March 6, 2024 • 34 mins
The accent reduction industry promises big things: reducing your accent and making you sound more like a native speaker. But as Marina and Jeremiah will discuss, it may be far more insidious than you might think.
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Marina (00:01):
But despite those differences, um, our grammar
doesn't really differ.
Jeremiah (00:09):
Despite those differences, our grammar like
totally doesn't differ.
Marina (00:12):
I sound like that.
But yeah, like, yeah.
Like, the example that I usuallyuse is that, I would say wicker
sofa and my grandma would saywick a sofa.
Jeremiah (00:28):
Wick a sofa.
Hello everybody, and welcome toHow to Language.
A podcast about accentreduction?
No.
I'm Jeremiah.
Marina (00:45):
I'm Marina.
Jeremiah (00:46):
Today we're going to be talking about, what else?
Accent reduction.
Analyzing what it is, what anaccent is, where accent
reduction as an industry comesfrom, and it's consequences for
language learners.
Marina, why don't you start usoff?
What, what is accent reduction?
So accent reduction is asubsection of the education
(01:08):
industry and specifically thelanguage education industry.
you might see like an accentreduction class online or an
accent reduction tutor online,something like that.
I've actually never seen them inperson but they might exist in
person as well.
sometimes it's even calledpronunciation instruction or
something similar, but they'reessentially all the same thing.
(01:30):
It's a class or it's a teacherwho specializes in quote unquote
reducing your accent in yoursecond language.
somebody might go to an accentreduction specialist for various
reasons.
They might want to improve theirpronunciation so that they can
communicate more easily attheir, at their job.
(01:54):
Or they just want to be betterunderstood by the people who
they're speaking to on a regularbasis in their second language.
and so these services claim tohelp you reduce your accent to
achieve those goals.
Which, you know, Sounds fineenough.
You know, there's a problem andthey're providing a service
that's supposed to solve thatproblem.
(02:15):
Um, most commonly, accentreduction is used for reducing
your accent when you're speakingEnglish.
I mean, I'm sure it exists inother languages as well, but we
see it most often for people whoare speaking English as an
additional language.
And, within that, it is mostoften for career purposes.
(02:40):
They want to improve theiraccent in English so that they
can get a job or get a promotionat their work, whatever the case
may be.
It's, it's interesting though,I'm already starting to see, you
know, The elements of what Iimagine will turn out to be some
problems.
First of all that it's, youknow, like you said, it seems to
be mostly for English.
And some people might just leaveit at that, but I would put a
(03:03):
big old question mark at the endof that preceded by the word
why.
And also the fact that it'susually for career purposes
another question mark, maybe alittle tiny exclamation point
because You got money involved.
You've got some pretty highstakes.
So in other words, you have kindof an ultimatum that people are
(03:24):
faced with.
Do I get accent reduction?
Because this is gonna help meeconomically, financially, or do
I not and what's thealternative, you know?
Am I gonna be weeded out?
Am I gonna be less likely to geta job?
You can see how that puts peoplein a position where they become
Reliant or they they end upfeeling like oh it's necessary I
(03:46):
need to reduce my accent and seeone of these people who's
graciously gonna offer me theirservices for a small fee
Marina (03:57):
Right exactly, so before we get more deep into this
industry, let's talk a littlebit about accent in the first
place and what exactly we meanby accent and how an accent,
like, kind of doesn't exist.
I don't know, would you saythat's a fair, a
Jeremiah (04:16):
fair point?
I don't know, I think peoplehave their different ideas about
terminology.
I think I think we would saythat accents don't exist in the
way that people often talk aboutthem.
I think some people use the termand they mean it.
I've even heard people say thatdialects aren't a real thing,
which I think is weird.
Most of these distinctions arenot linguistic, but they're more
(04:38):
political.
They're
Marina (04:39):
political and they're relative.
Jeremiah (04:42):
That is also true.
Marina (04:43):
If you ever have encountered.
Or if you've ever been in aconversation that involves
talking about accents, you'llprobably hear this common
retort.
when somebody says you have anaccent, they'll say like, well,
you have an accent too, oreverybody has an accent, which
is true.
in that instance, it is moreaccurate to say that everybody
has a dialect.
Jeremiah (05:04):
Wait.
Marina (05:05):
What?
Jeremiah (05:06):
No, you know the meme where it's like tiny brain and
then regular brain and thenexpanding brain and then galaxy
brain?
Marina (05:12):
Yeah.
Jeremiah (05:12):
Tiny brain is like I don't have an accent.
You have an accent.
Regular brain is Oh, we all haveaccents.
Expanding brain is like There'sno such thing as accents.
And then galaxy brain is likeGalaxy Brain is, there's no such
thing as languages.
Marina (05:30):
Yeah.
Literally.
There's no language boundaries.
Exactly.
So, A dialect is a variety of alanguage that is still
intelligible to other speakersof that language.
So, for example, South AfricanEnglish speakers are still able
(05:50):
to understand my grandmotherfrom Long Island and vice versa,
meaning that they are speakingdifferent dialects of English
because they're still able tounderstand each other.
Um, but if the South Africanspeaker started speaking
Afrikaans, they wouldn't be ableto understand each other because
(06:11):
those are now two differentlanguages.
They are not mutuallyintelligible.
Does that make sense?
Jeremiah (06:16):
That does make sense.
I think also there's a littlebit of room for debate, like a
dialect being a variety of alanguage that is still
intelligible because, um, thedistinction between dialect and
language is also political,which I know.
You know, we don't have timefor, but like, just really quick
example, the differences betweenDanish, Swedish, and Norwegian,
(06:40):
not Icelandic for reasons thatwe'll cover in another episode.
The difference between thosethree languages is, there is a
difference, you know, anybodywho's taken any of those in
combination on Duolingo can tellyou, yeah, they're different,
but they're also mutuallyintelligible to varying extents,
and yet they're all considered,you know.
Totally different languages,because those are totally
(07:03):
different countries, whereas,uh, China is a very big place,
and there are a lot of varietiesof Chinese, and yet, you know,
depending on who you talk to,they'll say, oh, you know, I'm
learning Chinese, so and sospeaks Chinese, I speak Chinese,
and there's nothing wrong withthat, but there is a political
reason that, um, you Mandarinand Cantonese are not considered
(07:26):
separate languages.
And it's not that that's a badthing, that's just how it is.
If they were separate countries,they would probably be separate
languages because I think howmutually intelligible they are
is not, uh, a ton.
Marina (07:41):
Yes.
But for the purposes of talkingabout accent reduction, we're
going to keep it simple and belike, dialects mutually
intelligible.
Jeremiah (07:49):
I've also heard, sorry, I've also heard that the
difference between a dialect andan accent, to the extent that an
accent is a real thing, is anaccent is purely sounds.
Uh huh.
Like, phonetics.
whereas dialects can havegrammatical variation.
Marina (08:05):
Yeah, I think we're going to talk about that.
so then what is
Jeremiah (08:09):
Sorry I derailed you.
Marina (08:10):
That's alright.
So then, with that in mind, withthat definition in mind, what's
the difference between an accentand a dialect?
Jeremiah (08:19):
I can't wait to find out.
Marina (08:21):
So, an accent Saying that somebody has an accent
usually implies that the onlydifference between how you speak
and how I speak is how the wordsare pronounced, right?
