How to Language

What is the problem with accent reduction?

• Marina Bydalek & Jeremiah Baxter • Season 1 • Episode 11

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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:

But despite those differences, um, our grammar doesn't really differ.

Jeremiah:

Despite those differences, our grammar like totally doesn't differ.

Marina:

I sound like that. But yeah, like, yeah. Like, the example that I usually use is that, I would say wicker sofa and my grandma would say wick a sofa.

Jeremiah:

Wick a sofa. Hello everybody, and welcome to How to Language. A podcast about accent reduction? No. I'm Jeremiah.

Marina:

I'm Marina.

Jeremiah:

Today we're going to be talking about, what else? Accent reduction. Analyzing what it is, what an accent is, where accent reduction as an industry comes from, and it's consequences for language learners. Marina, why don't you start us off? What, what is accent reduction? So accent reduction is a subsection of the education industry and specifically the language education industry. you might see like an accent reduction class online or an accent reduction tutor online, something like that. I've actually never seen them in person but they might exist in person as well. sometimes it's even called pronunciation instruction or something similar, but they're essentially all the same thing. It's a class or it's a teacher who specializes in quote unquote reducing your accent in your second language. somebody might go to an accent reduction specialist for various reasons. They might want to improve their pronunciation so that they can communicate more easily at their, at their job. Or they just want to be better understood by the people who they're speaking to on a regular basis in their second language. and so these services claim to help you reduce your accent to achieve those goals. Which, you know, Sounds fine enough. You know, there's a problem and they're providing a service that's supposed to solve that problem. Um, most commonly, accent reduction is used for reducing your accent when you're speaking English. I mean, I'm sure it exists in other languages as well, but we see it most often for people who are speaking English as an additional language. And, within that, it is most often for career purposes. They want to improve their accent in English so that they can get a job or get a promotion at 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 I imagine will turn out to be some problems. First of all that it's, you know, like you said, it seems to be mostly for English. And some people might just leave it at that, but I would put a big old question mark at the end of that preceded by the word why. And also the fact that it's usually for career purposes another question mark, maybe a little tiny exclamation point because You got money involved. You've got some pretty high stakes. So in other words, you have kind of an ultimatum that people are faced with. Do I get accent reduction? Because this is gonna help me economically, financially, or do I not and what's the alternative, you know? Am I gonna be weeded out? Am I gonna be less likely to get a job? You can see how that puts people in a position where they become Reliant or they they end up feeling like oh it's necessary I need to reduce my accent and see one of these people who's graciously gonna offer me their services for a small fee

Marina:

Right exactly, so before we get more deep into this industry, let's talk a little bit about accent in the first place and what exactly we mean by accent and how an accent, like, kind of doesn't exist. I don't know, would you say that's a fair, a

Jeremiah:

fair point? I don't know, I think people have their different ideas about terminology. I think I think we would say that accents don't exist in the way that people often talk about them. I think some people use the term and they mean it. I've even heard people say that dialects aren't a real thing, which I think is weird. Most of these distinctions are not linguistic, but they're more political. They're

Marina:

political and they're relative.

Jeremiah:

That is also true.

Marina:

If you ever have encountered. Or if you've ever been in a conversation that involves talking about accents, you'll probably hear this common retort. when somebody says you have an accent, they'll say like, well, you have an accent too, or everybody has an accent, which is true. in that instance, it is more accurate to say that everybody has a dialect.

Jeremiah:

Wait.

Marina:

What?

Jeremiah:

No, you know the meme where it's like tiny brain and then regular brain and then expanding brain and then galaxy brain?

Marina:

Yeah.

Jeremiah:

Tiny brain is like I don't have an accent. You have an accent. Regular brain is Oh, we all have accents. Expanding brain is like There's no such thing as accents. And then galaxy brain is like Galaxy Brain is, there's no such thing as languages.

