Sociolinguistic Artifacts

This article describes the fascinating, long, and arduous way the "pop-punk accent" was formed. Famous singer/guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day describes himself as “an American guy faking an English accent faking an American accent”. Moving from England to America and back again multiple times–both replicating and rejecting each other to either extreme–and adding elements of Chicano English, the California Shift, and influences from skate/surf culture, the pop-punk accent is created. Many linguistics features are mentioned, such as non-rhoticity, the cot/caught merger, monophthongs where diphthongs should be, oo-fronting, and r-fullness. [Published on 06-15-2015]