It doesn't necessarily conveyany grammatical or lexical
differences that might exist.
So for example, going back tothe example of my grandmother,
(08:43):
my grandmother sounds a lotdifferent than I do.
She has a very thick Long Islandaccent.
And I have a Californian accent.
Jeremiah (08:53):
Long Island accent, I'm walking over here.
She can't walk, but she used tosay, I'm walking over here.
Now she says, I'm sitting overhere.
Marina (09:02):
But despite those differences, um, our grammar
doesn't really differ.
Jeremiah (09:10):
Despite those differences, our grammar like
totally doesn't differ.
Marina (09:14):
I sound like that.
But yeah, like, yeah.
Like, the example that I usuallyuse is that, I would say wicker
sofa and my grandma would saywick a sofa.
Jeremiah (09:30):
Wick a sofa.
Marina (09:32):
I just love that.
But grammatically we don'treally speak that differently.
but let's say that I wasspeaking to somebody who spoke a
dialect of South African inEnglish.
They would sound different fromme.
Yes, their accent would bedifferent.
But they might use differentsyntax or make different lexical
choices than I would.
So, for example, in SouthAfrican English, they have the
(09:54):
question tag, Is it?
at the end of certain questions,which can, is something that's
not present in my dialect.
I wouldn't end a question with,Is it?
Jeremiah (10:03):
Can you give an example?
Can you demonstrate?
What would be a question, whatwould that question be, sound
like?
Marina (10:10):
Let me look it up just to make sure I'm not doing it
wrong, because this was a whileago.
Jeremiah (10:16):
She gonna look it up, innit?
Clacking away on her keys.
Marina (10:24):
Is that a South African accent?
Jeremiah (10:25):
Looking it up, innit?
No.
Yeah, Like how in BritishEnglish.
They say in it, or maybe justLondon.
I don't know.
Is it just London in it?
Marina (10:41):
Yeah Or like in British English, they would say my
family are Instead of my familyis right it is the plural verb
with a collective noun, which Iwouldn't do Right So So, all of
this kind of boils down to theidea that accents are relative.
(11:02):
We only say that somebody has anaccent if it differs from our
own, or if it differs from whatwe're used to.
Jeremiah (11:10):
Hmm.
That's a good point.
It makes sense when you say itlike that because it's not that
everyone has an accent, but justthat everybody talks.
And everybody talks differently.
And then if you get far enoughaway from where you grew up,
people are going to talkdifferently enough that you'll
(11:33):
notice it, and then you'll say,oh, you have an accent.
But, you know, that's likesaying that, It's, it's like
saying to somebody, it's like ifyou have brown hair and you talk
to somebody who has blonde hairthat's like you saying, you
know, oh, you have a hair tint.
What?
Yeah, your hair is like thecolor that it is.
(11:53):
That's a hair tint.
It's like, okay, well your hairis the color that it is.
You have a hair tint.
It's like, no, my hair isnormal.
Yeah.
It's like everybody has a colorof their hair and it's not
really that surprising orspecial.
But for some reason when peopletalk a little differently,
people notice.
I think people like it because,you know, you can like kind of,
(12:13):
you can often tell wheresomebody is from, especially if
they speak British English,based on their accent.
and so it's a real thing.
But like you said, it's, it's,it's relative.
It's only real.
In relation to the other waysthat other people speak.
Like, if everywhere in the worldsuddenly became void of people
(12:34):
except for, uh, you know
Marina (12:37):
Canterbury.
Jeremiah (12:38):
Wales.
Okay.
There's probably a lot ofdifferent accents in Wales,
though, so I don't know.
Marina (12:45):
London.
Jeremiah (12:46):
Don't make me do London.
Marina (12:49):
Wait, are you going to do the accent?
Jeremiah (12:50):
No, I'm not going to do it, I just don't want to talk
about London.
Marina (12:53):
Oh, okay.
Jeremiah (12:54):
I'm trying to think of a different English town.
Marina (12:56):
Liverpool.
Jeremiah (12:57):
Liverpool, perfect example.
Perfect, thank you, perfectexample.
If everybody in the world died,except for Liverpoolians, first
of all, That'd be a shame, but,sorry Liverpool, um, but nobody
would have an accent because itonly is a thing in relation to
(13:18):
other, other accents.
If Liverpool accent was the onlyway to speak, they wouldn't call
it the Liverpool accent, theywould just call it speaking.
Marina (13:28):
Right.
Also, people will say that youhave an accent if you're an L2
speaker, whose pronunciationdoes not precisely match that of
an L1 speaker.
And that is what we're going totalk about specifically with
accent reduction.
Jeremiah (13:44):
Yeah, somehow I totally forgot about that, but
you're so right.
Like It doesn't distinguish.
People say accent, and theycould mean somebody from
Liverpool, or they could meansomebody from Dar es Salaam, who
doesn't speak English as a firstlanguage speaker.
Marina (14:00):
Yeah, some people want to undergo accent reduction in
their first language.
Like, my mom did that.
Um, not formally, but when shewas growing up, she moved from
New York to Arizona.
And she got bullied for her NewYork accent, and so she slowly
got rid of it, or rather didn'tget rid of it, but you know,
(14:21):
assimilated to an Arizonanaccent.
Jeremiah (14:25):
I'm, I'm, I'm walking over here, I'm walking over
here, I'm walking over here,here.
Marina (14:31):
Yeah.
But today we're going to talkabout accents when it comes to
when you're an L2 speaker.
So, Jeremiah, do you want totalk a little bit about some of
the historical background thatwould be useful when thinking
about accent reduction?
Jeremiah (14:49):
Yeah, for sure.
I think going back to what wesaid in the beginning about how
when people are trying to reducetheir accent, it's usually
second language users of Englishwho speak in a way that is,
affected by the sounds of theirfirst language, right?
So, it's certainly not true thatall people who speak Spanish as
(15:12):
a first language and then learnEnglish, it's certainly not true
they all talk the same way, butthere are similar patterns
because of just the ways that,the sound patterns and the rules
of Spanish can affect how youspeak in English or your second
language.
And that's the case for, alllanguages, Indian English
speakers have a lot of traits incommon in how they speak.
(15:33):
Some, you know, more thanothers.
same goes for Spanish.
Spanish is the first languagespeakers of English, or Um,
Chinese speakers as a firstlanguage, speakers of English as
a second language.
Marina (15:47):
You're going off the rails here, buddy.
Jeremiah (15:49):
No, it'll make sense.
It makes sense.
Alright.
Anyway, there's a reason forthat.
There's a reason that so manydifferent people from all over
the world who all speakdifferent languages, first
language, are learning Englishin the first place.
In other words, there's a reasonthat English is a global
language, and I think we allknow what it is.
(16:09):
It's because of colonization,and it's because of imperialism.
And some people don't like tohear that, but, you know, I
don't know what to tell you.
for example, Or not even forexample, just if you think about
it, there would be, there'd beno reason, or pretty much no
reason, for English to be spokenin India, or North America, or
Australia, or even Ireland, forthat matter, or anywhere else
(16:29):
outside of England, except forthe fact that all those places
were colonized by Britain.
Sometimes, that meant that theBrits would roll in, set up
shop, and they would extractresources from the country that
they're in so they can send themback to Britain.
