Re: Speaking without a foreign accent

From: mb (azythos2_at_hotmail.com)
Date: 11/13/04 

Date: 13 Nov 2004 13:52:53 -0800

Mxsmanic <mxsmanic@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:<r08bp0ll42rbou4o0k2gqcjrh69r22i79i@4ax.com>...
> Angantyr writes:
>
> > I am a native speaker of French and when I am in Paris people routinely ask
> > me where I am from. I do not speak like a Parisian. But, despite the
> > difference, there is never a question of whether or not I am a native
> > speaker. There is a difference between lack of a noticeable accent and
> > natice speaker competence.
>
> If the accent is light enough, they are one and the same.

On the contrary. The most convincing sign of being a native is having
a regional or non-prestige accent. That's definitely different from
being able to keep some lifeless "standard - prestige" sounds for a
short while, or careful elocution schoolmistress-style like any
Levantine diplomat who might as well be Parisian. How many people
speak XVIe anyway?

>
> > If you were to come to my neck of the woods and speak your "neutral" French,
> > I would certainky know that you are not from where I am from. I would ask
> > you the "where are you from?" question.
>
> No doubt. But if my accent were light enough, you might not recognize
> it as a foreign accent.

One shouldn't assume that everybody has a tin ear. A "light" accent is
way more likely in a non-native. A local has either a standard (what
the French so fittingy call "no accent") or a well-defined local or
social accent. Not a "light accent" anytime.

This not being only about French, look now at all these languages
where "standard-prestige" accent is entirely limited to official
speeches, TV announcers and the theatre: In these areas, anyone using
it in everyday life is almost certainly a foreigner. Personal
experience: of the languages I use from Day One on, I have a totally
"standard" accent in one (having grown up in the area and social class
designated as the emulation standard), and that is the only one where
I get questions from other FL about my origin. The non-prestige accent
in the others, even though acquired at a geographical distance from
the original breeding grounds, guarantees that everyone assumes you
are from native area X or Y.

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