Idiolect: Family and High Involvement Style

Idiolect Every person has a unique dialect of English know as an idiolect. This idiolect is influenced by geography, age, social class; the list goes on and on. My own idiolect reminds me of the well-known saying “Monkey see, Monkey do”. My speaking style is influenced by numerous factors including my family history and environment. My idiolect is heavily influenced by my family history and the places that they have lived. I was born and raised in Louisville, but still have traces of a more “deep South" style of speech due to my family’s background. My father’s grandmother was from Georgia and apparently had a very prominent twang when she spoke. This passed on to my dad, but when he was in school he was teased for the way he spoke. This made him change his “twang” and now there are only a few words that are “accented”. This is the reason I pronounce certain words with an accent. For example, I say “warsh” instead of “wash”, “shaher” in place of “shower”, and “innerduce” for “introduce.” My grandmother also exposed me to common “deep south” phrases that I use. If something is down the road, it is "on down a bit"; An ugly person "fell off the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down”; something quick is “Faster than greased lightning.”; and I use let alone instead of much less: “He can't even hold a job and support himself, let alone support a family.” My family has also had an effect on my conversational style. In my family, we have a high involvement style of speaking. In conversations with each other, there is usually a lot of interrupting and talking over people. I speak loudly in conversations and tend to interrupt others when they are speaking because that is how my family communicates. If you want to join the conversation, you have to but your way in. However, I have been able to put a handle on this “rudeness” by engaging in conversation with my neighbors and friends. The neighborhood I grew up in allowed me to learn the more “polite” way of