As someone from what you would call "Appalachia Country", I've heard stories of people learning how to speak without an accent to sound less dumb to outsiders.
That is pretty sad, because there is nothing inherently about Appalachian English (or Ebonics) that is more dumb or less dumb than 'Standard' English. It just happens not to be the prestige dialect.
Which is not to say that they should not learn the prestige dialect, only that people should not be prejudiced about people who speak a different dialect. And I'll admit that my own opinion of someone sinks to Ocean-level depths when I see him say "dey doesn't want us to loot dey store".
In linguistic terms however, that is just as valid of a dialect as Standard English.
As someone from what you would call "Appalachia Country", I've heard stories of people learning how to speak without an accent to sound less dumb to outsiders.
That is pretty sad, because there is nothing inherently about Appalachian English (or Ebonics) that is more dumb or less dumb than 'Standard' English. It just happens not to be the prestige dialect.
Which is not to say that they should not learn the prestige dialect, only that people should not be prejudiced about people who speak a different dialect. And I'll admit that my own opinion of someone sinks to Ocean-level depths when I see him say "dey doesn't want us to loot dey store".
In linguistic terms however, that is just as valid of a dialect as Standard English.