Restaurant Rhetorical Analysis

Speech Variation In Restaurants

There are three different dialects in Pennsylvania that will give away where you reside. Why is there so much contrast in speech among the residents of the city and country? The culture where I am from has molded my speech, attitude, and actions; it also has created who I am today. The “city life” is exceptionally different from the “country life,” I know this because of my expedition to the middle of nowhere, Lock Haven, PA. Somewhere on the four-hour car ride from Philadelphia to Lock Haven, the residents begin to talk a little stranger with a different dialect then the east coast. For the last five years, I have been employed at a corporate owned Mexican-grill restaurant, Chili’s. When I came to school at the beginning of the Fall 2011 semester, I took on a job at the local corporate restaurant, Ruby Tuesday. By working in restaurants, it forced me to communicate with thousands of people from all
over the world.
Not only did I encounter the behavioral differences of the “townies” in the Lock Haven area, but also I found it extremely difficult to converse and understand the costumers and employees at Ruby Tuesday.

Going out to eat is something you do for relaxation and pleasure, but when a new employee is thrown into the stressful world of the restaurant industry, the “new fish” is quickly exposed to words that may seem like a foreign language. Although the syntax in the restaurant business is the same as the English language, the function words vary. There are countless restaurant terms that are used by every position in the establishment. These function words also change through out the country. Not only are you dealing with regional accents, you are dealing with different terminology that is dependent on the location of the business. In the city, it is usually
assumed that slang would be more present in the restaurants. This is a true statement for the costumers going out to eat, this is a false statement for the employees that have to represent a corporation that is located in an area of high population, where most of the income is coming from. I have seen more employees get fired in the city for being unprofessional and using slang then I have seen in Lock Haven. At Ruby Tuesday, I have found myself baffled countless times by some of morphology my costumers use. It’s frequent that the costumers have to repeat themselves because of the language barrier. A speech community is a group of people who set norms and expectations regarding the use of language, and being from the city makes any Philadelphia aborigine an outcast. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_community]. There are different words for the same thing, synonyms, which vary around the state of Pennsylvania in restaurants. For example the seating area around the bar is called the “lounge” in Philadelphia. The seating area around the bar in Lock Haven is still known as the dinning room area. [http://blog.etundra.com/in-the-restaurant/glossary-restaurant-terms/].

Pennsylvania is divided into roughly three different dialects, The Atlantic midland, East midland, and Pittsburg. [http://aschmann.net/AmEng/]. After watching videos of citizens such as City Councilman Frank Rizzo, Jr. who resides in Philadelphia, Rick Gray, mayor of Lancaster, and U.S. representative Michael Doyle of Pittsburg, it’s is evident that Pennsylvania has distinct native accents. After watching all three videos of these men talking, the accent and dialect that I can most relate to would be Frank Rizzo Jr., the accent that affiliates the most with Lock Haven dialect is Michael Doyle. The way Frank Rizzo pronounces his vowels are very distinct. You can tell in the way he says “bad, had, and dad,” the IPA sound |æ| is pronounced as the IPA sound |I| is pronounced, this is a sign that he is a native of Philadelphia tongue. By having different accents in the restaurant industry, it could get confusing because of the constant screaming and communication in the BOH (Back of the House, or kitchen). [http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/phoneticsymbolsforenglish.htm] Just in Pennsylvania, there are at least three contrasting dialects. There are multifarious clues that can give away where a costumer or fellow employee is from. If one pays attention to the sound of the use of their vowel pronunciations, behavior, actions and use of slang, it is effortless. It is a phenomenon how just a few hours can exaggeratedly change the way someone talks. Next time you go out to eat, try to figure out where your server is from using these clues!