That's what happened in India.
In other places, like NorthAmerica and Australia, uh, the
Brits were there to stay.
You know, they exterminated orthey drove off the indigenous
(16:50):
people who lived there andsettled on the stolen land.
So since then obviously theworld has changed a lot and It's
not just Britain thateconomically is Dominant, in
fact, at this point, is the U.
S.
That's economically dominant inthe world.
So, as these colonies, that wereonce colonies, but are no longer
colonies, as they won theirindependence, one by one, the
(17:10):
model of direct colonialism,where the metropolis, the
metropole of Britain woulddirectly rule over their
colonies.
That was replaced by moreindirect imperialism.
So even after there is no more,you know, direct colonialism,
these old powers continue toexport capital to those places,
(17:33):
their former colonies, andsiphon off their labor, their
real wealth, their naturalresources.
But this isn't just somethingBritain did.
France, Germany, the U.
S., and others did this and,importantly, still continue to
do this to this day.
And why am I talking about this?
It's important because it setsthe stage for the global
situation of today, which isthat the world isn't just
(17:56):
interconnected.
People like to, you know, say,Oh, the world is interconnected
now.
That's true, but there's areason for that.
There's a wealthy imperial core.
Of that world, consisting ofWestern Europe and its settler
colonies like the US, Canada,Australia, New Zealand, plus
Japan.
And then, there is an imperialperiphery that these countries
(18:16):
are either exploiting or tryingto exploit.
And, since The English speakingcountries are the biggest
imperialists of them all, the U.
S.
and Britain.
English is the most highlyprivileged language in the
world.
All over the globe, there arepeople who have to know English
for work or some other reason,but even with how interconnected
(18:37):
the world is, these, worldEnglishes, that's the way that
linguists like to say it,different Englishes that are
becoming their own thing allover the world, like Indian
English, Naturally, they'regoing to differ based on the
features of their learners firstlanguages.
Just like, if your firstlanguage is Hindi, you are going
to learn English and sounddifferent than if your first
(18:58):
language is Spanish or Korean.
Plus, just the fact that overtime, the various strains of a
language, if they're separatedand their speech communities are
sufficiently, separate from eachother, geographically or
otherwise.
they are going to grow apart andget more different over time.
(19:20):
all of this is just to say thatin the present day, there are
many different dialects ofEnglish all over the world, and
some of them, we say, are moreprivileged than others, which
just means that when you knowthem and you can sound in that
way, that is going to, Cash outas more benefits for you, which
is why, for example, if youspeak, Indian English and you
(19:45):
want to come to the U.
S.
and get a job, you might feelpressure reduce your accent.
Really just reduce the extent towhich you sound like Hindi is
your first language.
Or one of the many otherlanguages in India.
Marina (20:01):
Really just hiding the fact that you're from India,
right?
Literally.
Because, you know, regardless ofwhat language is your first
language, you know, thatidentity is close.
Like, our identity is veryclosely tied with the way that
we speak.
Yeah.
Right?
And so, That's something that isa common trap that people fall
(20:22):
into when it comes to the accentreduction industry.
That it's easy enough to framean accent as a skill or like as
a matter of proficiency,something that can be practiced
and practiced out of you.
Um, but that's usually not, it'snot as simple as that.
Because our identities are soclosely tied to the way that we
(20:46):
speak that if you reduce theYour quote unquote accent.
You're really just erasing thatpart of your identity.
Jeremiah (20:55):
Yeah.
Yeah, to a to a very meaningfulextent.
Also, I think one thing that isimportant to point out is that
you could hear all that and kindof maybe still assume that okay,
well there must be somethingwrong with Indian English or
Spanish, English, or Chinese,English, And that's not the case
(21:17):
at all.
And we've talked about thisbefore, I think, but there,
there's really no difference inobjective value to any of these.
None of them is more correctthan the other.
For reasons that we've talkedabout before.
So really what you're left withis that the value that is
assigned to American English andany of its, dialects thereof, or
(21:42):
accents thereof, or BritishEnglish, the value that's
assigned to those is subjective.
it's not based on any, like,real difference in quality
between them.
Marina (21:52):
Exactly.
So I think that, our ripes withaccent reduction and the accent
reduction industry.
boil down to the fact that itperpetuates that exact thing
that Jeremiah was just talkingabout.
Placing subjective value on theways that people speak, and we
(22:13):
want to resist that.
Jeremiah (22:15):
Definitely, because not only is it like just a kind
of a problematic thing to do,like, there is this essentially,
racist hierarchy that isassigned to different varieties
of the language.
And profiting off of that iskind of a weird thing to do,
kind of, you know, you do whatyou gotta do to get by, but, you
know, that is what it is.
(22:36):
But at the same time, the, theunderlying issue that, different
varieties of English areprivileged differently is also
the issue that we're pushingback against.
And you know, you might, youmight hear that and think, well,
Maybe it's just because, youknow, English isn't the first
language of these people and somaybe they're just not speaking
(22:57):
correctly, or you know, if theyjust sound more like a native
English speaker, that's fine.
That's also not totally it,because think about how people
whose first language is Frenchand they learn English.
Think about how they're treated.
Even if they have what peoplewould say is a really thick
French accent.
That is It's often considered tobe a very, you know, sexy
(23:17):
accent, same with Italian.
But when it is one of theseimperial periphery countries
that the speaker comes from,then suddenly it's an issue and
it can make it harder for themto get jobs.
So think about what that'ssaying.
Really what it is is just racismand the listener's ability to
identify The race or nationalityof the person who is applying
(23:41):
for that job or whatever, basedon how they sound.
Marina (23:44):
It puts the burden on the speaker entirely.
Not the listener.
The listener should also be heldaccountable to being able to
negotiate for meaning and beable to, work together to come
to mutual understanding, Andjust also try, put in effort to
understand.
Jeremiah (24:03):
But that, that gets into the consequences.
Um, which as you said, it putsthe burden solely on the speaker
to kind of rise to the level ofthe native speaker.
And we've talked about nativespeaker fallacy before.
Marina (24:16):
In terms of the effect on the student themselves, the,
the, the second language userthemselves, it can have, Maybe
an unintended psychologicaleffect on them if they're told
you need to reduce your accentor you should reduce your
accent.
it gives the entire situation adeficiency frame or a deficiency
(24:38):
lens.
We're seeing what's wrong withyou or what's wrong with your
language use.
there's something that needs tobe corrected.
And all of those things can leadto negative self esteem, which
leads to lower confidencelevels, lower motivation levels,
and that is not something,that's not a good recipe for a
good language learningexperience or good language
(24:59):
outcomes.
but, somebody might counter whatI just said and say something
like, well, what if somebodyfeels more confident if their
accent is closer to that of anative speaker?
Jeremiah (25:13):
Yeah, I mean, know, if you are learning the language
and you want to sound more likea language speaker, you know, a
first language speaker, morepower to you.
we're, this isn't, we're notsaying this to language
learners, saying that you'reWrong if you're trying to reduce
your accent, but we are talkingabout where that desire often
comes from especially when we'retalking about second language
(25:35):
learners of English becausereally English as a language is
the most guilty of this problembecause English is the language
of imperialism and so if youwant to sound more like a native
speaker, that's That's totallyfine.