Marina:

Yeah. Literally. There's no language boundaries. Exactly. So, A dialect is a variety of a language that is still intelligible to other speakers of that language. So, for example, South African English speakers are still able to understand my grandmother from Long Island and vice versa, meaning that they are speaking different dialects of English because they're still able to understand each other. Um, but if the South African speaker started speaking Afrikaans, they wouldn't be able to understand each other because those are now two different languages. They are not mutually intelligible. Does that make sense?

Jeremiah:

That does make sense. I think also there's a little bit of room for debate, like a dialect being a variety of a language that is still intelligible because, um, the distinction between dialect and language is also political, which I know. You know, we don't have time for, but like, just really quick example, the differences between Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian, not Icelandic for reasons that we'll cover in another episode. The difference between those three languages is, there is a difference, you know, anybody who's taken any of those in combination on Duolingo can tell you, yeah, they're different, but they're also mutually intelligible to varying extents, and yet they're all considered, you know. Totally different languages, because those are totally different countries, whereas, uh, China is a very big place, and there are a lot of varieties of Chinese, and yet, you know, depending on who you talk to, they'll say, oh, you know, I'm learning Chinese, so and so speaks Chinese, I speak Chinese, and there's nothing wrong with that, but there is a political reason that, um, you Mandarin and Cantonese are not considered separate languages. And it's not that that's a bad thing, that's just how it is. If they were separate countries, they would probably be separate languages because I think how mutually intelligible they are is not, uh, a ton.

Marina:

Yes. But for the purposes of talking about accent reduction, we're going to keep it simple and be like, dialects mutually intelligible.

Jeremiah:

I've also heard, sorry, I've also heard that the difference between a dialect and an accent, to the extent that an accent is a real thing, is an accent is purely sounds. Uh huh. Like, phonetics. whereas dialects can have grammatical variation.

Marina:

Yeah, I think we're going to talk about that. so then what is

Jeremiah:

Sorry I derailed you.

Marina:

That's alright. So then, with that in mind, with that definition in mind, what's the difference between an accent and a dialect?

Jeremiah:

I can't wait to find out.

Marina:

So, an accent Saying that somebody has an accent usually implies that the only difference between how you speak and how I speak is how the words are pronounced, right? It doesn't necessarily convey any grammatical or lexical differences that might exist. So for example, going back to the example of my grandmother, my grandmother sounds a lot different than I do. She has a very thick Long Island accent. And I have a Californian accent.

Jeremiah:

Long Island accent, I'm walking over here. She can't walk, but she used to say, I'm walking over here. Now she says, I'm sitting over here.

Marina:

But despite those differences, um, our grammar doesn't really differ.

Jeremiah:

Despite those differences, our grammar like totally doesn't differ.

Marina:

I sound like that. But yeah, like, yeah. Like, the example that I usually use is that, I would say wicker sofa and my grandma would say wick a sofa.

Jeremiah:

Wick a sofa.

Marina:

I just love that. But grammatically we don't really speak that differently. but let's say that I was speaking to somebody who spoke a dialect of South African in English. They would sound different from me. Yes, their accent would be different. But they might use different syntax or make different lexical choices than I would. So, for example, in South African English, they have the 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:

Can you give an example? Can you demonstrate? What would be a question, what would that question be, sound like?

Marina:

Let me look it up just to make sure I'm not doing it wrong, because this was a while ago.

Jeremiah:

She gonna look it up, innit? Clacking away on her keys.

Marina:

Is that a South African accent?

Jeremiah:

Looking it up, innit? No. Yeah, Like how in British English. They say in it, or maybe just London. I don't know. Is it just London in it?

Marina:

Yeah Or like in British English, they would say my family are Instead of my family is right it is the plural verb with a collective noun, which I wouldn't do Right So So, all of this kind of boils down to the idea that accents are relative. We only say that somebody has an accent if it differs from our own, or if it differs from what we're used to.

