Harry Potter's Accents

Mxsmanic   Wed Dec 28, 2005 10:31 pm GMT
For ESL students who are concerned about having an accent, the goal is usually to eliminate any accent that sounds like it belongs to a non-native speaker of English. Thus, it's okay to have a British accent when talking to an American, or vice versa, but a German accent is not acceptable.

Ideally, one has no accent in the perception of one's interlocutor. This is ideal because it eliminates virtually all preconceived ideas a person might have, and in particular it eliminates most prejudices. But this is difficult to achieve unless one restricts one's interaction to a specific group of speakers who all have the same accent.
César   Wed Dec 28, 2005 10:44 pm GMT
Mxsmanic,

It's funny how the "no accent" phenomenon works. You're right about the fact that "it eliminates virtually all preconceived ideas a person might have, and in particular it eliminates most prejudices."

I remember when I got to Miami in July; an officer asked for my passport (he didn't give me a nice look, though). But when he heard me say, "Yes sir, I am going to Baltimore" he changed his face and replied in a very polite way, "This way, enjoy your flight!"

One of my coworkers, instead, has had, mmm, sort of bad experiences. He looks like a mexican (I have nothing against you, guys) and he speaks English with a clear Spanish accent. Needless to say, he had problems from the very moment he arrived at the airport.

"Having an accent" (as long as people can understand what you mean) should not be a bad thing, but unfortunately it usually seems to be.
Rick Johnson   Wed Dec 28, 2005 11:05 pm GMT
<<One of my coworkers, instead, has had, mmm, sort of bad experiences. He looks like a mexican (I have nothing against you, guys) and he speaks English with a clear Spanish accent. Needless to say, he had problems from the very moment he arrived at the airport.>>

I remember once travelling from Seattle to Vancouver and having to stop en route at Canadian customs. The Canadian customs officers stopped and asked each person routine questions. In front of me was a little Japanese guy and the officer stopped him, looked at his passport and said "Are you carrying any prohibited goods such as drugs, firearms, obscenity, hate propaganda or child pornography, Sir? To which the Japanese guy nodded enthusiastically and replied "yes, yes"! Thankfully the customs officer had the sense to take his wife to one side and explain to her clearly what he had just asked- she looked horrified and replied no and that he hadn't understood what was being asked. I think if he'd been travelling in the opposite direction he might have ended up with a US customs officer standing on his throat, staring up the barrel of his cocked Colt.
Mxsmanic   Thu Dec 29, 2005 10:25 am GMT
The Soviet Union used to employ spokespeople with no accent at all in English because it knew that the absence of an accent would cause English speakers to regard them as more trustworthy and "normal" and more like themselves (whereas a Russian accent would have the opposite effect).

Usually complete elimination of a foreign accent is more trouble than it is worth, but for some situations it can be justified. People _will_ take you more seriously and perceive you as being more friendly and intelligent and generally positive if you speak without an accent. And while some people find certain foreign accents charming, the charm wears off very quickly in practical conversation, and the accent becomes an irritating obstacle to communication.
Jason   Sat Dec 31, 2005 11:50 pm GMT
<<For ESL students who are concerned about having an accent, the goal is usually to eliminate any accent that sounds like it belongs to a non-native speaker of English. Thus, it's okay to have a British accent when talking to an American, or vice versa, but a German accent is not acceptable.>>

What you're saying is completely true in theory and I would tend to agree with you, Mxsmanic. Sadly, though, in practise, many Americans consider certain British accents (or certain aspects of them like the plosive intervocalic 't' before unstressed syllables or the use of broad 'a' in "bath" words) to be rather uppity, snooty, prissy, and effeminate. Likewise, there are some British speakers who consider Americans to be a bunch of cowboys (and George W. Bush isn't exactly doing much to annihilate that stereotype, unfortunately).

In a perfect world such stereotypes would not exist and in a really perfect world the English language would have one standard pronunciation and not 27,000 of them but we don't live in a perfect world. Instead we live in a world in which the english language DOES have about 27,000 different accents and where each accent seems to convey a lot about the education, social staus, and personality of the speaker (in some cases correctly and in others perhaps not).
Mxsmanic   Sun Jan 01, 2006 7:08 am GMT
It's true that sometimes even an accent from the other side of the Atlantic may be problematic. In that case, you have to adopt the accent of your preferred audience.

Some people are good at speaking with different regional accents as the case requires. I know people who can switch from American to British English (with a variety of the latter accents) at will. It certainly helps them blend in, and it allows them to avoid the inevitable and irritating question "Oh, where are you from?"

I don't know that British/American pronunciation differences are that likely to engender prejudice in the U.S., though. Someone who behaves like an American but speaks Estuary English isn't likely to have much of a problem; someone who speaks GAE but behaves like a British royal is likely to have a lot of problems.

So, while differences between English pronunciations can occasionally lead to difficulties, truly foreign (non-native) accents are a lot more likely to lead to grief.

As for education, social status, and personality, I don't see any of these communicated by accent in the U.S., although I'm sure it happens regularly in the U.K. American accents, where they exist at all, are mostly associated with regions, not education or social status. Southern accents are sometimes assumed to be indicators of stupidity or other negative traits, and occasionally some accents associated with cities get the same treatment, but those are exceptions to the rule. In the unlikely event that a random American has a truly marked accent of some kind, at most he will be asked what part of the U.S. he is from. There just isn't the kind of variation and prejudice based on pronunciation that one sees in the U.K.

I don't know about the situation in Australia. Most urban Austrlians don't seem to have a very marked accent, anyway, although apparently it's enough to distinguish Melbourne from Sydney, etc.