School Daze conveys social and political issues like the identity crisis amongst African Americans in the post-Civil Rights generation in addition to the United States’ continued relationship with the Apartheid-driven South Africa. Individuals use dialects and accents to help convey their identities to others. People can find themselves adopting a more or less formal tone of voice for any given purpose. We adapt our tone of voice to suit a certain situation. For example, when working in retail and speaking to a customer over the phone, I will adopt a “phone voice” – a tone that signals formality and politeness. Tones and accents can be used to distance us from our conversation partner (linguistic divergence) or they can be used when attempting