Jeremiah:

Hmm. That's a good point. It makes sense when you say it like that because it's not that everyone has an accent, but just that everybody talks. And everybody talks differently. And then if you get far enough away from where you grew up, people are going to talk differently enough that you'll notice it, and then you'll say, oh, you have an accent. But, you know, that's like saying that, It's, it's like saying to somebody, it's like if you have brown hair and you talk to somebody who has blonde hair that's like you saying, you know, oh, you have a hair tint. What? Yeah, your hair is like the color that it is. That's a hair tint. It's like, okay, well your hair is the color that it is. You have a hair tint. It's like, no, my hair is normal. Yeah. It's like everybody has a color of their hair and it's not really that surprising or special. But for some reason when people talk a little differently, people notice. I think people like it because, you know, you can like kind of, you can often tell where somebody 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 ways that other people speak. Like, if everywhere in the world suddenly became void of people except for, uh, you know

Marina:

Canterbury.

Jeremiah:

Wales. Okay. There's probably a lot of different accents in Wales, though, so I don't know.

Marina:

London.

Jeremiah:

Don't make me do London.

Marina:

Wait, are you going to do the accent?

Jeremiah:

No, I'm not going to do it, I just don't want to talk about London.

Marina:

Oh, okay.

Jeremiah:

I'm trying to think of a different English town.

Marina:

Liverpool.

Jeremiah:

Liverpool, perfect example. Perfect, thank you, perfect example. 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 it only is a thing in relation to other, other accents. If Liverpool accent was the only way to speak, they wouldn't call it the Liverpool accent, they would just call it speaking.

Marina:

Right. Also, people will say that you have an accent if you're an L2 speaker, whose pronunciation does not precisely match that of an L1 speaker. And that is what we're going to talk about specifically with accent reduction.

Jeremiah:

Yeah, somehow I totally forgot about that, but you're so right. Like It doesn't distinguish. People say accent, and they could mean somebody from Liverpool, or they could mean somebody from Dar es Salaam, who doesn't speak English as a first language speaker.

Marina:

Yeah, some people want to undergo accent reduction in their first language. Like, my mom did that. Um, not formally, but when she was growing up, she moved from New York to Arizona. And she got bullied for her New York accent, and so she slowly got rid of it, or rather didn't get rid of it, but you know, assimilated to an Arizonan accent.

Jeremiah:

I'm, I'm, I'm walking over here, I'm walking over here, I'm walking over here, here.

Marina:

Yeah. But today we're going to talk about accents when it comes to when you're an L2 speaker. So, Jeremiah, do you want to talk a little bit about some of the historical background that would be useful when thinking about accent reduction?

Jeremiah:

Yeah, for sure. I think going back to what we said in the beginning about how when people are trying to reduce their accent, it's usually second language users of English who speak in a way that is, affected by the sounds of their first language, right? So, it's certainly not true that all people who speak Spanish as a first language and then learn English, it's certainly not true they all talk the same way, but there are similar patterns because of just the ways that, the sound patterns and the rules of Spanish can affect how you speak in English or your second language. And that's the case for, all languages, Indian English speakers have a lot of traits in common in how they speak. Some, you know, more than others. same goes for Spanish. Spanish is the first language speakers of English, or Um, Chinese speakers as a first language, speakers of English as a second language.

Marina:

You're going off the rails here, buddy.

Jeremiah:

