Accents may ref lect our past but don’t explain us
Ispeak English with an accent. You do too. We all have accents. My husband speaks with an accent which is recognisably native. Listening to him, people would know, immediately, that he is from New Zealand.
When I speak, people become puzzled. Unlike a strong Italian or French accent, my accent is not easy to place. This is because my accent is a mishmash of different accents.
I learnt most of my English in Scotland so you can hear a hint of a Scottish accent in the way I sometimes roll my Rs. Interestingly, the younger generation is changing the Scottish accent and sadly the rolling R is in danger of dying out.
There is also a trace of an English accent in my general intonation because I spent most of my young adult life in London. But those with keen ears and some knowledge of Farsi would recognise that my accent, in its lilt, rhythm and sounds, is predominantly Iranian because I was brought up by Iranian parents in Tehran.
My daily social interactions are shaped by my non-native accent. But my accent alone would not tell you much about my multicultural background, my world views and my general character.
An accent is simply a way of speaking shaped by a mixture of ethnicity, geography, first language, social class and education.
Judging people by their accent is the linguistic equivalent of judging people by their appearance. We all do it, even though we know such judgments are socially constructed and generally fraught.
Media and popular culture play a pivotal role in elevating some accents while creating disdain for others. This is true of regional accents as well as international ones.
If you are a native of an English-speaking country, generally you would not be judged less capable or less intelligent if you spoke a foreign language (say, Mandarin or Indian) with an accent.
Compare this privilege with all the jokes about an Indian or a Chinese accent.
There is definitely a hierarchy of status attached to accents. People whose accents fall at the bottom of the hierarchy suffer an extra layer of discrimination that people with accents deemed ‘‘desirable’’ or ‘‘dominant’’ do not have to navigate.
Mocking people’s accents is harmful because people can internalise the stigma about their accents to the point that it would make them hate the way they speak.
These days, most linguists agree that no language, dialect or accent is superior to another – and that nobody should arrogantly claim that they have no accent. Even those who speak English with a received pronunciation, commonly known as ‘‘BBC English’’, have an accent.
Most English speakers in the world are secondlanguage speakers. There are three times as many non-native speakers of English as there are native. So speaking English with a non-native accent is more of a normative form. Yet we are made to believe that the perfect accent is one that is completely inaudible.
Many second-language speakers of English have excellent writing skills and much better knowledge of grammar than many of the native speakers.
New Zealand-based Italian magazine editor and translator Giovanni Tiso speaks with a non-native accent but is known for his excellent command of English and impressively extensive vocabulary.
Although, in general, an accent is a poor measure of language proficiency, a strong accent can sometimes be accompanied by limited vocabulary and grammatical mistakes.
My Iranian mother’s English is good enough for her daily needs. But, outside her routine social interactions (at the doctor or at the local mechanic, etc.), she struggles with comprehension and making herself fully understood.
The language barrier is one of the main challenges facing immigrants and refugees. Difficulty in speaking and comprehension can make immigrants feel isolated and anti-social. For many the experience can lead to depression.
A friend from Los Angeles recently told me a story about his mum, an Iranian Turk, who also lives in Los Angeles. His mother, usually of a quiet character, was rapidly transformed on a holiday trip to Azerbaijan’s capital city, Baku. She suddenly came to life, confidently chatting to everyone and relishing the fact that she was in a place where her accent and language skills were no longer an obstacle to her interactions with others.
Comprehensible communication is obviously important and should be a goal for all language learners. But we all need to remind ourselves that there isn’t a single true, authentic way to speak – and an accent alone can never tell us the full story of who a person is.
Judging people by their accent is the linguistic equivalent of judging people by their appearance.