But No one should feel that theyhave to do that in order to be
considered competent in order toget a job Right?
Because then, the language isbeing used as a tool for those
(25:59):
in positions of power to excludepeople from things that they
need economically, like a job,based on essentially racism,
Marina (26:08):
also, I think it does extend beyond just English
learners, and L2 Englishspeakers.
any other languages of the corelike French, Spanish, but I
think this pressure can exist inany language.
I think it's just potent in thissituation.
Jeremiah (26:26):
That's true.
It's not like English by virtueof being English is the problem.
I, I emphasize English becausewhen I say it's the language of
imperialism, it's like even theFrench have to use it, but
you're right, like French has inthe past and you know, there's
still a lot of, superiority oflike, you have to speak this
(26:46):
exact way, which in fact, Ithink is exactly how the French
language came about because,it's just Parisian French and
there used to be a lot more waysto speak French in France until
um, They all got supplanted byParisian, French, by uh,
coercive methods.
Marina (27:02):
Fun fact, I didn't know that.
Jeremiah (27:04):
You know, I might have to check my sources on that, but
we can do an episode on that.
Cool.
Pretty sure I learned that,though.
Marina (27:10):
but I think also, more broadly, like I said earlier,
this industry just continues tofeed into existing Problems
regarding, linguisticdiscrimination and racism.
and just also perpetuating this,the deep, deep colonial history
of English and English languageteaching.
(27:32):
Um, I, this is a vestige of thattime and I, I'm trying to say
this nicely, but I just, I don'tthink that there's a place for
it anymore.
Jeremiah (27:42):
Yeah, and not only is it a vestige of that time, but
it's like an ongoing symptom ofour current time, which is still
very, you know, very much theinheritor of that history and
now it's just happening in adifferent, less direct way.
Another thing that I will sayfor anybody who is like, well,
yeah, you know, this is me.
I'm definitely, um, I'mdefinitely from an imperial
(28:04):
periphery country and I'm tryingto get a job in the Imperial
Corps and, you know, this mightall be true, but I still gotta
get a job.
Um, do what you gotta do.
But I will say this, even peoplewho put in all the work to
reduce their accent and soundindistinguishable from somebody
whose first language is English,if that person is not white
(28:25):
passing, then listeners Not alllisteners, but many listeners,
including employers, will thinkthat they hear an accent.
Even if you look at thewavelengths of your speech, and
it is indistinguishablescientifically from first
language speaker, they will heara phantom accent.
(28:45):
Because it's not that thiscauses racism, it's that racism
causes this.
Marina (28:51):
Yeah, exactly, Also, You know, this is kind of going back
to the native speaker fallacyepisode that we did, but the
thing that accent reductionspecialists are trying to get
their students to sound likedoesn't really exist either,
right?
You can try your best to makesomebody sound more American or
sound more British or sound moreAustralian, but in the end,
(29:16):
like, what does that even mean?
Right?
I, I, um.
I've tried, like, severaldifferent online services that
claim to reduce your accent inEnglish.
and, you know, make you soundmore native.
That's, like, their wholetagline thing.
And they have these tests thatyou can take that you read words
(29:37):
and you read sentences inEnglish and it's supposed to
tell you how native you sound orhow much work you need in order
to sound better.
And I've taken these.
And I get back numbers like, Oh,you sound 90 percent like an
English, a native Englishspeaker.
You sound 85 percent like anative English speaker.
And here's all the things thatyou did wrong.
(29:58):
And it's like, Well, I am afirst language English speaker.
What do you mean it's wrong?
What are you comparing that to?
And so the whole thing is asham.
Jeremiah (30:10):
Yeah.
And if, if you are a, um, anaccent reduction specialist, I
mean, I don't know what you wantus to say.
Sorry.
Marina (30:20):
So I think it's clear that we, we don't support the
accent reduction industry.
It's not something that we wouldever condone or support.
I think it's getting better, youknow?
I don't, I don't really see, atleast where we live, I don't
really see pronunciation classesanymore.
They probably still exist, butI'm just not aware of them.
(30:41):
It's getting better, but there'sstill a lot to, a lot of work to
do in the realm of linguisticdiscrimination, and linguistic
racism, and also just racism.
Jeremiah (30:51):
That is a fact.
Marina (30:53):
So.
Jeremiah (30:53):
And I think anytime there's a discussion about this
or anything, there, I don'tknow.
If your takeaway from thisepisode is that Oh man, you
know, I, I think accents are athing.
So does that make me a racist?
No, no, it's not about you.
you're not the problem.
Even if you hear accents, evenif you think that so and so
sounds weird, like that's notcool, but When we talk about
(31:16):
racism, maybe you can tell fromthe scientific analysis of
imperialism, but the problemsthat we're talking about are
much bigger than individualpeople and their prejudices, and
those prejudices come from amaterial reality, which is an
institution, or, overlappinginstitutions that are racist.
So, Not about you.
Marina (31:36):
Don't worry.
Jeremiah, I talked about myaccent.
What's, what would you, whatwould you say your accent is?
Jeremiah (31:43):
well, you know, when people ask me my culture or my
ethnicity or whatever, I mean,white, right?
But actually I like to say Okie,which is probably undeserved,
but, my grandfather was fromOklahoma, and, at the time of
the Dust Bowl and thereabouts,there was a pretty big migration
(32:04):
out of that part of the country,mostly into the West, into
California and Oregon andWashington.
And so I think that that waskind of, that's kind of my my
heritage a little bit.
So for example, my, my, andlinguistically that sticks
around.
So if you are in ruralCalifornia, you'll often hear
(32:24):
people where you're like, theysound almost Southern, but like
Cowboys.
And that's because that'sexactly what they are.
you know, they probably, arepart, you know, they or their
parents or their grandparentswere probably part of that
migration.
And I, you know, so mygrandfather was and the
linguistic traits of that kindof stuck around.
So he didn't really talk likethis, but, uh, you know, I, I
(32:48):
know, uh, I know a couple oldfellers that, uh, still kind of
talk like this, a little bit ofthe, a little bit of the okie
they talk about, uh, got to goup on the roof, change the dish
and, uh.
Get naked, jump in the, take awash, wash yourself out the
window, you know, that kind ofthing.
A little bit of that.
So I only do that for fun now,you know, I don't really sound
(33:12):
like that, but still culturallyoaky.
What about you?
I mean, just California, Iguess.
Marina (33:19):
Yeah, California.
Kind of what you would call,like, a standard West Coast kind
of accent.
But I have some features of mymom's side of the family.
who's from New York.
Jeremiah (33:29):
Like you say, Jommies.
Marina (33:30):
I say pajamas.
Jeremiah (33:32):
Get in my pajamas, my Jommies.
Marina (33:36):
Yeah.
Or like, I'd say scenarioinstead of scenario.
Jeremiah (33:40):
That's so funny.
Marina (33:41):
Little things like that, you know, just more East Coast.
Kind of vowels sometimes.
Jeremiah (33:47):
Yeah, okay, right on.
Yeah,
Marina (33:50):
I don't say I'm walking here.
Jeremiah (33:52):
I'm walking over here.
It's ending the episode overhere.
Thanks for listening to How toLanguage over here.
Follow us on Instagram andTwitter at HowToLang over here.
You do it.
Say, see ya later! What if mygrandma's listening?
