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Do YOU Have an Accent?

Intelligibility in the English SphereBy Felix Henoud EDUC 450B S18 Oct 162014

“Teachers of english are required to teach not English as a general linguistic phenomenon but English as a subject...”p216, Jenkins 2000

When English Teachers start recognizing that English is just a SUBJECT to be taught like any other topic out there, it is then that we start to truly TEACH it as a subject. Learning Languages is simply a subject of interest to many people out there. We cannot keep living under this false pretext that it is a linguistic issue only. We can, and we should be able to understand each other without difficulties if we recognize what needs to be learnt and done. Our duty to our students is exactly that. We should provide them the necessary tools to help them improve their communication skills in any given language they wish to learn. As a Multilingual individual myself, I KNOW what I myself needed to do to learn. For this class, I will share with you some professional and personal points concerning Language education and comprehension techniques.

Intelligibly • https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpa

ge&v=tgWnQVfY3mE• New Zealand Accent• Australian Accent• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dG0v9tZStAk• South African Accent• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NY09gs-LY80• British Accent• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyyT2jmVPAk• American, Canadian, and Indian accents by Russell Peters• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uLqrtRnrHw

“when foreign learners of English first come to the British isles, they are usually surprised, and often dismayed, to discover how little they understand of the English they hear...While it is probably differences of pronunciation that will immediately strike them, learners may also

notice differences of grammar and vocabulary.”p1, Hughes, Trudgill, Watt 2012

This statement is but one of many that foreigners bring to the table when talking about the reasons why they cannot understand the accents on the British Isles, even though they have been studying English for years. These students, I believe, were not formally taught about the facts that entail learning English as a second language. They were not properly guided by their illustrious Educators into the requirements necessary to understand Other Speakers of English, be it on the British Isles, in North America, or any place where the language is in use as a First and Primary source of communication. All they know and understand is that they are incapable of comprehending WHY they cannot seem to grasp what the other people are saying to them. This creates an immense amount of pressure psychologically, emotionally, and sometimes even physically. The amount of Frustration that individual goes through is unbelievable in its intensity. I know, as I have experienced it firsthand. Our duty is to help alleviate that by educating them realistically into the facts that go behind learning a language.

The Factors “There are many factors accounting for variability. 1- the age of the speakers- young vs old. Any living accent is modified by its speakers' age.2- social class. 3- the age at which a person started to acquire an

RP(received pronunciation) accent.

There are also other factors at play, i.e. the school one frequents, one's profession, personality, etc.”

p41, Hughes, Trudgill, Watt 2012

Changes

“it is assumed that some changes in a language have a mainly extralinguistic (eg social) motivation while others have a mainly intralinguistic (eg psychological) motivation.” p.29, Trudgill, Chambers 1991

Canadian’s Own

According to Dodds de Wolf, Canadian English is the most varied of either British and American English in that its lexicon is noticeable. Because this lexicon is so and such, an independent maturation of the language occurs, which can be traced easily, as it represents not only the development of a country as a whole, but also how its language has been developping, chronogical-wise, too.p23-24

SimilaritiesThere are similarities between general American English and

Canadian accents as we do live close to each other and some phonemic intermingling seems to be kind of inevitable. One can notice that similarity right here in Vancouver, versus that of Bellingham Washington just across the border. I do have a trained ear for languages, no doubts about that. As I travel back and forth, I find my ear noticing very little variations between Vancouver's accent and that of Bellingham. Bear in mind here that I not only visit Academic areas, but also the corners of both cities, so as to obtain, as much as possible, a clean and clear ear into the way people speak to each other. If you do not believe me, take a trip for yourselves. You will be as surprised as I was. We do have such similarities all across Canada. It is as if the air itself has been transporting and permeating these sounds into our ears subconsciously. It is simply an amazing phenomenon.

Judgements

“It is entirely inappropriate, indeed offensive, to label as 'non-native speakers' those who have learnt English as a second or foreign language and achieved bilingual status as fluent, proficient users.”p9 Jenkins 2000

Intonation and RhythmRhythm and Intonation play a major role with

speakers of English whose first mistakes involve putting the wrong accent on the wrong part of a word. By doing that, the listener would find it strange that the stress was misplaced, thus changing the meaning of a sentence and leading to misunderstanding the speaker more often than not.p43 Jenkins 2000

The Three Necessary Principles“Three principal areas of interest: pitch movement, nuclear stress, and division of the speech stream into

word groups (tone units).”P151 Jenkins 2000

QualificationsJust because you are familiar with a landscape and

are the ‘Informant’ of that particular landscape does NOT make you an EXPERT. To become an expert you need hard training. Just because you are a native speaker does not make you an expert on teaching English to foreigners. That fact does you a disservice, because it shows how ‘unqualified’ you are in teaching it, and thus exposing you as a non expert at all.

P216-17-18 Jenkins 2000

ReferencesSocial and Regional Factors in Canadian English: A Study of

Phonological Variables and Grammatical Items in Ottawa and Vancouver, Gaelan Dodds de Wolf, Canadian Scholar's press, Toronto-1992 ,184pages, ISBN 1-55130-000-1

Dialects of English studies in Grammatical Variation, edited by Peter Trudgill & J.K. Chambers,Longman London and New York ,1991, ISBN 0-582-02194-4

English accents & dialects fifth edition, An Introduction to Social and Regional Varieties of English in the British Isles, Arthur Hughes, Peter Trudgill, Dominic Watt, Hodder Education an Hachette UK Company, 2012, ISBN 978 1 444 121 38 4

The Phonology of English as an International Language: New Models, New Norms, New Goals, Jennifer Jenkins, Oxford University press 2000, ISBN 0 19 442164 3 258 pages

Questions Discussion Period• 1- WHO owns the English language?• 2- WHO is entitled to prescribe the standards against which use it is to be

measured?• 3- WHO should make decisions for communication in English as an International

Language? • 4- In YOUR opinion, do you believe you have the right to decide how English is used

and how it is not? And why?• 5- If it was up to YOU to make decisions as to how people speak the language, what

would be your ground rules for pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary? How would you like people to “talk”? What kind of grammar should they use? And which word choices would you allow them?

• 6- WHY are people learning English so hard, in your opinion? Give specific reasons for your logic.

• 7- WHAT is your opinion about those who try to imitate accents at the detriment of pronouncing their words correctly & clearly?

• 8- According to YOU, how can we understand what someone is trying to tell us regardless of their accents? How do YOU manage to understand someone talking to you? What are YOUR markers for such understanding? Kindly share with us your answer.