Accent
An accent refers to the unique way in which a person pronounces words, influenced by their regional or cultural background. It is a distinctive feature of spoken language, reflecting variations in pronunciation, intonation, and rhythm. Accents can differ widely across different languages and dialects, and they play a significant role in communication and identity.
5 Key excerpts on "Accent"
eBook - ePubEnglish Pronunciation Models in a Globalized World
Accent, Acceptability and Hong Kong English
- Andrew Sewell(Author)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Moyer 2013) include volume. The problem with linguistic definitions of Accent based on features, however, is that they neglect the obvious fact that Accents are embodied. They can be described in linguistic terms, but they can only be performed in physical terms as part of an overall performance involving posture, articulatory settings, and other non-linguistic components. We have relatively little knowledge of the embodied dimension of Accents, and lack the terminology to deal with it adequately. Accents are in fact far more than ‘loose bundles of features’; they are ways of speaking and of being, as already noted in Chapter 1. Although we may have to make simplifying assumptions for analytical or pedagogical purposes, teaching approaches are also handicapped if they lack a performative dimension. The linguistic characterization of Accent has significant limitations, but it is one we will have to make do with for the time being. ‘Pronunciation’, on the other hand, is usually defined more narrowly as the way particular sounds or words are pronounced; it is taken by Moyer (2013) to refer to the articulation of segmental features. The problem with a very narrow definition is that, in its pedagogical or descriptive sense, ‘pronunciation’ can also refer to suprasegmentals such as word stress and intonation. This book does not attempt to make a watertight distinction between Accent and pronunciation. Accent tends to refer to more ‘global’ patterns, as in the sense of contrastable ‘regional Accents’, while pronunciation often refers to particular aspects of these patterns, as in ‘the speaker’s pronunciation of this word was unusual’. This is why the term ‘pronunciation’ is normally used in pedagogical contexts. We might, however, observe that there is an ideological aspect to the Accent/pronunciation distinction: the former implies that there is some stability and continuity, while the latter suggests that there are ‘errors’ in need of correction...
eBook - ePub- Janet Holmes, Nick Wilson(Authors)
- 2022(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Sociolinguistics: key words and concepts Accent Definition: Regional or social variation in pronunciation. Example: In British English: Sam (north of England): ’ave you seen ’enry’s new ’ouse? Jim (south of England): Henry has a new house? Accommodation See Communication Accommodation Theory Acquiescence bias Definition: The tendency for respondents to agree with statements, regardless of their content. This means people may contradict themselves in a long survey. Example: Acquiescence bias might result in people agreeing with both these statements at different points in a survey: New Zealanders speak with an attractive Accent. The New Zealand Accent is not at all attractive. Acrolect, mesolect and basilect Definition: A continuum of varieties that may exist between the standard language and the creole (sometimes described as a post-creole continuum). The variety closest to the standard is the acrolect (where acro means high), whereas the variety closest to the creole is labeled the basilect or “deep” creole. These two varieties are often mutually unintelligible. Varieties in between these two extremes are described as mesolects or intermediate varieties. Example: Varieties in Jamaica and Guyana. In Guyanese Creole, the acrolectal form I told him, used by educated middle-class people, has a mesolectal form I tell im, used by lower middle-class people, and a basilectal form mi tell am used by old and illiterate rural labourers. Act sequence Definition: The order in which turns are taken in a conversation. Example: In an interview: the interviewer asks a question, and then the interviewee answers, and the interviewer then responds. Adjacency pairs Definition: Sequences of utterances from different speakers made up of a first part and a second part that typically occur together...