(34:21):
She doesn't know how podcasts.
We'll see you next time.
See you next time over here!
But despite those differences, um, our grammar
doesn't really differ.
Jeremiah (00:09):
Despite those differences, our grammar like
totally doesn't differ.
Marina (00:12):
I sound like that.
But yeah, like, yeah.
Like, the example that I usuallyuse is that, I would say wicker
sofa and my grandma would saywick a sofa.
Jeremiah (00:28):
Wick a sofa.
Hello everybody, and welcome toHow to Language.
A podcast about accentreduction?
No.
I'm Jeremiah.
Marina (00:45):
I'm Marina.
Jeremiah (00:46):
Today we're going to be talking about, what else?
Accent reduction.
Analyzing what it is, what anaccent is, where accent
reduction as an industry comesfrom, and it's consequences for
language learners.
Marina, why don't you start usoff?
What, what is accent reduction?
So accent reduction is asubsection of the education
(01:08):
industry and specifically thelanguage education industry.
you might see like an accentreduction class online or an
accent reduction tutor online,something like that.
I've actually never seen them inperson but they might exist in
person as well.
sometimes it's even calledpronunciation instruction or
something similar, but they'reessentially all the same thing.
(01:30):
It's a class or it's a teacherwho specializes in quote unquote
reducing your accent in yoursecond language.
somebody might go to an accentreduction specialist for various
reasons.
They might want to improve theirpronunciation so that they can
communicate more easily attheir, at their job.
(01:54):
Or they just want to be betterunderstood by the people who
they're speaking to on a regularbasis in their second language.
and so these services claim tohelp you reduce your accent to
achieve those goals.
Which, you know, Sounds fineenough.
You know, there's a problem andthey're providing a service
that's supposed to solve thatproblem.
(02:15):
Um, most commonly, accentreduction is used for reducing
your accent when you're speakingEnglish.
I mean, I'm sure it exists inother languages as well, but we
see it most often for people whoare speaking English as an
additional language.
And, within that, it is mostoften for career purposes.
(02:40):
They want to improve theiraccent in English so that they
can get a job or get a promotionat their work, whatever the case
may be.
It's, it's interesting though,I'm already starting to see, you
know, The elements of what Iimagine will turn out to be some
problems.
First of all that it's, youknow, like you said, it seems to
be mostly for English.
And some people might just leaveit at that, but I would put a
(03:03):
big old question mark at the endof that preceded by the word
why.
And also the fact that it'susually for career purposes
another question mark, maybe alittle tiny exclamation point
because You got money involved.
You've got some pretty highstakes.
So in other words, you have kindof an ultimatum that people are
(03:24):
faced with.
Do I get accent reduction?
Because this is gonna help meeconomically, financially, or do
I not and what's thealternative, you know?
Am I gonna be weeded out?
Am I gonna be less likely to geta job?
You can see how that puts peoplein a position where they become
Reliant or they they end upfeeling like oh it's necessary I
(03:46):
need to reduce my accent and seeone of these people who's
graciously gonna offer me theirservices for a small fee
Marina (03:57):
Right exactly, so before we get more deep into this
industry, let's talk a littlebit about accent in the first
place and what exactly we meanby accent and how an accent,
like, kind of doesn't exist.
I don't know, would you saythat's a fair, a
Jeremiah (04:16):
fair point?
I don't know, I think peoplehave their different ideas about
terminology.
I think I think we would saythat accents don't exist in the
way that people often talk aboutthem.
I think some people use the termand they mean it.
I've even heard people say thatdialects aren't a real thing,
which I think is weird.
Most of these distinctions arenot linguistic, but they're more
(04:38):
political.
They're
Marina (04:39):
political and they're relative.
Jeremiah (04:42):
That is also true.
Marina (04:43):
If you ever have encountered.
Or if you've ever been in aconversation that involves
talking about accents, you'llprobably hear this common
retort.
when somebody says you have anaccent, they'll say like, well,
you have an accent too, oreverybody has an accent, which
is true.
in that instance, it is moreaccurate to say that everybody
has a dialect.
Jeremiah (05:04):
Wait.
Marina (05:05):
What?
Jeremiah (05:06):
No, you know the meme where it's like tiny brain and
then regular brain and thenexpanding brain and then galaxy
brain?
Marina (05:12):
Yeah.
Jeremiah (05:12):
Tiny brain is like I don't have an accent.
You have an accent.
Regular brain is Oh, we all haveaccents.
Expanding brain is like There'sno such thing as accents.
And then galaxy brain is likeGalaxy Brain is, there's no such
thing as languages.
Marina (05:30):
Yeah.
Literally.
There's no language boundaries.
Exactly.
So, A dialect is a variety of alanguage that is still
intelligible to other speakersof that language.
So, for example, South AfricanEnglish speakers are still able
(05:50):
to understand my grandmotherfrom Long Island and vice versa,
meaning that they are speakingdifferent dialects of English
because they're still able tounderstand each other.
Um, but if the South Africanspeaker started speaking
Afrikaans, they wouldn't be ableto understand each other because
(06:11):
those are now two differentlanguages.
They are not mutuallyintelligible.
Does that make sense?
Jeremiah (06:16):
That does make sense.
I think also there's a littlebit of room for debate, like a
dialect being a variety of alanguage that is still
intelligible because, um, thedistinction between dialect and
language is also political,which I know.
You know, we don't have timefor, but like, just really quick
example, the differences betweenDanish, Swedish, and Norwegian,
(06:40):
not Icelandic for reasons thatwe'll cover in another episode.
The difference between thosethree languages is, there is a
difference, you know, anybodywho's taken any of those in
combination on Duolingo can tellyou, yeah, they're different,
but they're also mutuallyintelligible to varying extents,
and yet they're all considered,you know.
Totally different languages,because those are totally
(07:03):
different countries, whereas,uh, China is a very big place,
and there are a lot of varietiesof Chinese, and yet, you know,
depending on who you talk to,they'll say, oh, you know, I'm
learning Chinese, so and sospeaks Chinese, I speak Chinese,
and there's nothing wrong withthat, but there is a political
reason that, um, you Mandarinand Cantonese are not considered
(07:26):
separate languages.
And it's not that that's a badthing, that's just how it is.
If they were separate countries,they would probably be separate
languages because I think howmutually intelligible they are
is not, uh, a ton.
Marina (07:41):
Yes.
But for the purposes of talkingabout accent reduction, we're
going to keep it simple and belike, dialects mutually
intelligible.
Jeremiah (07:49):
I've also heard, sorry, I've also heard that the
difference between a dialect andan accent, to the extent that an
accent is a real thing, is anaccent is purely sounds.
Uh huh.
Like, phonetics.
whereas dialects can havegrammatical variation.
Marina (08:05):
Yeah, I think we're going to talk about that.
so then what is
Jeremiah (08:09):
Sorry I derailed you.
Marina (08:10):
That's alright.
So then, with that in mind, withthat definition in mind, what's
the difference between an accentand a dialect?
Jeremiah (08:19):
I can't wait to find out.
Marina (08:21):
So, an accent Saying that somebody has an accent
usually implies that the onlydifference between how you speak
and how I speak is how the wordsare pronounced, right?
It doesn't necessarily conveyany grammatical or lexical
differences that might exist.
