Although it appears apparent that Sarah Palins accent does appear to come and go depending on the circumstance..... The same has also been said (and validated on tape, I might add) of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

So be careful about where you tread here as it opens the door to the same type of retort from the other side.

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It's definitely pandering and putting on a calculated persona. But what do you expect from a politician?
My wife was raised in rural North Florida and reverts to an extremely strong "cracker" accent when she talks to the "folks back home" without even realizing it. But then she's one of the most honest and fair-minded people I know. And a hell of a lot more intelligent than Sarah Palin, with or without the folksy accent, and she knows some real folk sayings, not those Madison Avenue Joe Six Pack advertising slogans.

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Not only was her sudden drawl embarrassing when she emerged upon the national stage, but her lack of proper sentance structure and syntax is plain maddening. Here, in a radio address to her constiuents her accent suddenly disappeared, but nothing will correct her lack of speaking (or rationalzation) skills. "Well, I'm very, very pleased to be cleared of any legal wrongdoing ... any hint of any kind of unethical activity there,.." "So again, nothing to apologize there with Todd's actions and again very pleased to be cleared of any legal wrongdoing." http://www.adn.com/sarah-palin/story/553680.html

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I loathe Sarah Palin and everything she stands for but still will say this: some of "affecting an accent" really is unconscious or at least semi-conscious. As a young child I was often in the company of elderly relations who spoke Appalachian English (which, interestingly, they had retained although their own forebears had come down from the mountains 100-150 years earlier). Because my mother would have dissolved me with her death ray if I had spoken like my great-grandmother, I grew up obsessed with perfect diction and in fact became an English teacher. But, whoa. When in the fullness of time I found myself teaching kids recently arrived in the Washington DC area from West Virginia and sometimes attended a conference where relating to and reassuring their parents was the order of the day---I would find myself reverting to the kind and easy cadences of my Appalachian ancestors. And, ma'am, I knew right good and well they were a-listenin'. So, in a way, it's like being bilingual. Sort of like Eddie Murphy.

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I loathe Sarah Palin and everything she stands for but still will say this: some of "affecting an accent" really is unconscious or at least semi-conscious. As a young child I was often in the company of elderly relations who spoke Appalachian English (which, interestingly, they had retained although their own forebears had come down from the mountains 100-150 years earlier). Because my mother would have dissolved me with her death ray if I had spoken like my great-grandmother, I grew up obsessed with perfect diction and in fact became an English teacher. But, whoa. When in the fullness of time I found myself teaching kids recently arrived in the Washington DC area from West Virginia and sometimes attended a conference where relating to and reassuring their parents was the order of the day---I would find myself reverting to the kind and easy cadences of my Appalachian ancestors. And, ma'am, I knew right good and well they were a-listenin'. So, in a way, it's like being bilingual. Sort of like Eddie Murphy.

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This woman was trained to be a sports journalist on television. One thing that is usually included in that kind of training is speech training to neutralize accents. It can also be used to help create accents that will be useful in talking to specific regional groups so that your message is more acceptable to the audience. So why would anyone think that someone who was raised in Idaho for her early years would not resort to her original speech patterns once her "ear" became accustomed to it during her travels. Her problem is not turning on to her accent, but rather to not letting herself begin to use the English that she learned as a child and as a journalism student. After all, that would reveal that she is not one of the trailer trash group she is appealing to at her rallies!

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