eBook - ePubInvestigating English Pronunciation
Trends and Directions
- Jose A. Mompean, Jonás Fouz-González, Jose A. Mompean, Jonás Fouz-González(Authors)
- 2015(Publication Date)
- Palgrave Macmillan(Publisher)
...335). Munro and Derwing (1999/1995) define Accentedness as a listener’s perception of how different a speaker’s Accent is from that of the L1 community. It should be noted that, while a ‘foreign Accent’ can result in what come across as mispronunciations in many cases, it is not necessarily always the case. As an example, if a Spanish speaker pronounces unaspirated /p/, /t/ or /k/ sounds where a native English speaker would aspirate, this might be noticed by a listener, but not processed as a blatant mispronunciation. Research thus far on perceptions of non-native Accents has focused on native speaker-listener comprehensibility, intelligibility and attitude (e.g. Bresnahan, Ohashi and Nebashi, 2002; Derwing and Munro, 1997; Lindemann, 2005; Munro and Derwing, 1999/1995, 2006; Yager, 1992). A good deal of research has addressed native speaker-listener attitudes towards speakers with non-native Accents. Eisenstein’s (1983) review of research on native reactions to non-native speech listed findings in which perception of foreign Accent negatively affected speakers’ job prospects, teacher–student relations and international business dealings. Much research since then has supported this notion. Employers have been shown to demonstrate intolerance for non-native pronunciation if they hear certain Accents (Matsuda, 1991; Munro and Derwing, 1999/1995). Taken together, the findings of Rubin and Smith (1990) and Boyd (2003) provide evidence that the higher the level of perceived speaker Accentedness, the lower a speaker can be rated as a teacher, and the less likely that teacher is to be recruited. More generally speaking, Lindemann (2005) presented evidence that negative attitudes of some native speakers towards L2 speakers resulted in them treating the L2 speakers as incompetent...
eBook - ePubSpeech Sound Disorders in Children
Articulation & Phonological Disorders
- John E Bernthal, Nicholas W Bankson, Peter Flipsen(Authors)
- 2021(Publication Date)
- Brookes Publishing(Publisher)
...Census Bureau, 2015b). English poses a number of challenges for L2 learners. Although English includes the consonants /m/ and /k/ and the vowel /i/, which are three of the most common phonemes across languages of the world (Maddieson & Precoda, 1991), it also includes sounds that are highly marked, or rare in the world’s languages, such as the two interdental fricatives /θ, D/ and the rhotic /ɹ/. In terms of phonotactics, English words often end in consonants, whereas many of the world’s languages mainly have words that end in vowels. And lastly, although some languages have clusters of longer length than English, the frequent use of consonant clusters in English often creates difficulty for speakers from a variety of different language backgrounds. It is also vital to be cognizant that all languages have dialectal variations in which certain sounds may be more or less difficult to learn depending on a speaker’s dialectal background. FOREIGN Accent All languages differ to varying degrees in terms of their phonological and phonotactic rules. Phonology, or the sound system, is the aspect of language that is the most frequent cause of difficulty for L2 learners. As a consequence, individuals who speak more than one language may have difficulty fully mastering the phonology of the second language, which may reduce their intelligibility to some extent in the second language. The net result is that at times they produce phonological forms that include aspects of each of their spoken languages. This transfer between a learner’s two (or more) languages results in what may be perceived by native language users as a foreign Accent. These interacting forms are also sometimes referred to as interlanguage (Sikorski, 2005). In addition to phonological transfers, foreign Accent also includes differences in the prosody of the productions...
eBook - ePubEnglish Phonetics and Phonology
An Introduction
- Philip Carr(Author)
- 2019(Publication Date)
- Wiley-Blackwell(Publisher)
...12 Variation in English Accents 12.1 Introduction In this chapter, we will consider some general aspects of Accent variation. In Chapter 13, a brief overview is given of several Accents of English: London English, Tyneside English, Standard Scottish English (SSE), New York City English, Texan English, Australian English and Indian English, followed by an outline of the sorts of phenomena which give rise to divergence of Accents over time. Three of the Accents we have referred to in this book (GA, RP and SSE) are viewed socially as ‘standard’ Accents. The notion ‘standard’ is a social one: no linguist would claim that there is any coherent notion of inherent phonetic or phonological superiority, since such a notion simply does not make any phonetic or phonological sense. There can be no doubt that many people judge some Accents to be superior to others, or take some Accents to be standard Accents and others to be non‐standard Accents. But those judgements are founded on non‐linguistic factors, to do with social attitudes in the societies in question. From a strictly linguistic point of view, such judgements are, quite clearly, entirely arbitrary. For example, RP, the standard Accent in England, is non‐rhotic, and the non‐rhoticity of RP is therefore judged by some (perhaps many) English people to be more prestigious than the rhotic Accents found in many of the Western parts of England. But the standard Accents SSE and GA are rhotic, and in the United States, it is the rhotic Accents which are often judged to be more prestigious than the non‐rhotic American Accents (the judgement cannot arise in Scotland, where all native Accents are rhotic). Clearly, it is social attitudes which determine such judgements about Accents, rather than the phonetic and phonological properties of the Accents themselves. It is common to find social judgements to the effect that some Accents are ‘uglier’ or ‘harsher’ than others...
