Talk:Accent (linguistics)/Archive 2

Accents and Class
The section on accents and class seems to have a bias issue, as well as a lack of sources. In my mind it would be worth removing this section, unless someone wants to take the effort to thoroughly improve it. Comments? bfigura 02:57, 16 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Accents exist, social classes exist, and in certain parts of the world accents and classes are more related to each other than elsewhere. So rather than removing the section, which to me sounds rather like destroying the village in order to liberate it, a sentence should be inserted that acknowledges its limitations and the necessity to work at giving it better foundations. This applies to the whole article, for that matter. · Michel 15:17, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

This article must not be deleted
I fully support Halaqah's arguments in defense of the work he/she has done, regardless of the existing shortcomings. Because, as he/she explains, knowledge about accents is:


 * subjective,
 * empirical,

and has so far


 * not been the object of sufficient study,

this article could be an excellent case study of how Wikipedia builds knowledge through the discussion of the experiences made by different individuals. More substantiation among the comments I've left on this Talk page earlier today.

I wish I knew how to edit the "Worldwide view" box (which appeared twice in the text, so I've moved it to the top of the page) in order to reflect that the article almost exclusively focuses on the English language. In other words, to tell newcomers to the page that what is discussed there does not necessarily apply to other languages, i.e. make them aware from the start of the fact that other languages have a life of their own. If anyone has an idea of how to do this... · Michel 17:58, 22 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I disagree that "accents" are particularly, or exceptionally less studied than any other aspect of linguistics, I have found within the space of around five minutes several relevant sources that could be used to cite or disprove a number of assertions in this article. - Francis Tyers · 17:30, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Oops... I only saw this now, after my long response below. Well, I'm glad that this is the case. It doesn't divert me from my conclusion, that the article should remain in its original form, more or less, and citations added as they seem relevant. · Michel 16:03, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Explanation for deletions / adjustments
As phonologists are fond of saying, "a person without an accent would be like a place without a climate." More accurately, a person whose accent does not stand out in a particular context (like a Birmingham accent in Birmingham) can be said to have a "non-marked accent," while a person whose accent stands out in a particular context can be said to speak with a "marked accent."


 * Which phonologists?
 * "fond of saying" is not encyclopaedic wording.
 * Where is the citation for "can be said to have..."

The perception of an accent is entirely relative, and a direct result of exposure to different cultural and ethnic linguistic groups. In the urban multicultural societies where a plethora of accents exists, the sensitivity of the average person to accents and geographical identification is much higher. Thus through interaction the general discernment between closely related accents is more profound. While in more remote locations, the difference between a Jamaican accent and a Trinidadian accent would be less profound. Accent perception and degree of amalgamation on the part of the listener is thus a function of their exposure. Airport workers who deal with many accents have a high degree of accent discernment and some may be even able to identify not only national accents but regional accents within 'specific communities.'


 * Where is the citation for this paragraph? It makes a lot of assertions without any backup. Particularly, where is the paper or article that discusses the degree of "accent discernment" in airport workers (I would love to read it), and what is their methodology.
 * What does "Thus through interaction the general discernment between closely related accents is more profound." mean... the same question about "Accent perception and degree of amalgamation on the part of the listener is thus a function of their exposure."

In the UK the popular Indian and Jamaican accents are often imitated. The same may be true for Spanish-accented and African-accented English in the United States, or the Italian accent and its associations. In Western societies, foreign accents can be a source of great curiosity. Imitation in some senses, for example imitating an Indian accent, may be perceived as racist, while imitation of a Jamaican accent by a youth might be more acceptable. People of African and Caribbean ancestry who are native to the West often switch between accents to create emphasis, for example to quote a famous proverb they might switch to a local tone to give it stress, or they may use their heritage accent for verbal abuse. This is also a form of social identification, cultural rootedness and authenticity.


 * Where is the citation that these accents are popular?
 * Where is the citation that these accents are often imitated?
 * "the same may be true for Spanish ...." &mdash; sounds like "crystal balling" to me.
 * Where is the citation that "In Western societies, foreign accents can be a source of great curiosity." ?
 * Where is the citation for the differentiation between "racist" and "non-racist" immitation?
 * Where is the citation for "accent, may be perceived as racist, while imitation of a Jamaican accent by a youth might be more acceptable. People of African and Caribbean ancestry who are native to the West often switch between accents to create emphasis, for example to quote a famous proverb they might switch to a local tone to give it stress, or they may use their heritage accent for verbal abuse. This is also a form of social identification, cultural rootedness and authenticity." ?