No, it'll make sense. It makes sense. Alright. Anyway, there's a reason for that. There's a reason that so many different people from all over the world who all speak different languages, first language, are learning English in the first place. In other words, there's a reason that English is a global language, and I think we all know what it is. It's because of colonization, and it's because of imperialism. And some people don't like to hear that, but, you know, I don't know what to tell you. for example, Or not even for example, just if you think about it, there would be, there'd be no reason, or pretty much no reason, for English to be spoken in India, or North America, or Australia, or even Ireland, for that matter, or anywhere else outside of England, except for the fact that all those places were colonized by Britain. Sometimes, that meant that the Brits would roll in, set up shop, and they would extract resources from the country that they're in so they can send them back to Britain. That's what happened in India. In other places, like North America and Australia, uh, the Brits were there to stay. You know, they exterminated or they drove off the indigenous people who lived there and settled on the stolen land. So since then obviously the world has changed a lot and It's not just Britain that economically is Dominant, in fact, at this point, is the U. S. That's economically dominant in the world. So, as these colonies, that were once colonies, but are no longer colonies, as they won their independence, one by one, the model of direct colonialism, where the metropolis, the metropole of Britain would directly rule over their colonies. That was replaced by more indirect imperialism. So even after there is no more, you know, direct colonialism, these old powers continue to export capital to those places, their former colonies, and siphon off their labor, their real wealth, their natural resources. But this isn't just something Britain 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 sets the stage for the global situation of today, which is that the world isn't just interconnected. People like to, you know, say, Oh, the world is interconnected now. That's true, but there's a reason for that. There's a wealthy imperial core. Of that world, consisting of Western Europe and its settler colonies like the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, plus Japan. And then, there is an imperial periphery that these countries are either exploiting or trying to exploit. And, since The English speaking countries are the biggest imperialists of them all, the U. S. and Britain. English is the most highly privileged language in the world. All over the globe, there are people who have to know English for work or some other reason, but even with how interconnected the world is, these, world Englishes, that's the way that linguists like to say it, different Englishes that are becoming their own thing all over the world, like Indian English, Naturally, they're going to differ based on the features of their learners first languages. Just like, if your first language is Hindi, you are going to learn English and sound different than if your first language is Spanish or Korean. Plus, just the fact that over time, the various strains of a language, if they're separated and their speech communities are sufficiently, separate from each other, geographically or otherwise. they are going to grow apart and get more different over time. all of this is just to say that in the present day, there are many different dialects of English all over the world, and some of them, we say, are more privileged than others, which just means that when you know them and you can sound in that way, that is going to, Cash out as more benefits for you, which is why, for example, if you speak, Indian English and you want to come to the U. S. and get a job, you might feel pressure reduce your accent. Really just reduce the extent to which you sound like Hindi is your first language. Or one of the many other languages in India.

Marina:

Really just hiding the fact that you're from India, right? Literally. Because, you know, regardless of what language is your first language, you know, that identity is close. Like, our identity is very closely tied with the way that we speak. Yeah. Right? And so, That's something that is a common trap that people fall into when it comes to the accent reduction industry. That it's easy enough to frame an 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's not as simple as that. Because our identities are so closely tied to the way that we speak that if you reduce the Your quote unquote accent. You're really just erasing that part of your identity.

Jeremiah:

Yeah. Yeah, to a to a very meaningful extent. Also, I think one thing that is important to point out is that you could hear all that and kind of maybe still assume that okay, well there must be something wrong with Indian English or Spanish, English, or Chinese, English, And that's not the case at all. And we've talked about this before, I think, but there, there's really no difference in objective value to any of these. None of them is more correct than the other. For reasons that we've talked about before. So really what you're left with is that the value that is assigned to American English and any of its, dialects thereof, or accents thereof, or British English, the value that's assigned to those is subjective. it's not based on any, like, real difference in quality between them.

Marina:

Exactly. So I think that, our ripes with accent reduction and the accent reduction industry. boil down to the fact that it perpetuates that exact thing that Jeremiah was just talking about. Placing subjective value on the ways that people speak, and we want to resist that.

Jeremiah:

Definitely, because not only is it like just a kind of a problematic thing to do, like, there is this essentially, racist hierarchy that is assigned to different varieties of the language. And profiting off of that is kind of a weird thing to do, kind of, you know, you do what you gotta do to get by, but, you know, that is what it is. But at the same time, the, the underlying issue that, different varieties of English are privileged differently is also the issue that we're pushing back against. And you know, you might, you might hear that and think, well, Maybe it's just because, you know, English isn't the first language of these people and so maybe they're just not speaking correctly, or you know, if they just 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 French and they learn English. Think about how they're treated. Even if they have what people would say is a really thick French accent. That is It's often considered to be a very, you know, sexy accent, same with Italian. But when it is one of these imperial periphery countries that the speaker comes from, then suddenly it's an issue and it can make it harder for them to get jobs. So think about what that's saying. Really what it is is just racism and the listener's ability to identify The race or nationality of the person who is applying for that job or whatever, based on how they sound.