So for example, going back tothe example of my grandmother,
(08:43):
my grandmother sounds a lotdifferent than I do.
She has a very thick Long Islandaccent.
And I have a Californian accent.
Jeremiah (08:53):
Long Island accent, I'm walking over here.
She can't walk, but she used tosay, I'm walking over here.
Now she says, I'm sitting overhere.
Marina (09:02):
But despite those differences, um, our grammar
doesn't really differ.
Jeremiah (09:10):
Despite those differences, our grammar like
totally doesn't differ.
Marina (09:14):
I sound like that.
But yeah, like, yeah.
Like, the example that I usuallyuse is that, I would say wicker
sofa and my grandma would saywick a sofa.
Jeremiah (09:30):
Wick a sofa.
Marina (09:32):
I just love that.
But grammatically we don'treally speak that differently.
but let's say that I wasspeaking to somebody who spoke a
dialect of South African inEnglish.
They would sound different fromme.
Yes, their accent would bedifferent.
But they might use differentsyntax or make different lexical
choices than I would.
So, for example, in SouthAfrican English, they have the
(09:54):
question tag, Is it?
at the end of certain questions,which can, is something that's
not present in my dialect.
I wouldn't end a question with,Is it?
Jeremiah (10:03):
Can you give an example?
Can you demonstrate?
What would be a question, whatwould that question be, sound
like?
Marina (10:10):
Let me look it up just to make sure I'm not doing it
wrong, because this was a whileago.
Jeremiah (10:16):
She gonna look it up, innit?
Clacking away on her keys.
Marina (10:24):
Is that a South African accent?
Jeremiah (10:25):
Looking it up, innit?
No.
Yeah, Like how in BritishEnglish.
They say in it, or maybe justLondon.
I don't know.
Is it just London in it?
Marina (10:41):
Yeah Or like in British English, they would say my
family are Instead of my familyis right it is the plural verb
with a collective noun, which Iwouldn't do Right So So, all of
this kind of boils down to theidea that accents are relative.
(11:02):
We only say that somebody has anaccent if it differs from our
own, or if it differs from whatwe're used to.
Jeremiah (11:10):
Hmm.
That's a good point.
It makes sense when you say itlike that because it's not that
everyone has an accent, but justthat everybody talks.
And everybody talks differently.
And then if you get far enoughaway from where you grew up,
people are going to talkdifferently enough that you'll
(11:33):
notice it, and then you'll say,oh, you have an accent.
But, you know, that's likesaying that, It's, it's like
saying to somebody, it's like ifyou have brown hair and you talk
to somebody who has blonde hairthat's like you saying, you
know, oh, you have a hair tint.
What?
Yeah, your hair is like thecolor that it is.
(11:53):
That's a hair tint.
It's like, okay, well your hairis the color that it is.
You have a hair tint.
It's like, no, my hair isnormal.
Yeah.
It's like everybody has a colorof their hair and it's not
really that surprising orspecial.
But for some reason when peopletalk a little differently,
people notice.
I think people like it because,you know, you can like kind of,
(12:13):
you can often tell wheresomebody is from, especially if
they speak British English,based on their accent.
and so it's a real thing.
But like you said, it's, it's,it's relative.
It's only real.
In relation to the other waysthat other people speak.
Like, if everywhere in the worldsuddenly became void of people
(12:34):
except for, uh, you know
Marina (12:37):
Canterbury.
Jeremiah (12:38):
Wales.
Okay.
There's probably a lot ofdifferent accents in Wales,
though, so I don't know.
Marina (12:45):
London.
Jeremiah (12:46):
Don't make me do London.
Marina (12:49):
Wait, are you going to do the accent?
Jeremiah (12:50):
No, I'm not going to do it, I just don't want to talk
about London.
Marina (12:53):
Oh, okay.
Jeremiah (12:54):
I'm trying to think of a different English town.
Marina (12:56):
Liverpool.
Jeremiah (12:57):
Liverpool, perfect example.
Perfect, thank you, perfectexample.
If everybody in the world died,except for Liverpoolians, first
of all, That'd be a shame, but,sorry Liverpool, um, but nobody
would have an accent because itonly is a thing in relation to
(13:18):
other, other accents.
If Liverpool accent was the onlyway to speak, they wouldn't call
it the Liverpool accent, theywould just call it speaking.
Marina (13:28):
Right.
Also, people will say that youhave an accent if you're an L2
speaker, whose pronunciationdoes not precisely match that of
an L1 speaker.
And that is what we're going totalk about specifically with
accent reduction.
Jeremiah (13:44):
Yeah, somehow I totally forgot about that, but
you're so right.
Like It doesn't distinguish.
People say accent, and theycould mean somebody from
Liverpool, or they could meansomebody from Dar es Salaam, who
doesn't speak English as a firstlanguage speaker.
Marina (14:00):
Yeah, some people want to undergo accent reduction in
their first language.
Like, my mom did that.
Um, not formally, but when shewas growing up, she moved from
New York to Arizona.
And she got bullied for her NewYork accent, and so she slowly
got rid of it, or rather didn'tget rid of it, but you know,
(14:21):
assimilated to an Arizonanaccent.
Jeremiah (14:25):
I'm, I'm, I'm walking over here, I'm walking over
here, I'm walking over here,here.
Marina (14:31):
Yeah.
But today we're going to talkabout accents when it comes to
when you're an L2 speaker.
So, Jeremiah, do you want totalk a little bit about some of
the historical background thatwould be useful when thinking
about accent reduction?
Jeremiah (14:49):
Yeah, for sure.
I think going back to what wesaid in the beginning about how
when people are trying to reducetheir accent, it's usually
second language users of Englishwho speak in a way that is,
affected by the sounds of theirfirst language, right?
So, it's certainly not true thatall people who speak Spanish as
(15:12):
a first language and then learnEnglish, it's certainly not true
they all talk the same way, butthere are similar patterns
because of just the ways that,the sound patterns and the rules
of Spanish can affect how youspeak in English or your second
language.
And that's the case for, alllanguages, Indian English
speakers have a lot of traits incommon in how they speak.
(15:33):
Some, you know, more thanothers.
same goes for Spanish.
Spanish is the first languagespeakers of English, or Um,
Chinese speakers as a firstlanguage, speakers of English as
a second language.
Marina (15:47):
You're going off the rails here, buddy.
Jeremiah (15:49):
No, it'll make sense.
It makes sense.
Alright.
Anyway, there's a reason forthat.
There's a reason that so manydifferent people from all over
the world who all speakdifferent languages, first
language, are learning Englishin the first place.
In other words, there's a reasonthat English is a global
language, and I think we allknow what it is.
(16:09):
It's because of colonization,and it's because of imperialism.
And some people don't like tohear that, but, you know, I
don't know what to tell you.
for example, Or not even forexample, just if you think about
it, there would be, there'd beno reason, or pretty much no
reason, for English to be spokenin India, or North America, or
Australia, or even Ireland, forthat matter, or anywhere else
(16:29):
outside of England, except forthe fact that all those places
were colonized by Britain.
Sometimes, that meant that theBrits would roll in, set up
shop, and they would extractresources from the country that
they're in so they can send themback to Britain.
That's what happened in India.
In other places, like NorthAmerica and Australia, uh, the
Brits were there to stay.