Certain European accents applied to speaking English are sometimes regarded by native English speakers as being "sexy". The French accent is an example. Different expression of an accent can be perceived as conveying a comical or joyous emotion. With the perception American culture to be on the rise in much of the world many youths in the developing world seek American accents as an instrument of success. In these countries, a Western accent may be quickly associated with tourists and thus economic prosperity.


 * Where is the citation that any accent is "sexy"?
 * Where is the citation that "French is an example of a sexy accent" ?
 * Where on earth is the citation for "With the perception American culture to be on the rise in much of the world many youths in the developing world seek American accents as an instrument of success." ??
 * And the rest...

The "acting and accents" section is pure trivia, and as such should be deleted.

A foreign accent is one that marks someone as a non-native speaker of a language. It arises when the phonology of one language, typically the person's native language, influences his pronunciation of a second language. Research has suggested various ages after which this becomes more likely (see Critical Period Hypothesis).


 * Give a citation for the definition of "foreign accent".
 * Probably one of the most interesting parts of the article is quickly glossed over without any citation. I would recommend a section on "Accent development", which could be mained out to an article on general language development in children.

The perception of a foreign accent by native speakers may carry with it positive or negative connotations. When the connotations are negative, non-native speakers with a foreign accent may endeavor to suppress and eliminate it. However, foreign accents are notoriously difficult to eliminate without very extensive training, and there is much individual variation in the ability to eliminate a foreign accent. Many speakers choose to live with their foreign accents as long as these are not heavy enough to interfere with communication (that is, as long as their accents leave the phonemes of a language clearly distinguishable to native speakers).


 * Where is the citation for them being "notoriously difficult" to eliminate?
 * And the rest...

There is an explanation for my deletions, and obviously the way to restore the parts of the article would be to provide citations for each point. However, I think the article could also do with some restructuring. I will think about a better way of laying it out and propose it here. - Francis Tyers · 17:17, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Some sources

 * Murray J Munro, Tracey M Derwing (1999) "Foreign Accent, Comprehensibility, and Intelligibility in the Speech of Second Language Learners". Language Learning 49 (s1), 285–310.
 * DL Mugglestone (2003) Talking Proper: the rise of accent as social symbol
 * TM Derwing, MJ Munro (1997) "Accent, Inteligibility and Comprehensibility". Studies in Second Language Acquisition
 * S Tahta (1981) "Foreign Accents: Factors Relating to Transfer of Accent from the First Language to a Second Language" Language and Speech.
 * H Giles (1970) "Evaluative reactions to accents". Educational Review
 * I Thompson (1991) "Foreign accents revisited: The English pronunciation of Russian immigrants". Language Learning
 * JE Flege (1988) "Factors affecting degree of perceived foreign accent in English sentences". The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
 * This dissertation should have a number of pointers.
 * R van Bezooijen, J Ytsma (1999) "Accents of Dutch: Personality impression, divergence, and identifiability". Belgian journal of linguistics
 * HS Magen (1998) "The perception of foreign-accented speech". Journal of Phonetics
 * JE Flege (1981) "The Phonological Basis of Foreign Accent: A Hypothesis". TESOL Quarterly
 * JE Flege (1987) "A Critical Period for Learning to Pronounce Foreign Languages?". Applied Linguistics
 * Helen M. Peppard, Clara Barrus (1925) The Correction of Speech Defects
 * This last one has a classic line which would be great for a "historical overview" section, "Foreign accent is a defect that is very common among children in our public schools. It is largely due to a faulty production of vowel and consonant sounds. ..." haha :) - Francis Tyers · 17:45, 2 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Josiane F. Hamers (2000) Bilinguality and Bilingualism Language Arts & Disciplines
 * This one has something on the "differing perceptions", "For example, English spoken with an Indian accent was not evaluated more favourably than Cockney, whereas English spoken with a French foreign accent was ..." - Francis Tyers · 17:47, 2 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Lisa Ryan (2004) Language Acquisition: The Age Factor Language Arts & Disciplines
 * Has something about accent perception among immigrant communities and the age factor, "Most respondents who had migrated at or over the age of 16 years, on the other hand, felt they still had a foreign accent. Of respondents who migrated ..." - Francis Tyers · 17:49, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Apparently I need to sign this to stop the bot from signing it. People should feel free to add citations and references. - Francis Tyers · 17:31, 2 September 2007 (UTC)


