballer
Trev Johnston of Live Fast Die Old fame[citation needed].
===

He also has this typical "how" vowel (Reverend Paisly and Gerry Adams
have it too) which is so strangely similar to the Australian "so"
vowel. Such things are rather hard to imitate if you haven't learnt it
from the cradle.

(It can tell us what the prejudices of his "dialect coach" are, but it
can tell us nothing about the people who actually speak the dialect in
question. I have no need to cite anything other than the risible
attempts of English TV actors to do American accents on Britcoms.)

Quite possible, but irrelevant for the case at hand, because James
Nesbitt really is from NI. Again, what made you believe that he isn't?

It is an actor with a very marked Northern Irish accent, in tens if
not hundreds of eposides. He plays someone from Northern Ireland (one
episode expressly goes into his background, his friends then go there
too), who lives in Manchester. One character speaks with a Manchester
accent (or Northern English at least; I can't hear the difference
between cities there, although I know they exist), one with a London
accent, one or two speak posh RP, and one is probably from London.
Many such British drama series include people from all over the isles.

Absolutely, utterly useless.

What on earth are you talking about? What is the meaning of such
senseless remarks? Do you think you can convince anyone by things like
this?

Hugh Laurie's General American is impeccable in *House*, and Joely
Richardson's General American is impeccable in *Nip/Tuck*, and
whatsizname's General American was impeccable in *The O.C.* and is
impeccable in *Ugly Betty*, but that doesn't make their characters
legitimate sources of data about how Americans speak.

I know how Americans speak, I've heard more than enough. In British tv
series, they use real actors, not accent impersonators.

Actors BY DEFINITION are acting with their voice. A linguist CANNOT use
"acting," i.e. deliberately considered, voices as data.

Utter, utter nonsense.

Even a
Malkovitch or a Franz, schooled in Pinteresque or Mametesque or
Altmanesque or Leonardesque "natural" dialogue, is ARTIFICIALLY
IMITATING natural dialogue.

British actors don't. They know how to play AND make it sound natural.
Please listen to some actual material before venting you uninformed
opinions.


--
Ruud Harmsen - http://rudhar.com
.

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