Your accent gives away so much. As soon as you open your mouth and speak, even before your listener has heard the content of what you’re saying, they have formed an opinion about you as soon as they hear your voice.
Sometimes you can use this to your advantage…and sometimes it will work against you. The accent in the South West of England, where I grew up, is (at last) becoming a little more fashionable , thanks to some well known TV personalities who come from that area. Otherwise, this ‘country’ accent has long been the butt of jokes about farming, drinking cider, and generally not being too intelligent. Unfair? Yes. But that’s life, unfortunately.
A Scottish accent , however (a clear one) , is generally perceived as friendly and honest, and Scottish voiceovers are used in many commercials here in the UK.
My own received pronunciation English accent can be useful in certain business contexts where a neutral accent is admired….but less so if I’m lost in an unfamiliar part of the city where a local accent would be more acceptable. It’s also useful when I’m working overseas, in that a neutral English accent is easy for speakers of English as a second language to understand.
With many call centres located in Asia and the Far East, accents on the telephone can be VERY important in engaging potential cusomters in the UK and other native English speaking countries.
So can you and should you change your accent? I think there are arguments for and against. First, your accent is very much part of you – you learnt it from your parents, your community, and those around you, and no one should ever feel that they have to disguise their roots to get ahead. Having said that, I’ve worked with companies and with people who would not have taken me so seriously if I’d had a strong West Country accent. A sad fact, but true.
Where people might consider changing their accent is where it’s so strong that speakers from other areas find it difficult to understand. In the interests of developing good communication skills – an essential in life – in these cases it would be useful to change some speaking habits – watching pronunciation and not using local slang will go a long way to help.
A strong accent can often affect the confidence of the speaker: they can hear that they don’t sound like others around them, perhaps they have received criticism, or perhaps they feel that people aren’t really listening to the content of what they say. This can be particularly true for speakers of English as a second language.
Anyone wanting to reduce or neutralise their accent should look at the underlying reasons for it – WHY do they want to do this: to be better understood in a global marketplace? To develop their confidence? To perhaps disguise humble beginnings and feel accepted? Know WHY you want to change your accent can help you to understand HOW to change, and WHAT to do.
A second consideration is what you need to do in order to reduce your accent, or learn a new one. Speakers of Hindi, for example, produce sounds in a different way and in a different part of the mouth to native speakers of French…whose mouth positions differ from speakers of British English. Accent reduction is as much about knowing these differences and re-educating your mouth to make new sounds, as about listening to and copying native speakers.
It’s also worth considering that ‘accent’ isn’t just about pronouncing sounds in the right way – it’s about the tone and flow of the language, the choice of vocabulary, and to an extent about cultural understanding.
None of this is difficult – it just takes a bit of thought and guidance. The keys things are to know WHY you want to reduce your accent (you might decide that your’e happy with the one you’ve got!), WHAT you need to do in order to make a change…and HOW you’ll go about it.
Annabelle
http://www.coachmeconfident.com
Annabelle's Blog 