 * There are many more where those came from, just try plugging stuff into books.google.com and scholar.google.com (or your preferred article search engine) and start reading :) - Francis Tyers · 17:50, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Suggested structure

 * Introduction
 * Historical overview
 * Changing perception of "accent"
 * Phonological basis of "accent"
 * Critical period
 * Social factors
 * Prestige
 * Foreign accent
 * Discrimination
 * Notes
 * References

- Francis Tyers · 17:45, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Reply to Francis, above
Last things first: this is bad timing, somehow. I'm pretty hung up right now, and I'll be travelling in the real world in a couple of days, with very limited access to the net. I'll be back only in October, with many more things to take care of before I can dedicate more time to a subject close to my heart as is the case with this one. Incidentally, I wish that the archiving of the previous discussions had been selective, so that the author's attempts at justifying himself remained more accessible, but I have no time to begin with this.

Francis, while we apparently have different "pedigrees", I can see that we share, on the whole, a similar intent. But there is something in your approach that I cannot condone. If I understand well your repeated requests for citations, you seem to circumscribe the validity of any assertion to its being vouched for by an academic source. Yet, that is not how the real world works: thank goodness, I should say, not every bit of our observable world can be reduced to academe's utterances about it, or academe's ability to profer utterances about it. Or, in this particular case, to academe's lack of utterances.

The last statement is my personal interpretation. I have nothing against academe "per se", as long as it is open-minded (another can of worms left better left to rest at the present moment), but as an institutional phenomenon, it has plenty of shortcomings and usually preciously little awareness of the very existence of these shortcomings. My personal academic background is not directly linked to languages, so my approach to languages (first row) and linguistics (second row) is based both on personal observation and on reading. However, I think that I can conclude, preliminarily, that little has been produced by samesaid academe on this particular subject, and that many observations have taken the form of anecdotal evidence. At any rate, we are a far cry form anything resembling a corpus of documented evidence. Let's keep in mind, though, that lack of evidence shouldn't be equated with absence of evidence.

We may wonder why this is the case (and please correct me if I'm wrong). My guess, offhand, is that the empirical background necessary to gathering and formulating the evidence (i.e. extensive travel experience combined with A. a multilingual and multi-culturalist outlook and B. the right ""ear" to perceive the evidence, itself a product of lengthy more or less voluntary training) are seldom met in single individuals. Certainly, the pressures of performance and effectivity do not allow your single researcher to waste a lifetime on such intangible endeavours? Yet, anecdotal evidence is still evidence. Who has gathered it matters little, in my opinion.

Which brings me back to what I wrote on your talk page: most of what the article's author has written factually matches my own observations, regardless of citations that may or may not (most likely not) exist.

In a way, I wish the section on Acting/Accents would "just go away", as they say, because even if I did make a single (and I still believe relevant) contribution to it, I have barely any interest in this particular subject, or in the social strata around it. But my lack of interest by no means allows me to dismiss it as "trivia". The fact is that the field of "acting" does make use of accents (and has done so, in the so-called western world, since at least Aristophanes). For the vast segment of humanity that watches movies (plays, TV shows etc.), it is an essential part of their experience of accents, and explaining - how warped or, occasionally, accurate this is - with examples that can be verified by anyone who cares to watch the movies (not what academic researchers are paid for, usually) is part of giving a proper and informative definition of what accents are about. In this perspective, I think that your elimination of the whole section is rather reckless.

And while on the issue of triviality, regardless of any citations actually available, there must be a lower denominator to what needs and what doesn't need them. Like a citation for the definition of... a foreign accent? Pardon me, but there are certain things that are commanded by common sense and preliminary consensus, otherwise we couldn't be writing to each other here using this language. Unless the context requires a specific explanation, we all know what we're talking about if we say that "the sea is blue". And no, I won't ask you for a citation in the form of an online copy of your birth certificate proving that you really are that person claiming to be called Francis ;-)

Don't think that this is my own, private view: my partner, who is endowed with her own share of linguistic proficiencies, but has a much more solid academic background than either of us, and who works in a field (geophysics) where citations are an absolutely necessity due to the serious consequences of any screwups, couldn't help shaking her head when I gave her your list of requested citations to read.

