On Speaking with No Accent
A person's accent is the way their pronunciation reveals their social and/or geographical background. Someone from New Zealand, for example, typically, speaks with a New Zealand accent, which nowadays means that shear and share are both pronounced shear. But within New Zealand there will be differences in accent according to factors such as social class and educational background. The same applies anywhere. It is a common misconception that some people speak with 'no accent'. What this usually means is that they speak with an accent that is the listener's own accent, or that they speak a standard variety - that is, one that is closely identified with a particular region. Received Pronunciation (RP) is considered a prestigious British standard accent, although fewer and fewer British people actually speak it. Learners of English may aspire to speak with a Standard English accent, but few achieve this, nor is it necessary for intelligibility. Worse, the adoption of an alien accent may threaten the speaker's sense of identity, since, from childhood, a person's accent is an important marker of who they are. ––– [Thornbury, 2006]
The question of identity does seem to be very marginal in Egypt and perhaps across the Arab world. Nobody in this part of the world seems to like who they are or where they belong, not least when the glamour of life seems to always lie overseas. In the context of foreign language learning, many students' concern is to 'get an accent'. I have seen students who speak English like American movie stars - with some frequent grammatical mistakes. But since grammatical mistakes can only be spotted by specialists, fine, "let's just keep fishing for people's admiration," they might think. Such students may argue that they are trying to perfect the language - then for goodness' sake why don't you try to get your grammar and collocations right as well?
I will always remember Prof Ali Ezzat's comments on Pygmalion about language and identity. From one angle, what Professor Higgins managed to give Eliza Doolittle is a new identity. He changed her from a simple cockney flower girl to a decent lady who speaks like the elite.
In his reply to an Iranian correspondent asking about how to get rid of his/her Persian accent when speaking English, Prof David Crystal, OBE, noted that the only people who want to 'hide their identities' are spies.
There's more to English than sounding British or American. There's more to it than bragging about sounding like foreigners.
One of my best friends is English. He's from East London and speaks a uniquely different variety of English from the one(s) I can easily understand. He's so proud of where he comes from and of his accent. Although he's a fellow teacher of English - a strong reason to adopt a more widely recognised form of standard English - he never tries to change his accent. And what's more is that he speaks to me most of the time in Arabic not English. I think he does this because he cares more about communicating with me than showing me how different we both are.
References:
The question of identity does seem to be very marginal in Egypt and perhaps across the Arab world. Nobody in this part of the world seems to like who they are or where they belong, not least when the glamour of life seems to always lie overseas. In the context of foreign language learning, many students' concern is to 'get an accent'. I have seen students who speak English like American movie stars - with some frequent grammatical mistakes. But since grammatical mistakes can only be spotted by specialists, fine, "let's just keep fishing for people's admiration," they might think. Such students may argue that they are trying to perfect the language - then for goodness' sake why don't you try to get your grammar and collocations right as well?
I will always remember Prof Ali Ezzat's comments on Pygmalion about language and identity. From one angle, what Professor Higgins managed to give Eliza Doolittle is a new identity. He changed her from a simple cockney flower girl to a decent lady who speaks like the elite.
In his reply to an Iranian correspondent asking about how to get rid of his/her Persian accent when speaking English, Prof David Crystal, OBE, noted that the only people who want to 'hide their identities' are spies.
There's more to English than sounding British or American. There's more to it than bragging about sounding like foreigners.
One of my best friends is English. He's from East London and speaks a uniquely different variety of English from the one(s) I can easily understand. He's so proud of where he comes from and of his accent. Although he's a fellow teacher of English - a strong reason to adopt a more widely recognised form of standard English - he never tries to change his accent. And what's more is that he speaks to me most of the time in Arabic not English. I think he does this because he cares more about communicating with me than showing me how different we both are.
References:
- An A-Z of ELT, Scott Thornbury, Macmillan, 2006 [You can follow Scott's blog about the book here: scottthornbury.wordpress.com
- Professor David Crystal's blog: david-crystal.blogspot.com
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