Unless you were presented by Hollywood as the sultry Latina temptress or the debonair Italian suitor, having a thick foreign accent while speaking English has traditionally been depicted as somewhat of a negative. Common stereotypes and tropes for non-native English speakers were the Mexican laborer who talked like Speedy Gonzalez, the always-angry Asian clerk who screamed at customers, and the nearly unintelligible Indian customer service rep who bumbled through a phone call. At best, these accents were played for a cheap laugh in movies and shows. At worst, they led to real-life discrimination, mockery, and bullying.
As the world has become more globalized and the US increasingly multicultural, society has started, slowly but surely, to wise up to the idea that an accent is not a detriment. It is a normal linguistic characteristic that tells us one thing and one thing alone โ the speaker is multilingual. Most people mocking accents are not.
What Causes an Accent in a Native Language
As native speakers growing up in our own little community bubbles, accents are always something other people have. We speak “normally,” and it’s the NYC cabbie, the Aussie surf bro, the British aristocrat who talks with an accent. The truth of course is that accents are a two-way street, and even if you’re a corn-fed midwestern with the flattest of vowels, your accent would sound absolutely wild to someone from Boston, Liverpool, or Cape Town.
As children learning our first language, we undergo years of heavy language exposure, mimicry, and intensive practice to learn how to manipulate our mouths, tongues, and vocal cords to do that amazing thing called speaking. Naturally, a child growing up in New Zealand will be exposed to slightly different sounds and rhythms (the Kiwi accent) than a child raised in rural Texas. Over the years, these patterns will be reinforced and ingrained in the language centers of our brains. This is all well and good, until it is time to learn a second language.
What Causes an Accent in a Foreign Language
When learning a second language, some of those traits we developed over years of speaking our native language, things such as our first language’s vowel variations, particular consonant blends, and speech patterns, now affect how we speak this new language. And in some cases, all our hard-earned skills work against us during what is known as language transfer.
Language transfer means we, quite logically, try to use the grammar and language patterns of our native language with the new language. Sometimes this works out well. A native German speaker learning English, for example, is more familiar with English’s use of cognates and compound words than someone who is a native Tagalog speaker. Sometimes this can hurt, like if you’re a native English speaker trying to speak Spanish and can’t roll your R’s when trying to say common words like perro and carro.
Language Transfer in English
Several factors affect how a non-native speaker sounds when speaking English, but the most significant is the grammar and pronunciation patterns of their native language. This is why someone who grew up speaking Chinese will sound different speaking English than someone who grew up speaking French. For example, Chinese speakers traditionally have trouble with the letter “l,” whereas French speakers may use the wrong article (a, an, the, etc.) when speaking.
Depending on the age at which someone began speaking English and their speaking community and environment, even the most fluent speakers will usually maintain at least a trace of an accent speaking English. And while there are “Accent Erasure” classes and YouTube videos on “proper” pronunciation, there is also a growing movement not just to accept but to celebrate different accents.
Accent Acceptance Movements
Some of the first steps in normalizing speaking with an accent unfortunately had to be legal, as there have been numerous court cases involving workplace discrimination and unlawful firings due to an employee’s accent. The good news, however, is that in many cases the employee who faced discrimination won, and companies and human resources departments are now much more aware of the issue and the harm it can cause.
Another step has proven a bit more contentious and forces us to look at the difference between what is genuine comedy and what is racist accent discrimination. The character of Apu from the Simpsons was famously removed from the show, as the voice actor felt like he was creating a negative stereotype of “brownvoice” (similar to blackface). Other comedy characters such as Borat have also faced backlash for making non-native speakers seem clueless and lacking intelligence.
There are a growing number of online movements, hashtags like #accentpride, and podcasts that promote being proud of your accent. All of these slow-but-steady changes have helped raise awareness about accent discrimination and helped speakers take pride in their accents. So despite what Hollywood may say, remember that all accents are beautiful.