Last in this spate. You quote: «''What does "Thus through interaction the general discernment between closely related accents is more profound." mean... the same question about "Accent perception and degree of amalgamation on the part of the listener is thus a function of their exposure."''» I have no difficulty understanding these statements, probably because they agree very much with my own experience with accents. But it puzzles me when you seem to claim that you don't understand them. Is that a sufficient excuse to erase them?

Anyhow... It seems to me a bit like we're back to point zero: I'd rather leave the article as it was, to the benefit of all those (not necessarily Wikipedians) who have had a chance to read it since April 06, and that people like you, with the time and qualifications at hand, add the citations you feel necessary to support what others like myself perceive to be obvious. However, I don't feel like reverting your deletions: as said, lack of time, because, due to the way you proceeded yesterday (undo not possible), it was a very tedious affair indeed.

· Michel 15:59, 3 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Michel, since you're a relative newcomer, you might not yet be aware that of the official policy page Verifiability. We cannot make claims here that can't be backed up with published sources, because we're in the business of writing an encyclopedia, a tertiary source, not writing our own analyses of things based on our own observations. The sources don't necessarily have to be academic (although for a topic like this one it's hard to image appropriate sources that aren't), but they do have to be published and reliable. Now you're right that certain empirical obviousnesses like "the sky is blue" (a better example than "the sea is blue" because the sea can be a wide variety of colors) don't need a citation, but there's very little in linguistics that's that empirically obvious to laymen, even if laymen think there is. Even though everyone thinks they know what a foreign accent is, the specific definition Francis is questioning, "a foreign accent is one that marks someone as a non-native speaker of a language", is probably not empirically adequate. For one thing, as an American, I perceive British and Australian accents as foreign -- but I still acknowledge that the users of those accents are native speakers of my language! For the most part, I agree with Francis's changes, although I do think a section on learning to imitate other accents for purposes of acting has potential, and although the current state of that section needs a lot of work, I don't think WP:TRIVIA applies to it, as it is not a section with a list of miscellaneous information. —Angr 18:00, 3 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your considered reply Michel, there is a very good reason for wanting those citations, anyone can write from experience, but like common sense, experience is often wrong or incomplete. I don't know if it happens to you, but sometimes I think I've read something somewhere, I go back to read it again, and what I remembered is either slightly wrong, or completely wrong. If you're going to be away, I, and the article can wait.


 * Angr, actually thinking about it again, the section could be useful, although the examples should be cut down or mained out. Sometimes I react badly to sections such as that which greatly outweigh the rest of the article. I'll restore it now. - Francis Tyers · 18:52, 3 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree with both Angr and Francis here. There is far too much unverifiable original research in this article mostly amounting to fluff.  I'm glad that someone is taking the time to clean it all out.  Thanks. --Strothra 19:03, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Race and accent
Please add a section "Race and accent", addressing the truth or non-truth of: People of race B look different on the outside (much taller too), so why might they not also look different even a tiny bit on the inside, affecting their human voice, so their accent might not be 100% cultural after all, and indeed have some physical basis. Jidanni (talk) 02:19, 31 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Interesting idea, almost certainly with at least some small truth to it &mdash; people with bigger frames, larger heads, larger larynges etc. tend to have deeper voices. It's certainly not true (as is sometimes believed) that black people are all bigger than non-black people (think of pygmies). It is true, however, that people whose ancestors come from certain regions of Africa tend, on the whole, to be taller than people with no such ancestors (though there are notable exceptions; the Dutch, after all, are the tallest nation in the world currently). Other people have inherited tendencies to be stockier; and so on. It's not clear to me, however, that any of this goes beyond deepness of voice. And that's not normally considered a feature of accent. However, if you can find a reliable source that provides evidence for physical differences between different people (we shouldn't restrict this to race; races are poorly defined and have much variation within them; what's more, biological gender probably has a stronger effect) leading to vocal differences that would be considered features of accent, then add the section yourself! garik (talk) 11:20, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
 * vocals have nothin to do with accent, you simply sound strong, thin or mickey mouse like, syllables make the accent, i can talk in english with hebrew or german accent, everyone thinks its foreigner, the trick is to keep it goin in long conversations like latka did! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.99.2.202 (talk) 19:47, 29 July 2010 (UTC)