Dialects. Southern area

For geographical, historical, cultural and other reasons we recognize another regional dialect of English in America called ‘’Southern’’.

Southern United States corresponds to  Florida, Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Delaware, Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas.



French and the African languages spoken by the people brought over as slaves had an important influence on Southern United States.
The English of the southern United States may be the most studied regional variety of any language.

An important feature of Southern English is its differential politeness. Forms of address in general are described over and over as being different and more significant than elsewhere. ‘’Sir’’ and ‘’ma’am’’ are among the most frequently mentioned of the forms of address with particularly southern uses. The use of ‘’sir’’ and ‘’ma’am’’ to one’s parents as required element of the answer to a yes/no question, is widespread in the south. It’s used to express friendly solidarity, to emphasis…

Another important feature is the use of conditional syntax, an strategy for indirectness: Full if-then constructions as well as conditional clauses alone, are used to hedge assertions.

Another characteristic is speaking at a higher level of generality, as well as the frequent use of formulas such as ‘’I don’t mean to pry’’, before requests for information and ‘’I wish’’, to introduce requests for action.

Also, the use of question intonation.

They tend to drop Rs the way New Englanders do, but they don't add extra Rs.
Some local words are: boogerman, funky (bad smelling), jump the broomstick (get married), kinfolks, mammy, muleheaded, overseer,tote, y'all, big daddy (grandfather), big mamma (grandmother), Confederate War (Civil War), cooter (turtle), fixing to (going to), goober (peanut), hey (hello),mouth harp (harmonica), on account of (because).


Also, I have some videos related to this:

Source:

http://robertspage.com/dialects.html 

English in the Southern United States Nagle, Stephen J. Sanders, Sara L. Aarts, Bas



By: Patricia Domínguez