Accent (sociolinguistics)

Accents are a social lingusitic feature of human diversity and settlement

This article is about the pronunciation characteristic of a particular group of people relative to another group. For the term used to describe a stress on a syllable, see Stress (phonology).

In linguistics, an accent is a pronunciation characteristic of a particular group of people relative to another group. Accent should not be confused with dialect (q.v.), which is a variety of language differing in vocabulary and grammar as well as pronunciation. Dialects are usually spoken by a group united by geography or class.

History of accents

As human beings spread out into isolated community’s stresses and peculiarities develop, overtime these developed into identifiable accents. In America, the interaction of people from many ethnic backgrounds contributed to the formation of the American accent. It is difficult to measure or predict how long it takes an accent to formulate. Accents in both America and Australia are from the British parent accent yet the American accent remains more distant, either as a result of time or of external or "foreign" linguistic interaction, such as the Italian accent.

General discussion

America is a melting pot for accents and cultures from around the world

When a standard language and pronunciation are defined by a group, an accent may be any pronunciation that deviates from that standard. However, accent is a relative concept, and it is meaningful only with respect to a specified pronunciation reference. For example, people from New York City may speak with an accent in the perception of people from Los Angeles, but people from Los Angeles may also speak with an accent in the perception of New Yorkers. Americans hear British people speaking with an accent and vice versa. Thus the concept of a person having "no accent" is meaningless. As phonologists are fond of saying, "a person without an accent would be like a place without a climate."

Groups sharing an identifiable accent may be defined by any of a wide variety of common traits. An accent may be associated with the region in which its speakers reside (a geographical accent), the socio-economic status of its speakers, their ethnicity, their caste or social class, their first language (when the language in which the accent is heard is not their native language), and so on.

Accents and Age

Children are able to take on accents at a fast rate, children of traveling families can change their accents within a short period of time. However after maturity the accent we have is fixed and though it may have influences, or grow diluted it usually stays the same regardless of time.

Sensitivity to accents

Airports are a place for great concentration of accents

The perception of an accent is entirely relative, and a direct result of exposure to different cultural and ethnic linguistic groups. In the urban multicultural societies where a plethora of accents exists, the sensitive of the average person to accents and geographical identification is far more discernable. Thus through interaction the general discernment between closely related accents is more profound. While in more remote locations, the difference between a Jamaican accent and a Trinidadian accent would be less profound. Accent perception and degree of amalgamation on the part of the listener is thus a function of their exposure. Airport workers who deal with many accents have a high degree of accent discernment and some may be even able to identify not only national accents but region accents within specific communities.

Perception and accents

Jamaican Accent perceived as "cool"

In some societies, a “standard” accent is defined that carries particular prestige in that society; it may or may not be an accent that is widely spoken within the society, and sometimes its prestige derives solely from its association with a specific real or theoretical group within the society. In the United Kingdom, for example, the so-called Received Pronunciation of English is established as the most prestigious accent, although only about three percent of people within the UK actually speak with that accent. It is also associated worldwide with not only the aristocracy and upper classes but also the servants of this class, butlers and nannies being well know for a very "prestigious" accent. Often the standard accent is simply the most widely spoken accent in a group—that is, the one that is least likely to be perceived as “different.” An example is General American English, an accent (defined somewhat less rigidly than RP) that is spoken to a greater or lesser extent by many native speakers of English in North America.

Some foreign accents are considered "sexy," such as French-accented English. Some accents are perceived as comical or joyous. With American culture perceived to be on the rise in much of the world many youths in non-Western cultures seek to assimilate American accents as a sign of social status. In these countries a Western accent may be quickly associated with social and economic success. The Native American accent is associated with "wisdom" most of these perceptions are due to the constant associations in popular culture, namely cinema.

Imitation and accent switching

In the UK the popular Indian and Jamaican accents are often imitated, with the Jamaican accent in British youth culture being perceived as "cool." The same may be true for Spanish-accented English in the United States, or the Italian accent and its associations. In Western societies, foreign accents can be a source of great curiosity. Imitation in some senses, for example imitating an Indian accent, may be perceived as racist, while imitation of a Jamaican accent by a youth might be more acceptable. People of African and Caribbean ancestry who are native to the West often switch between accents to create emphasis, for example to quote a famous proverb they might switch to a local tone to give it stress, or they may use their heritage accent for verbal abuse. This is also a form of social identification, cultural rootedness and authenticity. This is less common among Asian people born in the west as they usually switch not between accents, but between languages for emphasis.

Foreign accent

A foreign accent is one that marks someone as a non-native speaker of a language. It arises when the phonology of one language, typically the person's native language, influences his pronunciation of a second language. Research has suggested various ages after which this becomes more likely (see Critical Period Hypothesis).

The perception of a foreign accent by native speakers may carry with it positive or negative connotations. When the connotations are negative, non-native speakers with a foreign accent may endeavor to suppress and eliminate it. However, foreign accents are notoriously difficult to eliminate without very extensive training, and there is much individual variation in the ability to eliminate a foreign accent. Many speakers choose to live with their foreign accents as long as these are not heavy enough to interfere with communication (that is, as long as their accents leave the phonemes of a language clearly distinguishable to native speakers).

Accents and Class

There is a social class relationship between "heaviness" of an accent within a society with accents of the educated society being almost always more intelligible to most speakers of the language independent of geography. This must not be confused with class related dialect, but more degree of clarity in word articulation and stresses due to pronunciation. In some regions where accents are not part of everyday life people with "unique" accents require films to be subtitled. Very "heavy" accents, even regional accents are subtitled to make the content comprehensible to a wider audience.

Acting and accents

In Hollywood imitating accents is a sign of acting skill

In Hollywood a common sign of great acting is the ability of an actor to imitate a foreign accent. Actors usually perfect this through exposure, which allows the brain to appreciate the subtle nuances that make the accent unique. Classic examples of this are Gandhi, the more recent Blood Diamonds, Meryl Streep in Out of Africa, Denzel Washington in Cry Freedom, Don Cheadle in Hotel Rwanda.

Criticism of this is that the perception of an accurate foreign accent are rarely considered accurate by the speakers of this accent. The perception or sensitivity of others to accents means that generalizations are passed off as acceptable. An example of this is Denzel Washington in Cry Freedom, most Americans were impressed with his imitation but few South Africans would have seen it as an accurate South African accent. Another example of this is African-American imitations of Jamaican accents which are perceived as comical by the actual Jamaicans. In recent cinema Angelina Jolie attempt at a Macedonian accent was said by critics to be distracting.In 2000 Pitt played the role of a gypsy Irish boxer in the gangster movie Snatch. An accent teacher was employed purely to help Brad Pitt (Mickey) speak "Pikey".

See also

• Foreign accent syndrome
• Non-native pronunciations of English
• Regional accents of English speakers
• Variety (linguistics)
• Accent reduction
• Language change

Further Reading

• Accents: A Manual for Actors- Revised and Expanded Edition (Paperback)
• Foreign Dialects (Paperback) by Lewis Herman

References

• Bragg, Melvyn (2003). The Adventure of English, 500AD to 2000: The Biography of a Language. London: Hodder & Stoughton. ISBN 0-340-82991-5.
• Milroy, James (2005). Authority in Language: Investigating Standard English (3nd ed. ed.). London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-17413-9. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

External links

• The Speech Accent Archive (Native and non-native accent recordings of English)