You know, they exterminated orthey drove off the indigenous
(16:50):
people who lived there andsettled on the stolen land.
So since then obviously theworld has changed a lot and It's
not just Britain thateconomically is Dominant, in
fact, at this point, is the U.
S.
That's economically dominant inthe world.
So, as these colonies, that wereonce colonies, but are no longer
colonies, as they won theirindependence, one by one, the
(17:10):
model of direct colonialism,where the metropolis, the
metropole of Britain woulddirectly rule over their
colonies.
That was replaced by moreindirect imperialism.
So even after there is no more,you know, direct colonialism,
these old powers continue toexport capital to those places,
(17:33):
their former colonies, andsiphon off their labor, their
real wealth, their naturalresources.
But this isn't just somethingBritain did.
France, Germany, the U.
S., and others did this and,importantly, still continue to
do this to this day.
And why am I talking about this?
It's important because it setsthe stage for the global
situation of today, which isthat the world isn't just
(17:56):
interconnected.
People like to, you know, say,Oh, the world is interconnected
now.
That's true, but there's areason for that.
There's a wealthy imperial core.
Of that world, consisting ofWestern Europe and its settler
colonies like the US, Canada,Australia, New Zealand, plus
Japan.
And then, there is an imperialperiphery that these countries
(18:16):
are either exploiting or tryingto exploit.
And, since The English speakingcountries are the biggest
imperialists of them all, the U.
S.
and Britain.
English is the most highlyprivileged language in the
world.
All over the globe, there arepeople who have to know English
for work or some other reason,but even with how interconnected
(18:37):
the world is, these, worldEnglishes, that's the way that
linguists like to say it,different Englishes that are
becoming their own thing allover the world, like Indian
English, Naturally, they'regoing to differ based on the
features of their learners firstlanguages.
Just like, if your firstlanguage is Hindi, you are going
to learn English and sounddifferent than if your first
(18:58):
language is Spanish or Korean.
Plus, just the fact that overtime, the various strains of a
language, if they're separatedand their speech communities are
sufficiently, separate from eachother, geographically or
otherwise.
they are going to grow apart andget more different over time.
(19:20):
all of this is just to say thatin the present day, there are
many different dialects ofEnglish all over the world, and
some of them, we say, are moreprivileged than others, which
just means that when you knowthem and you can sound in that
way, that is going to, Cash outas more benefits for you, which
is why, for example, if youspeak, Indian English and you
(19:45):
want to come to the U.
S.
and get a job, you might feelpressure reduce your accent.
Really just reduce the extent towhich you sound like Hindi is
your first language.
Or one of the many otherlanguages in India.
Marina (20:01):
Really just hiding the fact that you're from India,
right?
Literally.
Because, you know, regardless ofwhat language is your first
language, you know, thatidentity is close.
Like, our identity is veryclosely tied with the way that
we speak.
Yeah.
Right?
And so, That's something that isa common trap that people fall
(20:22):
into when it comes to the accentreduction industry.
That it's easy enough to framean accent as a skill or like as
a matter of proficiency,something that can be practiced
and practiced out of you.
Um, but that's usually not, it'snot as simple as that.
Because our identities are soclosely tied to the way that we
(20:46):
speak that if you reduce theYour quote unquote accent.
You're really just erasing thatpart of your identity.
Jeremiah (20:55):
Yeah.
Yeah, to a to a very meaningfulextent.
Also, I think one thing that isimportant to point out is that
you could hear all that and kindof maybe still assume that okay,
well there must be somethingwrong with Indian English or
Spanish, English, or Chinese,English, And that's not the case
(21:17):
at all.
And we've talked about thisbefore, I think, but there,
there's really no difference inobjective value to any of these.
None of them is more correctthan the other.
For reasons that we've talkedabout before.
So really what you're left withis that the value that is
assigned to American English andany of its, dialects thereof, or
(21:42):
accents thereof, or BritishEnglish, the value that's
assigned to those is subjective.
it's not based on any, like,real difference in quality
between them.
Marina (21:52):
Exactly.
So I think that, our ripes withaccent reduction and the accent
reduction industry.
boil down to the fact that itperpetuates that exact thing
that Jeremiah was just talkingabout.
Placing subjective value on theways that people speak, and we
(22:13):
want to resist that.
Jeremiah (22:15):
Definitely, because not only is it like just a kind
of a problematic thing to do,like, there is this essentially,
racist hierarchy that isassigned to different varieties
of the language.
And profiting off of that iskind of a weird thing to do,
kind of, you know, you do whatyou gotta do to get by, but, you
know, that is what it is.
(22:36):
But at the same time, the, theunderlying issue that, different
varieties of English areprivileged differently is also
the issue that we're pushingback against.
And you know, you might, youmight hear that and think, well,
Maybe it's just because, youknow, English isn't the first
language of these people and somaybe they're just not speaking
(22:57):
correctly, or you know, if theyjust sound more like a native
English speaker, that's fine.
That's also not totally it,because think about how people
whose first language is Frenchand they learn English.
Think about how they're treated.
Even if they have what peoplewould say is a really thick
French accent.
That is It's often considered tobe a very, you know, sexy
(23:17):
accent, same with Italian.
But when it is one of theseimperial periphery countries
that the speaker comes from,then suddenly it's an issue and
it can make it harder for themto get jobs.
So think about what that'ssaying.
Really what it is is just racismand the listener's ability to
identify The race or nationalityof the person who is applying
(23:41):
for that job or whatever, basedon how they sound.
Marina (23:44):
It puts the burden on the speaker entirely.
Not the listener.
The listener should also be heldaccountable to being able to
negotiate for meaning and beable to, work together to come
to mutual understanding, Andjust also try, put in effort to
understand.
Jeremiah (24:03):
But that, that gets into the consequences.
Um, which as you said, it putsthe burden solely on the speaker
to kind of rise to the level ofthe native speaker.
And we've talked about nativespeaker fallacy before.
Marina (24:16):
In terms of the effect on the student themselves, the,
the, the second language userthemselves, it can have, Maybe
an unintended psychologicaleffect on them if they're told
you need to reduce your accentor you should reduce your
accent.
it gives the entire situation adeficiency frame or a deficiency
(24:38):
lens.
We're seeing what's wrong withyou or what's wrong with your
language use.
there's something that needs tobe corrected.
And all of those things can leadto negative self esteem, which
leads to lower confidencelevels, lower motivation levels,
and that is not something,that's not a good recipe for a
good language learningexperience or good language
(24:59):
outcomes.
but, somebody might counter whatI just said and say something
like, well, what if somebodyfeels more confident if their
accent is closer to that of anative speaker?
Jeremiah (25:13):
Yeah, I mean, know, if you are learning the language
and you want to sound more likea language speaker, you know, a
first language speaker, morepower to you.
we're, this isn't, we're notsaying this to language
learners, saying that you'reWrong if you're trying to reduce
your accent, but we are talkingabout where that desire often
comes from especially when we'retalking about second language
(25:35):
learners of English becausereally English as a language is
the most guilty of this problembecause English is the language
of imperialism and so if youwant to sound more like a native
speaker, that's That's totallyfine.
But No one should feel that theyhave to do that in order to be
considered competent in order toget a job Right?
