General American English

Accents typical of English in the USAn example of a White man from Pennsylvania (Bradley Cooper)Problems playing this file? See .An example of a Black woman from Georgia (Alice Walker)Problems playing this file? See .An example of an Asian woman from Illinois (Michelle Wu)Problems playing this file? See .General American English, known in linguistics simply as General American (abbreviated GA or GenAm), is the umbrella accent of American English used by a majority of Americans, encompassing a continuum rather than a single unified accent. It is often perceived by Americans themselves as lacking any distinctly regional, ethnic, or socioeconomic characteristics, though Americans with high education, or from the (North) Midland, Western New England, and Western regions of the country are the most likely to be perceived as using General American speech. The precise definition and usefulness of the term continue to be debated, and the scholars who use it today admittedly do so as a convenient basis for comparison rather than for exactness. Some scholars prefer other names, such as Standard American English, though this can be a wider term encompassing more than just accent, whereas Gene