Speaking With An Accent: How Foreign Do You Feel?
Speaking With An Accent: How Foreign Do You Feel?
Our accent is either a betrayal or a badge of honor, depending on its origin. It’s another kind of stamp on our passport.
It’s been a few times now that I’ve been told I speak English with a Spanish accent. As Romanian-born and bred, this sounds odd, especially as I’ve become fluent in English about 15 years before speaking one word in Spanish. At the same time, it doesn’t sound so odd, since I have lived in Spain for the past 12 years.
And when I speak Spanish, I’m told I speak it with an Italian accent. I don’t even speak Italian, so… go figure. In French, I always get praising comments, as I use a bunch of colloquial words and can roll my ‘r’s quite well. It’s almost as if (French) people can’t believe that I speak the language. I haven’t gotten comments on my accent in French though.
I am multilingual, not just in my knowledge, but also in everyday practice. The accents I have in each language get all blended, like wet watercolor paint, when the droplets of water lightly touch. What emerges is a beautiful mix, without any hard lines or white spaces in between. That’s how I imagine the connections between my neurons: all tangled up, when I switch from one language to the next, my tongue striving to keep up with the change in accent.
I believe our accents change depending on the other people we speak with most of the time. When I spoke daily with US Americans, my accent took after theirs so much more than nowadays when I speak English to Spanish people. We borrow from another language ways of pronouncing letters, the way we shape our mouth and lips, and even the pace of speaking. As I take after the Spanish accent now, I notice in dismay how my American accent fades away, and my pace picks up at times, Spanish style.
Accents in personal life
When you speak a second language, the moment you open your mouth and say the first words, you are branded: foreigner. Your speech exposes your journey, and your accent can determine the dynamics in a social group. You’re either welcomed or marginalized, but never neutral.
Accent bias is the formal term to express prejudice toward individuals who speak a language with an accent different from the dominant culture. I bet most parents don’t consider this when they send children to bilingual schools or even to study abroad.
I’m fortunate to live in a linguistically diverse community, where accents are stories waiting to be told. My choice was intentional, to live and create community in an international, multilingual place, rather than a locals-only place. This contributes to my well-being that stems from feeling integrated and where my accent - whatever it is in whichever language I speak - is not a factor for discrimination.
Accents at work
Just as Greek and Latin were in their times, English has now become the world’s common language. There are currently more non-native English speakers than native English speakers in the world. In the context of work, especially in global companies, an accent should mean nothing. But accents, especially associated with certain origins, might prevent some professionals from accessing higher positions or even getting a job.
As a professional writer, I often had to defend and prove my capabilities as ‘native English’ copywriter. I write and speak at a certified native level, but I wasn’t born in an English-speaking country. Heck, I have a master’s degree in Communication, magna cum laude, from a public US university. That’s not enough, I’m still non-native in the eyes of an employer. One of the reasons might be: accent bias. We tend to associate an accent that’s closer to the native one with a better mastery of the language.
When it comes to writing professionally, who is more suitable: a person born in an English-speaking country with a ‘proper’ accent, or a writer with a certified native English level?
Developing a foreign accent in your mother tongue
I left Romania almost 20 years ago and today I don’t speak the language more often than maybe once a week. When I speak it with residents of Romania, I often get gentle mocks for forgetting some words or having an ‘odd’ accent.
I believe your native speech is closely related to daily habit rather than the land of birth. Just like a muscle that becomes stronger as you use it, the language(s) you speak every day become your native tongue.
But even calling it ‘native tongue’ doesn’t make much sense in our globalized world where migration has increased ten-fold since the end of the 19th century. The phrase was relevant in a more stagnant global population of the past, but today it’s utterly meaningless. The place where we were born makes up the foundation of our speech. Where we reside and practice the daily dance of spoken sounds, that’s a fabric just as powerful that makes up our ‘native’ quality.
The politics of accents
Our accent is either a betrayal or a badge of honor, depending on its origin. It’s another kind of stamp on our passport, as we transit societies and cultures of the world. Some accents are ‘sexy’ while others are ‘strange’. When we are asked ‘Where are you from?’ the questioner is looking for a shortcut to place us in a certain box. And there are nicer boxes and uglier boxes, worthy boxes or dangerous boxes, all depending on political power. Our accent is an ambassador at times, representing an entire nation.
Being multilingual or setting on the brave journey of becoming an expat are valuable life achievements. But they’re also a hurdle in our social interactions, access to desired jobs, or a barrier to our sense of belonging.
A fluid dance
Speaking is a form of expression of our selves, like dancing, singing or walking. A bodily expression that comes from within and uses parts of our bodies - in this case, the tongue, the mouth and the voice.
Speaking one language is like dancing in one style, say tango. And speaking two, it’s like learning to dance another style. We’re tango-ing one day, while street style-ing the next. Accents are a form of self-expression, and until we build a more inclusive world, we will have to keep explaining why we dance a different dance than our neighbor.
Accents remind us of our diversity, but let’s not forget they also speak of our common roots, our shared humanity. If you don’t believe me, see the image below.
If you speak with an accent, how does this impact your connections to others, socially or at work?
I would love to read your stories in the comments.
Intra-language accents can also confirm prejudices! For example, a Southerner in the United States vs. someone from Chicago.
Incredible you speak so many languages, I can barely think in one, let alone many!
Great post! Accents and dialects are fun.
I left Canada for my gap year a week after graduating high school. Four decades and a week later the gap year ended when we moved to Canada.
For the first two decades of the gap, I lived in Norway. I lived in a rural area and the Norwegian I learned was the dialect spoken there. Locals were proud of me, but inside, I felt I wanted to learn "real Norwegian" because the spoken language I was learning was nothing like the written language I was trying to learn. A few years later I was living in student housing, sharing a kitchen with three guys from Oslo. I started changing my dialect so it resembled "real Norwegian". After university, I moved to Oslo and learned that I was much more adept at understanding people with different dialects than many people in the capital who had never learned a dialect that didn't resemble the written language. I spoke Norwegian with no discernable accent, and, as a foreigner, I felt that was a huge benefit.
Halfway through my "gap life", I moved to Denmark. I was worried I wouldn't understand Danes. Even though their written language was very similar to Norwegian, their pronunciation is markedly different. I managed, but I wasn't prepared for the fact that they didn't understand me! I learned to speak Danish, although with a markedly Norwegian accent that often had people complaining that they couldn't understand me before I was halfway finished with my first sentence... I married a Dane and we still speak Danish at home today.
After a decade in Denmark, we moved to Belgium. I picked up some French and Flemish, but can't converse in either. Working in a global company with English as our corporate language most of my days were spent speaking English to people that didn't have it as a first language. I tried to adapt my language to make it understandable to those I was speaking with.
Over time, my English changed. Now, when I'm introducing myself to students or workshop participants, I always ask if anyone can guess where I'm from or where my accent is from. Many Europeans guess that I'm Irish. Here in Canada, it's a bit of a mixed bag but there's usually surprise when I disclose that I grew up in the city in which we now live!