Accent Seduction
I was listening in a Skypecast of the non-native speakers practicing English the other day. The topic changed almost randomly, and the speakers often struggled with their words along with it. It’s typical in such group conversation. I was a bit bored after a while.
As it was dragging on, some speakers started to drop off the conversation, gradually leaving only three in talking. Little did I know, my boredom was about to take a sharp turn.
All three were my fellow Chinese; well, two and an half Chinese, to be accurate: one attending a college in Australia, another working in Netherland, and the third (one of her parents is Chinese) living in Japan.
This was rare. Not that Chinese talking to one another in English, but how well these three speak—no Chinglish here, unless they deliberately made fun of it, and no traceable accent; I can recognize an accent from a Texan talking much easier than from them.
And they focused on one topic like a laser: is it better to speak English with an American accent or British one. Judging by their talking, I would say American’s has won, although one of them reveres London accent the way that some revere British royal families. I was disappointed that no one mentioned the Australian’s. I became quite fond of it after watching a few interviews that the Oscar-winning actor Russell Crowne gave.
At the beginning, they were comparing notes on how to reduce their accent further. I was worried on the side. They can easily fool me as native speakers already. How much purer would their accent get? Sounding like “Press-one-if-you-are-calling-about-your-checking-account” greeting that I was subject to listen each time I called a bank while being put on hold?
As the conversation went, their politeness began to wear off. The tension was building up, as if they were engaging in an undeclared competition of whose accent sounding more like an American. They threw sentences to one another in order to score. It went on for a while before the smoke was cleared.
The guy from Europe retreated first. He felt defeated because he couldn’t pronounce several vowels as clear as the NBC News anchor Brian Williams does. That left two gals in dog fighting for the championship. For a while, I couldn’t tell who was talking; they both sounded the same to me.
I guess it’s a draw.
As it was dragging on, some speakers started to drop off the conversation, gradually leaving only three in talking. Little did I know, my boredom was about to take a sharp turn.
All three were my fellow Chinese; well, two and an half Chinese, to be accurate: one attending a college in Australia, another working in Netherland, and the third (one of her parents is Chinese) living in Japan.
This was rare. Not that Chinese talking to one another in English, but how well these three speak—no Chinglish here, unless they deliberately made fun of it, and no traceable accent; I can recognize an accent from a Texan talking much easier than from them.
And they focused on one topic like a laser: is it better to speak English with an American accent or British one. Judging by their talking, I would say American’s has won, although one of them reveres London accent the way that some revere British royal families. I was disappointed that no one mentioned the Australian’s. I became quite fond of it after watching a few interviews that the Oscar-winning actor Russell Crowne gave.
At the beginning, they were comparing notes on how to reduce their accent further. I was worried on the side. They can easily fool me as native speakers already. How much purer would their accent get? Sounding like “Press-one-if-you-are-calling-about-your-checking-account” greeting that I was subject to listen each time I called a bank while being put on hold?
As the conversation went, their politeness began to wear off. The tension was building up, as if they were engaging in an undeclared competition of whose accent sounding more like an American. They threw sentences to one another in order to score. It went on for a while before the smoke was cleared.
The guy from Europe retreated first. He felt defeated because he couldn’t pronounce several vowels as clear as the NBC News anchor Brian Williams does. That left two gals in dog fighting for the championship. For a while, I couldn’t tell who was talking; they both sounded the same to me.
I guess it’s a draw.
posted by Lingual Bee at 3:24 AM
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