The word accent has been tossed around in my vocabulary be
it through Spanish classes or my day to day happenings since I was younger but
I never really set my own concrete definition to the word. The book chapters defined it in a variety of
ways but the definition I found most relatable to my previous thoughts is “a
loose bundle of prosodic and segmental features distributed over geographic and
social space.” The article then went into more depth on the main ideas of both
prosodic and segmental features which really caught my attention. The author gave various examples of words
that in English may or may not be pronounced the same depending on the speaker’s
residence area and even though their spellings are different. The two words that in my opinion exemplify
the Chicago accent are the words ‘cot’ and ‘caught’. I have noticed that people I meet from
California would normally pronounce these words very similarly but in my own
pronunciation I say these words completely different. I now understand how strong my accent may
sound to speakers unfamiliar with this area and it is really interesting to
think about how many other languages have different pronunciations.
Another concept the author mentioned was about how social identity
can be marked through accents. Through
stereotypical pronunciations we can identify various race groups based solely
on how they pronounce different words in English. This may bring up some conflict in regards to
eliminating the idea of race and its impact on language but I feel that it is
just another indicator about how each person is unique.
Quite frankly I felt appalled by the story Lippie-Green
shared about Mr. Kahakua. Using the word
“handicap” based solely on how the teacher pronounced his words was the very
first thing that triggered my annoyance with the application process he went through. I recently participated in a research study
about teachers whose native language is something other than English and it
pointed out numerous things to me. I was
asked numerous questions but the one that stood out to me the most was “If in
the future you come into a position of power and are asked to fill a position,
would you hire a teacher whose native language is not English?” My immediate thoughts were absolutely, just because
someone was raised in an environment different than my own should not mean that
they are automatically not qualified for the position. After further thought I began
to realize the complexities of this question; although I feel that everyone
deserves an equal opportunity, what if although the interviewee was incredibly
qualified and would make an excellent educator, there is a chance that students
would not succeed to the same level as if they were instructed by a native
English teacher?
The last concept I really appreciated from the article was
the concept of the Sound House. I
enjoyed the way the author painted a picture of her point when she used Meryl
Streep and Eddie Murphy as her examples.
Although Streep is able to speak in different accents, she is given
breaks and opportunities to refilm any scene she may not exhibit her best use
of the accent. While Eddie Murphy on the
other hand was brought up in a Sound house that enabled him to be exposed to
both African American vernacular as well as “proper” English so he was able to
demonstrate a perfect accent in both accounts.
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