Re: Speaking without a foreign accent

From: mb (azythos2_at_hotmail.com)
Date: 11/17/04 

Date: 16 Nov 2004 18:50:06 -0800

"Peter Dy" <peterdy@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message news:<3Pnmd.17935$zx1.13764@newssvr13.news.prodigy.com>...
> "mb" <azythos2@hotmail.com> wrote in message

> >> > 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.

Probably we are living in parallel universes, then. I experience that
quite often in the host countries of late-learned languages I happen
to know quite well (even though nothing in the appearance suggests
foreignness, and note that one such host country is where I live), and
have heard similar complaints many hundreds, if not thousands, of
times. There is also some literature on it (not of an experiental
character, though).

>
> 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 only confirms what I was saying, really. If you, a not only
educated but also language-conscious person can do that based already
on some extra-linguistic generalizations, one would expect less
educated people with funny ideas about furriners to react to the
ultimate clue of foreignness, i.e. accent, by baby-talking (i.e.
"simplifying"). Which they do with amazing frequency. Off topic,
"simplified" English is always much less understandable than full and
correct speech: By definition it lacks at least the redundant
pointers. Also, guessing what is easily understandable to person X is
a tall order.

>
> 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?

Yup. But that is not the point here. There is an extra-linguistic
factor that makes a good number of people behave in a certain way to
accent, it seems to have social correlations, and it cannot be
investigated with aware subjects.

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