Re: Speaking without a foreign accent

From: Peter Dy (peterdy_at_sbcglobal.net)
Date: 11/16/04 

Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 14:05:51 GMT

"mb" <azythos2@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:668d6151.0411151216.4d6c4e1@posting.google.com...
> "Peter Dy" <peterdy@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
> news:<e8Tld.8847$zx1.920@newssvr13.news.prodigy.com>...
>> "mb" <azythos2@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>> news:668d6151.0411141611.4af03829@posting.google.com...
>> > "Peter Dy" <peterdy@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
>> > news:<vfykd.7351$zx1.2376@newssvr13.news.prodigy.com>...
>> >> "LEE Sau Dan" <danlee@informatik.uni-freiburg.de> wrote in message
>> >> news:m3ekj1bnin.fsf@mika.informatik.uni-freiburg.de...
>> >> >>>>>> "Mxsmanic" == Mxsmanic <mxsmanic@hotmail.com> writes:
>> >> >
>> >> > Mxsmanic> Speaking with perfect pronunciation but other minor
>> >> > Mxsmanic> errors may allow one to "pass" more easily than
>> >> > speaking
>> >> > Mxsmanic> without errors but with an accent ... precisely because
>> >> > Mxsmanic> people tend to assume that perfect pronunciation =
>> >> > Mxsmanic> native speaker, irrespective of other mistakes.
>> >> >
>> >> > I agree, according to my own experience. People are more sensitive
>> >> > to
>> >> > foreign accents than to the (correct) use of vocabulary
>> >> > and
>> >> > grammatical correctness.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> Studies have been done on this, and I haven't heard of any coming to
>> >> that
>> >> conclusion. It's basically just the opposite (with native reactions
>> >> varying
>> >> from culture to culture.) It's difficult, though, to replicate real
>> >> speach
>> >> situations in a study.
>> >
>> > Informed and consented studies are more than likely to miss perhaps
>> > the most important dimension, i.e. political and anthropological. Not
>> > necessarily xenophobia, but xeno-awareness. Logically likely to
>> > confirm Lee.
>>
>>
>> I don't see how that "logically" follows. I'm also not exactly sure what
>> you are getting at.
>
> In eveyday observation, the case of someone who speaks perfectly
> fluent and articulate host language with a noticeable accent, and gets
> answered by the locals in baby talk, mock-pidginized or otherwise
> "simplified" language is very frequent.

Where does that happen?? I really don't think I've ever seen that even
once. My mother, for example, fits that description and I've never seen
that happen to her.

All other things being equal,
> it suggests that what prompted the expectation (already rejected by
> the content of the stranger's speech) is the accent.

I do what you described above when I go to SF Chinatown. It's because many
immigrants live there and many of them can't speak English well or at all.
I start out exchanges with simplified English as I judge how well they speak
it. If it turns out they are fluent, then my usage changes to reflect that.
But that whole process begins not because of accent, but because of
extra-linguistic clues and context.

That's why
> studies on this have to be done out in the street, without prior
> notice to the subjects. As for calling whatever causes this phenomenon
> "political / anthropological" etc. it's just a guess. Fact is, to me
> at least it seems way more frequent in closed, relatively xenophobic
> communities.

Maybe I've just never been in such communities. I have, of course,
encountered people who supposedly couldn't understand me in very brief
exchanges (like in a shop), but again, I believe that simply had to due to
the fact that I looked like a foreigner, not because of accent.

In any case, personally, I'm disturbed mostly by the same things that the
studies showed: heavy accents don't bother me much, but when people (let's
say foreign college students) don't agree subject and verb or don't use
plurals of nouns, I often find it annoying. Or if they repeatedly use a
word incorrectly. That's not how it is with you?

Peter

Relevant Pages

  • Re: This week on Dancing with the Stars Re: The Business Memoir - the ``whom question
    ... This was about an actor speaking with the express purpose of having ... An actor attempting to imitate an accent is absolutely, ... attempts of English TV actors to do American accents on Britcoms.) ... accent, one or two speak posh RP, and one is probably from London. ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: "Melodramatic" s a word I rarely use when out edgeng, whoa ho.
    ... It's not just where Ambridge is, somewhere SW of Brum in my mind's eye, it's ... the difference between how the long term residents speak. ... The Archer family have been farming in the ... Asian accent, or someone non-posh playing a posh character unless they ...
    (uk.media.radio.archers)
  • Re: Usage of "effing"?
    ... Green-Eyed Chris spake thusly: ... stereotypical Irish accent, and heard by an RP accent. ... Ministry staff speak in RP, whereas the Weasleys may speak in a mild ... and as Harry et all hail from the Home Counties they ...
    (alt.fan.harry-potter)
  • Re: Estaury English
    ... I've downloaded the software needed to play BBC clips especially for you. ... >> This is how ordinary people in places like Worthing speak today. ... >> Cyril Wall, in his 80s, has a Sussex accent. ...
    (alt.usage.english)
  • Re: Cockney is prestigious? [Was: Re: Subtitutes for English /T/ and /D/]
    ... If you don't speak one of these, ... If you do speak Estuary or a yokel accent, ... speak a version of English which differs from "the type of accent that most British ... is a string tendency to regard it as just sloppy speech. ...
    (alt.usage.english)