@Jennifer_Pevensie
American English (though there's so many accents, you may have to pick one for the argument) really isn't that flat.
The most boring English (language) accent I know of is the Ontario, Canadian accent. It's quite flat and level, doesn't have much of any extra intonations, except deliberate ones to emphasize a word, and we mostly keep to only the most common slang terms.
The upside? We're highly sought after as English-as-a-Second-Language teachers. No student will ever be harder to understand by any English speaker if they accidentally copy our accent.
The downside? It's... boring, and I think we understand that on some subconscious level. If I start hanging around people with more interesting accents for a while, I start unconsciously imitating them.
ONE more colourful feature of this accent, rarely noticed even by ourselves, but we were called out on by Comedian Russell Peters... when we think you're bullshitting us, or have had enough of you, and start swearing... we sound like donkeys!
HEEE-haaaw, HEEE-haaaw. "FUUUCK ooooff!" (probably better to hunt down Russell's comedy bit about that on Youtube and have him demonstrate it out loud.)
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@Jennifer_Pevensie
American English (though there's so many accents, you may have to pick one for the argument) really isn't that flat.
The most boring English (language) accent I know of is the Ontario, Canadian accent. It's quite flat and level, doesn't have much of any extra intonations, except deliberate ones to emphasize a word, and we mostly keep to only the most common slang terms.
The upside? We're highly sought after as English-as-a-Second-Language teachers. No student will ever be harder to understand by any English speaker if they accidentally copy our accent.
The downside? It's... boring, and I think we understand that on some subconscious level. If I start hanging around people with more interesting accents for a while, I start unconsciously imitating them.
ONE more colourful feature of this accent, rarely noticed even by ourselves, but we were called out on by Comedian Russell Peters... when we think you're bullshitting us, or have had enough of you, and start swearing... we sound like donkeys!
HEEE-haaaw, HEEE-haaaw. "FUUUCK ooooff!" (probably better to hunt down Russell's comedy bit about that on Youtube and have him demonstrate it out loud.)