Oxford Languages defines an accent as one of the following two:
A distinctive mode of pronunciation of a language, especially one associated with a particular nation, locality, or social class
A distinct emphasis given to a syllable or word in speech by stress or pitch
We tend to think of an accent as being unique to different countries, rather than a locality, social class. Identifying accents is just one more way that people as part of humanity have developed to protect themselves.
In nature the ability to establish patterns, shapes, and sounds, and then distinct between those which mean danger and those that do not, may mean the difference between life and death. The same can be said about people and the sound that they make; Are they part of your tribe either literally or not.
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We associate certain accents with more positively promising outcomes, and others with possibly negative outcomes. While it is hard to argue with what people think and feel, it does not necessarily mean that assumptions made regarding accents in general, and specific accents in particular, are automatically true, or true at all.
Prominent examples include how everything is supposed to sound amazing in French or Italian, as opposed to how everything might sound “dangerous” or “negative” in Russian or German. The interesting part in my opinion about accents is that an accent is only of meaning and noticeable only when a person of foreign nationality tries to speak in your language. To this extent, it could also be someone from a different region of the same country.
I recall being just about a year in the United States (within the first year of immigrating to the United States; North Dakota to be exact) and I sat for launch with a fellow professor that was originally from rural Oklahoma. She was upset since students wrote to about her in her course evaluations that they couldn’t understand a word she says.
I clearly remember thinking that it is funny and entertaining that although I am the immigrant and she is the person born and raised in the United States, she was the person receiving complaints about her English, accent, and inability to understand her. Naturally, you think that all Americans automatically understand all other Americans’ English. Yet, the does not seem to be the truth. You might understand an immigrant’s English better than that of a local American, born and raised in the United States.
It is important to remember and understand that a person’s intentions, good or bad, do not lay in their accent. An accent is simply evidence of their phonetic culture and habits, probably “engraved” into their brain and jaw, more than anything else. You should address it as a “phonetic opinion” on how to express a word, nothing more. I personally still struggle even after ten years with words that have a “W”, a weak “R”, and the worst – the combination of both.
The craziest thing you could ever ask me to say (still) is “World War Three”. It demands that I slow down my speaking pace to a ridiculously low pace, I am aggravated and suffer while trying to get my jaw to comply, while my brain yells at me “game over! Game over!”. I am sure without a shadow of a doubt that I sound and look like a complete idiot. I feel embarrassed. This often happens to me with other specific words, terms, and word combinations.
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Know this, behind every accent, one that you have heard before and those you are hearing for the first time, there is the promise of a cultural journey, something new to learn, and the “a new world” that every person is just by being a person. This might surprise you – you have an accent too! “no, I don’t”; “yes you do”!!!
If you take another look at the definitions offered to the word “accent” or what is an “accent”, you will notice that it is often bound to a physical location. What this means is that every person on Earth has an accent, depending on where they are. The issue with immigrants in the United States being that we came to the United States. Since the immigrant is in the United States, we must play by the rules of the United States. Americans seem so used to having everyone else want to be in the U.S. and speak English, that they forget that they have a pretty heavy accent at times. Some states in the United States come with a built-in heavy accent.
Try practicing someone else’s accent being an offering of peace, friendship, and a bridge they must cross every day to have a relationship with you. See it as a sign of effort to communicate with a fellow sister or brother of the human race, the only race that truly matters!
We all have an accent; the only question is where and when it will come out and appear.
More so, when I fly back to where I immigrated from, I am told that I have an American accent, here in the United States, I am told I have a foreign accent. Moving from North Dakota to North Carolina I was told I have a North Dakota accent. Oh, well…accent away!
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