Because then, the language isbeing used as a tool for those
(25:59):
in positions of power to excludepeople from things that they
need economically, like a job,based on essentially racism,
Marina (26:08):
also, I think it does extend beyond just English
learners, and L2 Englishspeakers.
any other languages of the corelike French, Spanish, but I
think this pressure can exist inany language.
I think it's just potent in thissituation.
Jeremiah (26:26):
That's true.
It's not like English by virtueof being English is the problem.
I, I emphasize English becausewhen I say it's the language of
imperialism, it's like even theFrench have to use it, but
you're right, like French has inthe past and you know, there's
still a lot of, superiority oflike, you have to speak this
(26:46):
exact way, which in fact, Ithink is exactly how the French
language came about because,it's just Parisian French and
there used to be a lot more waysto speak French in France until
um, They all got supplanted byParisian, French, by uh,
coercive methods.
Marina (27:02):
Fun fact, I didn't know that.
Jeremiah (27:04):
You know, I might have to check my sources on that, but
we can do an episode on that.
Cool.
Pretty sure I learned that,though.
Marina (27:10):
but I think also, more broadly, like I said earlier,
this industry just continues tofeed into existing Problems
regarding, linguisticdiscrimination and racism.
and just also perpetuating this,the deep, deep colonial history
of English and English languageteaching.
(27:32):
Um, I, this is a vestige of thattime and I, I'm trying to say
this nicely, but I just, I don'tthink that there's a place for
it anymore.
Jeremiah (27:42):
Yeah, and not only is it a vestige of that time, but
it's like an ongoing symptom ofour current time, which is still
very, you know, very much theinheritor of that history and
now it's just happening in adifferent, less direct way.
Another thing that I will sayfor anybody who is like, well,
yeah, you know, this is me.
I'm definitely, um, I'mdefinitely from an imperial
(28:04):
periphery country and I'm tryingto get a job in the Imperial
Corps and, you know, this mightall be true, but I still gotta
get a job.
Um, do what you gotta do.
But I will say this, even peoplewho put in all the work to
reduce their accent and soundindistinguishable from somebody
whose first language is English,if that person is not white
(28:25):
passing, then listeners Not alllisteners, but many listeners,
including employers, will thinkthat they hear an accent.
Even if you look at thewavelengths of your speech, and
it is indistinguishablescientifically from first
language speaker, they will heara phantom accent.
(28:45):
Because it's not that thiscauses racism, it's that racism
causes this.
Marina (28:51):
Yeah, exactly, Also, You know, this is kind of going back
to the native speaker fallacyepisode that we did, but the
thing that accent reductionspecialists are trying to get
their students to sound likedoesn't really exist either,
right?
You can try your best to makesomebody sound more American or
sound more British or sound moreAustralian, but in the end,
(29:16):
like, what does that even mean?
Right?
I, I, um.
I've tried, like, severaldifferent online services that
claim to reduce your accent inEnglish.
and, you know, make you soundmore native.
That's, like, their wholetagline thing.
And they have these tests thatyou can take that you read words
(29:37):
and you read sentences inEnglish and it's supposed to
tell you how native you sound orhow much work you need in order
to sound better.
And I've taken these.
And I get back numbers like, Oh,you sound 90 percent like an
English, a native Englishspeaker.
You sound 85 percent like anative English speaker.
And here's all the things thatyou did wrong.
(29:58):
And it's like, Well, I am afirst language English speaker.
What do you mean it's wrong?
What are you comparing that to?
And so the whole thing is asham.
Jeremiah (30:10):
Yeah.
And if, if you are a, um, anaccent reduction specialist, I
mean, I don't know what you wantus to say.
Sorry.
Marina (30:20):
So I think it's clear that we, we don't support the
accent reduction industry.
It's not something that we wouldever condone or support.
I think it's getting better, youknow?
I don't, I don't really see, atleast where we live, I don't
really see pronunciation classesanymore.
They probably still exist, butI'm just not aware of them.
(30:41):
It's getting better, but there'sstill a lot to, a lot of work to
do in the realm of linguisticdiscrimination, and linguistic
racism, and also just racism.
Jeremiah (30:51):
That is a fact.
Marina (30:53):
So.
Jeremiah (30:53):
And I think anytime there's a discussion about this
or anything, there, I don'tknow.
If your takeaway from thisepisode is that Oh man, you
know, I, I think accents are athing.
So does that make me a racist?
No, no, it's not about you.
you're not the problem.
Even if you hear accents, evenif you think that so and so
sounds weird, like that's notcool, but When we talk about
(31:16):
racism, maybe you can tell fromthe scientific analysis of
imperialism, but the problemsthat we're talking about are
much bigger than individualpeople and their prejudices, and
those prejudices come from amaterial reality, which is an
institution, or, overlappinginstitutions that are racist.
So, Not about you.
Marina (31:36):
Don't worry.
Jeremiah, I talked about myaccent.
What's, what would you, whatwould you say your accent is?
Jeremiah (31:43):
well, you know, when people ask me my culture or my
ethnicity or whatever, I mean,white, right?
But actually I like to say Okie,which is probably undeserved,
but, my grandfather was fromOklahoma, and, at the time of
the Dust Bowl and thereabouts,there was a pretty big migration
(32:04):
out of that part of the country,mostly into the West, into
California and Oregon andWashington.
And so I think that that waskind of, that's kind of my my
heritage a little bit.
So for example, my, my, andlinguistically that sticks
around.
So if you are in ruralCalifornia, you'll often hear
(32:24):
people where you're like, theysound almost Southern, but like
Cowboys.
And that's because that'sexactly what they are.
you know, they probably, arepart, you know, they or their
parents or their grandparentswere probably part of that
migration.
And I, you know, so mygrandfather was and the
linguistic traits of that kindof stuck around.
So he didn't really talk likethis, but, uh, you know, I, I
(32:48):
know, uh, I know a couple oldfellers that, uh, still kind of
talk like this, a little bit ofthe, a little bit of the okie
they talk about, uh, got to goup on the roof, change the dish
and, uh.
Get naked, jump in the, take awash, wash yourself out the
window, you know, that kind ofthing.
A little bit of that.
So I only do that for fun now,you know, I don't really sound
(33:12):
like that, but still culturallyoaky.
What about you?
I mean, just California, Iguess.
Marina (33:19):
Yeah, California.
Kind of what you would call,like, a standard West Coast kind
of accent.
But I have some features of mymom's side of the family.
who's from New York.
Jeremiah (33:29):
Like you say, Jommies.
Marina (33:30):
I say pajamas.
Jeremiah (33:32):
Get in my pajamas, my Jommies.
Marina (33:36):
Yeah.
Or like, I'd say scenarioinstead of scenario.
Jeremiah (33:40):
That's so funny.
Marina (33:41):
Little things like that, you know, just more East Coast.
Kind of vowels sometimes.
Jeremiah (33:47):
Yeah, okay, right on.
Yeah,
Marina (33:50):
I don't say I'm walking here.
Jeremiah (33:52):
I'm walking over here.
It's ending the episode overhere.
Thanks for listening to How toLanguage over here.
Follow us on Instagram andTwitter at HowToLang over here.
You do it.
Say, see ya later! What if mygrandma's listening?
(34:21):
She doesn't know how podcasts.
We'll see you next time.
See you next time over here!
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