What characterizes a person? Besides the obvious answers like their personality and their physical appearance, another prominent characterization is how they talk. A person’s accent can divulge so much about them because it tells you where they are from; their ethnicity. Accents can reveal not only what country a person’s from, but what region of that country they are from too. Nowadays in the United States, most people have become so assimilated, that not many people have distinctive regional accents anymore. We all tend to talk in the same, generic voice. That’s why, for me at least, it’s always cool to meet someone who speaks in a district-specific American accent. I met someone this summer who was from Georgia and I loved listening to her talk because it was so different sounding from the way me and my friends at home talk.
I came across an article on the New York Times website by Sam Roberts that is about people paying for lessons to get rid of their New York accents. They feel that it holds them back in more ways than one. Some people want to get rid of it for social reasons, like being ridiculed, but the majority of people want to get rid of it more so because it holds them back professionally. Sam Chwat who runs the “Sam Chwat Speech Center” in Manhattan says that people want to “be clearly understood by customers or clients who typecast or stigmatize them by their speech patterns”. The article points out that a “generic identity” is seen today as advantageous as our world becomes more globalized. I have to say that even though I enjoy listening to accents, I’m glad that I don’t have a Boston accent. I agree that in some cases, it can hold you back because whether we admit it or not, we all stereotype these accents to some extent. That being said I also think that even though they aren’t always beneficial to people, accents are something that give people authenticity and give our country some diversity. The article also mentions people who think differently from Sam Chwat’s clients, and who are proud of their accents and believe it gives them an identity. One person says “I felt if I lost my accent I’d lose part of who I was”. I think it would be sad if Southern, or mid-Western, or New York accents were a thing of the past and everyone talked the same way. I guess it is a price that we if have to pay as our world becomes more and more unified.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/21/nyregion/21accent.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&emc=eta1
This is an interesting idea. I agree that accents can work against you, especially in any professional position that involves directly addressing an audience or selling products. You are probably right to be glad that you don’t have a Boston accent. You address the potential benefits of an accent; it can be “cool.” It is a unique geographical identifier. I wonder if it could be more than that. Do you think that there are times when an accent helps for more than just an identity? I wonder if there are times when an accent might give someone a type of cultural capital that allows them access to certain places – professional or social. While accents might work against a speaker in certain environments, they might help them in others. I’m sure that those who work to get rid of their accents enjoy the ability they have to recall them when necessary.
ReplyDelete