Marina:

It puts the burden on the speaker entirely. Not the listener. The listener should also be held accountable to being able to negotiate for meaning and be able to, work together to come to mutual understanding, And just also try, put in effort to understand.

Jeremiah:

But that, that gets into the consequences. Um, which as you said, it puts the burden solely on the speaker to kind of rise to the level of the native speaker. And we've talked about native speaker fallacy before.

Marina:

In terms of the effect on the student themselves, the, the, the second language user themselves, it can have, Maybe an unintended psychological effect on them if they're told you need to reduce your accent or you should reduce your accent. it gives the entire situation a deficiency frame or a deficiency lens. We're seeing what's wrong with you or what's wrong with your language use. there's something that needs to be corrected. And all of those things can lead to negative self esteem, which leads to lower confidence levels, lower motivation levels, and that is not something, that's not a good recipe for a good language learning experience or good language outcomes. but, somebody might counter what I just said and say something like, well, what if somebody feels more confident if their accent is closer to that of a native speaker?

Jeremiah:

Yeah, I mean, know, if you are learning the language and you want to sound more like a language speaker, you know, a first language speaker, more power to you. we're, this isn't, we're not saying this to language learners, saying that you're Wrong if you're trying to reduce your accent, but we are talking about where that desire often comes from especially when we're talking about second language learners of English because really English as a language is the most guilty of this problem because English is the language of imperialism and so if you want to sound more like a native speaker, that's That's totally fine. But No one should feel that they have to do that in order to be considered competent in order to get a job Right? Because then, the language is being used as a tool for those in positions of power to exclude people from things that they need economically, like a job, based on essentially racism,

Marina:

also, I think it does extend beyond just English learners, and L2 English speakers. any other languages of the core like French, Spanish, but I think this pressure can exist in any language. I think it's just potent in this situation.

Jeremiah:

That's true. It's not like English by virtue of being English is the problem. I, I emphasize English because when I say it's the language of imperialism, it's like even the French have to use it, but you're right, like French has in the past and you know, there's still a lot of, superiority of like, you have to speak this exact way, which in fact, I think is exactly how the French language came about because, it's just Parisian French and there used to be a lot more ways to speak French in France until um, They all got supplanted by Parisian, French, by uh, coercive methods.

Marina:

Fun fact, I didn't know that.

Jeremiah:

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:

but I think also, more broadly, like I said earlier, this industry just continues to feed into existing Problems regarding, linguistic discrimination and racism. and just also perpetuating this, the deep, deep colonial history of English and English language teaching. Um, I, this is a vestige of that time and I, I'm trying to say this nicely, but I just, I don't think that there's a place for it anymore.

Jeremiah:

Yeah, and not only is it a vestige of that time, but it's like an ongoing symptom of our current time, which is still very, you know, very much the inheritor of that history and now it's just happening in a different, less direct way. Another thing that I will say for anybody who is like, well, yeah, you know, this is me. I'm definitely, um, I'm definitely from an imperial periphery country and I'm trying to get a job in the Imperial Corps and, you know, this might all be true, but I still gotta get a job. Um, do what you gotta do. But I will say this, even people who put in all the work to reduce their accent and sound indistinguishable from somebody whose first language is English, if that person is not white passing, then listeners Not all listeners, but many listeners, including employers, will think that they hear an accent. Even if you look at the wavelengths of your speech, and it is indistinguishable scientifically from first language speaker, they will hear a phantom accent. Because it's not that this causes racism, it's that racism causes this.

