Accents and Dialects for Stage and Screen

by Paul Meier

This easy-to-follow yet incredibly detailed 370-page book is the industry standard on accents and dialects of the English language. This is the updated, improved and perfect-bound 2012 edition, with photos. You get not only a proven system of instruction instead of mere voice mimicry, but an invaluable collection of 12 CDs. Paul Meier is a leading dialect coach for theatre and film, and contained in this impressive publication is his entire standard repertoire of the 24 most valuable accents and dialects for actors: Afrikaans (South Africa), American Deep South (Mississippi/Georgia/Alabama), American Southern (Kentucky/Tennessee), Australian, Cockney, Downeast New England, French, General American, German, Hampshire, Indian, Irish, Italian, Liverpool, New York, Northern Ireland, Russian, Scottish, South Boston, Spanish (Castilian & Colonial), Standard British English (Received Pronunciation), Welsh, Yiddish, and Yorkshire. Coaching many famous actors (Tobey Maguire, Tom Wilkinson, Mark Ruffalo, etc.), Meier has also taught dialects at RADA, LAMDA, Webber-Douglas, the North Carolina School of the Arts, and other famous institutions. In addition to his user-friendly practice material, for each dialect Paul coaches you in two monologues (one male and one female) from a well-known play or film, and links you to the hundreds of online recordings of native speakers on his International Dialects of English Archive (IDEA). Further enhancing the value of the book are his interactive IPA phonetics charts, in addition to information on his unique show-specific dialect CDs for hundreds of plays and musicals, custom CD recording, and phone-coaching services. Easy enough for the beginner, rigorous enough for the experienced professional.

Genres: Theatre, Linguistics

354 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

Paul Meier is a dialect coach for theatre and film; a voice-over artist with many commercials and audio books to his credit; and a theatre professor specializing in voice, speech, accents and dialects, and heightened text. Paul also works with clients on accent reduction. This has been his calling for over 35 years, in his native London, in the United States where he is now based, and all over the world.

Reviews

[Jenny Bates · Rating 5 out of 5]

Using this for a play that I'm dialect coaching and have found that after using a different text for 4 years for the dialects class I teach, that I would like to use this one! It is modern, it teaches the dialects in 7 easy to understand steps, and it utilizes IPA, which , I feel is imperative for any actor to learn!

[Charlotte Earl · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not the sort of book one ever finishes reading, because one is always picking it up again for consultation and further practice. If your vocation requires you to use your voice, you should be learning from this book. It is an indispensable part of my own training and pursuit of improving my voice and use of accents for my podcast and my future plans to narrate my own audio books.

[Hai Le · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought this book was okay, but only okay.

It wasn’t in depth as the last book I read on accents and doesn’t break down the technicalities.

It was only 28 pages in total which is nowhere near enough to break down the process of learning an accent (in this case, General American). Quite a few of the pages were of the author selling his products/services.

It does have an accompany CD which was quite good, it included a few tracks such as the kit list, certain sounds, and a couple of monologues.

If you wanted to learn about accents, I would suggest getting ‘How to do Accents’ by Edda Sharpe & Jan Haydn Rowles

[Willa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic!