Do people in Miami really talk like they do in the television series "Dexter"?

as I'm far from being good English speaker, I use to watch series to improve my skills. I'm fan of various genres, from Star Trek to How I Met Your Mother and I can say until now, I felt "aligned" with it, meaning I knew why such and such grammar was used, when it was slang, shorter form etc.

Just recently I've picked up Dexter, nice one btw, and I can't stop wondering. People there (actors) speak completely different than what I was used to listen to. I don't mean accent or pronunciation (although I can see differences here, too) like in thread Why are movies so hard to understand (and what can you do about it)? but more like the actual (lack of) grammar.

For example, people many times skip words ("[are] You [willing to] be there?" or "See [you] tomorrow?") and what was most surprising for me, they rarely use past and future tenses. So instead of let's say "You have had a fight?" actor just asks "You fighting?" or instead of "Have you you told her that?" just "You tell her?" or similar (yes, it's often combined with mentioned skipping of some words).

So my question is, is it really some kind of Miami slang (with influence of immigrants from Cuba who don't speak so well English) or it's just the series or it's just me being completely wrong?

Solution 1:

It sounds to me like people are just leaving out words, as opposed to completely violating the grammar. This often happens in conversation.

• "You fighting?" -> "Are you fighting?" (as in a continuous disagreement instead of a momentary battle)
• "You tell her?" -> "Did you tell her?"
• "You be there?" -> "Will you be there?"

It seems like people are just leaving out the helping verbs. It's certainly not proper but it's acceptable in casual conversation.

As for whether or not Miamians speak this way, I can't say, but I'd guess lots of native English speakers will speak this way from time to time. I'm in Canada and I would not find any of this speech surprising or difficult.

Solution 2:

In common speech, American English speakers take a lot of shortcuts. The best example I can think of is "I don't know" which becomes "I dunno", reducing to "Iuhno" and finally the mouth fully closed, "mmmmm". We all understand it as "I don't know" just based on the pitch variation.

Non-native ears are certainly not conditioned to catch all of these dropped syllables, so your interpretations may or may not be correct about what they're really saying. Practice, practice, practice.

Solution 3:

As a fifth-generation Miamian, I was intrigued by the first part of your question, but stymied by your examples. Although Miami has a reputation for informality, I don't think we cut out words more than anywhere else.

I thought you were going to ask about how Spanish often influences the tone, word use and syntax of English, with two-thirds of residents listing Spanish as their native language, and many other residents proficient in Spanish as a second language (including myself).

There is interesting local analysis of the so-called "Miami Accent" in this post and this Sun-Sentinel article.