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A Mid-Atlantic accent (also known as a Transatlantic accent)〔Drum, Kevin. "(Oh, That Old-Timey Movie Accent! )" ''Mother Jones''. 2011.〕 is a cultivated or acquired accent of the English language once found in the American upper class and taught for use as a standard in American schools for actors. It is not a vernacular accent typical of any location or any natural variety, but a consciously learned blend of American English and British English, intended to favor neither. Mid-Atlantic speech patterns and vocabulary are also used by some Anglophone expatriates, many adopting certain features of the accent of their place of residence. It was formerly used by American actors who adopted some features of British pronunciation until the mid-1960s. The terms "Transatlantic" and "Mid-Atlantic" are sometimes used in Britain to refer, often critically, to the speech of British public figures (often in the entertainment industry) who affect a quasi-American accent. International media tend to reduce the number of mutually unintelligible versions of English to some extent, and Mid-Atlantic English tends to avoid Britishisms or Americanisms so that it can be equally understandable and acceptable on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. ==History== Mid-Atlantic English was the dominant dialect among the Northeastern American upper class through the first half of the 20th century. As such, it was popular in the theatre and other forms of elite culture in that region. American cinema began in the early 1900s in New York City and Philadelphia before becoming largely transplanted to Los Angeles beginning in the mid-1910s. With the evolution of talkies in the late 1920s, voice was first heard in motion pictures. It was then that the majority of audiences first heard Hollywood actors speaking predominantly in Mid-Atlantic English. Some had been raised with it, many adopted it starting out in the theatre, and others simply affected it to help their careers. Among those from Hollywood's ''Golden Era'' of the 1930s associated with the accent are British-born Cary Grant,〔(Philip French's screen legends: Cary Grant | Film | The Observer ). Guardian. Retrieved on 2011-06-18.〕 and Americans Katharine Hepburn, Bette Davis, Douglas Fairbanks Jr, Joan Crawford and Irene Dunne. British expatriates John Houseman, Henry Daniell, Anthony Hopkins, Camilla Luddington, and Angela Cartwright exemplified the accent, as did Americans Elizabeth Taylor, Eleanor Parker, Grace Kelly, Jane Wyatt, Eartha Kitt, Agnes Moorehead, Patrick McGoohan, William Daniels, Vincent Price, Clifton Webb, John McGiver, Jonathan Harris, Roscoe Lee Browne,〔(Lane, Hamlisch among Theater Hall of Fame inductees ). Post-gazette.com (2009-01-28). Retrieved on 2011-06-18.〕 and Richard Chamberlain, and Canadians Christopher Plummer, John Vernon, Norma Shearer, and Lorne Greene. Orson Welles notably spoke in a mid-Atlantic accent in the 1941 film ''Citizen Kane'', as did many of his co-stars, such as Joseph Cotten. Actors such as Humphrey Bogart, Henry Fonda and John Wayne portrayed serious roles speaking in various American-English accents, and the export of American cinema familiarized the rest of the world with their features. Others outside the entertainment industry known for speaking Mid-Atlantic English include William F. Buckley, Jr., Gore Vidal, George Plimpton,〔(New York City Accents Changing with the Times ). Gothamist (2008-02-25). Retrieved on 2011-06-18.〕〔()〕 Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Norman Mailer,〔(With Mailer's death, U.S. loses a colorful writer and character – SFGate ). Articles.sfgate.com (2007-11-11). Retrieved on 2011-06-18.〕 Diana Vreeland,〔(Empress of fashion : a life of Diana Vreeland ) Los Angeles Public Library Online (2012-12-28). Retrieved on 2013-11-25.〕 Maria Callas, Cornelius Vanderbilt IV, and Brad Friedel. The monologuist Ruth Draper's recorded "The Italian Lesson" gives an example of this East Coast American upper-class diction of the 1940s. Use of the Mid-Atlantic English accent declined rapidly after World War II. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Mid-Atlantic accent」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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