"The Newscaster"

Blog Entry #2:

(Click on the link below to watch the video clip)

Baron Vaughn - Special Expose

(The language in this clip may be a little inappropriate so I apologize.)

In this hilarious video clip, stand-up comedian Baron Vaughn jokes that the voice of a newscaster is consistent in all languages, accents, and dialects.

When I first watched this clip, I actually found some truth in his joke.  What’s funny is that newscasters do, in fact, seem to speak in a similar tone, across all cultures.

According to our textbook, dialects are varieties of a language, usually but not always mutually intelligible to their speakers.  Dialects encompass differences in grammar as well as word choice; whereas, accents refers only to differences in the way words are pronounced (Chaika, 2).

If you think about it, the voice of a newscaster doesn’t change, no matter what language he is speaking, what dialect is being used, or what way he pronounces his words.  What Vaughn suggests, is that the voice of a newscaster is consistent in each of these aspects of language whether it comes from domestic of foreign broadcast media.

(Baron Vaughn beginning at 00:25 in the video):  “America’s an amazing country.  There’s so many voices, accents, dialects, languages, things like that, but there’s one voice that you hear no matter where you go, and that’s the way newscasters talk...”  (He then speaks like a newscaster in English, Spanish, and Norwegian to give examples.)  

I chose this clip because it was a funny and lighthearted way of elaborating on some of the key concepts in Chapter 1 of our textbook.

This post has me wondering, what else seems to remain consistent in all languages, across all cultures?  Is there anything?