Marina:

Yeah, exactly, Also, You know, this is kind of going back to the native speaker fallacy episode that we did, but the thing that accent reduction specialists are trying to get their students to sound like doesn't really exist either, right? You can try your best to make somebody sound more American or sound more British or sound more Australian, but in the end, like, what does that even mean? Right? I, I, um. I've tried, like, several different online services that claim to reduce your accent in English. and, you know, make you sound more native. That's, like, their whole tagline thing. And they have these tests that you can take that you read words and you read sentences in English and it's supposed to tell you how native you sound or how 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 English speaker. You sound 85 percent like a native English speaker. And here's all the things that you did wrong. And it's like, Well, I am a first language English speaker. What do you mean it's wrong? What are you comparing that to? And so the whole thing is a sham.

Jeremiah:

Yeah. And if, if you are a, um, an accent reduction specialist, I mean, I don't know what you want us to say. Sorry.

Marina:

So I think it's clear that we, we don't support the accent reduction industry. It's not something that we would ever condone or support. I think it's getting better, you know? I don't, I don't really see, at least where we live, I don't really see pronunciation classes anymore. They probably still exist, but I'm just not aware of them. It's getting better, but there's still a lot to, a lot of work to do in the realm of linguistic discrimination, and linguistic racism, and also just racism.

Jeremiah:

That is a fact.

Marina:

So.

Jeremiah:

And I think anytime there's a discussion about this or anything, there, I don't know. If your takeaway from this episode is that Oh man, you know, I, I think accents are a thing. So does that make me a racist? No, no, it's not about you. you're not the problem. Even if you hear accents, even if you think that so and so sounds weird, like that's not cool, but When we talk about racism, maybe you can tell from the scientific analysis of imperialism, but the problems that we're talking about are much bigger than individual people and their prejudices, and those prejudices come from a material reality, which is an institution, or, overlapping institutions that are racist. So, Not about you.

Marina:

Don't worry. Jeremiah, I talked about my accent. What's, what would you, what would you say your accent is?

Jeremiah:

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 from Oklahoma, and, at the time of the Dust Bowl and thereabouts, there was a pretty big migration out of that part of the country, mostly into the West, into California and Oregon and Washington. And so I think that that was kind of, that's kind of my my heritage a little bit. So for example, my, my, and linguistically that sticks around. So if you are in rural California, you'll often hear people where you're like, they sound almost Southern, but like Cowboys. And that's because that's exactly what they are. you know, they probably, are part, you know, they or their parents or their grandparents were probably part of that migration. And I, you know, so my grandfather was and the linguistic traits of that kind of stuck around. So he didn't really talk like this, but, uh, you know, I, I know, uh, I know a couple old fellers that, uh, still kind of talk like this, a little bit of the, a little bit of the okie they talk about, uh, got to go up on the roof, change the dish and, uh. Get naked, jump in the, take a wash, wash yourself out the window, you know, that kind of thing. A little bit of that. So I only do that for fun now, you know, I don't really sound like that, but still culturally oaky. What about you? I mean, just California, I guess.

Marina:

Yeah, California. Kind of what you would call, like, a standard West Coast kind of accent. But I have some features of my mom's side of the family. who's from New York.

Jeremiah:

Like you say, Jommies.

Marina:

I say pajamas.

Jeremiah:

Get in my pajamas, my Jommies.

Marina:

Yeah. Or like, I'd say scenario instead of scenario.

Jeremiah:

That's so funny.

Marina:

Little things like that, you know, just more East Coast. Kind of vowels sometimes.

Jeremiah:

Yeah, okay, right on. Yeah,

Marina:

I don't say I'm walking here.

Jeremiah:

I'm walking over here. It's ending the episode over here. Thanks for listening to How to Language over here. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter at HowToLang over here. You do it. Say, see ya later! What if my grandma's listening? She doesn't know how podcasts. We'll see you next time. See you next time over here!