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American or British accent more popular? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| nway Senior Member United States youtube.com/user/Vic Joined 5407 days ago 574 posts - 1707 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean | Message 49 of 70 31 May 2012 at 9:45pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I'm not one to defend COF, but I'm pretty sure that's not the case. He explicitly referenced Scouse and Geordie, which are indigenous to England, not Scotland or Wales or Northern Ireland. He may have some disagreeable opinions, but let's not be so crass as to simply shrug him off as "dumb". ;) Edited by nway on 31 May 2012 at 9:55pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| jazzboy.bebop Senior Member Norway norwegianthroughnove Joined 5410 days ago 439 posts - 800 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Norwegian | Message 50 of 70 31 May 2012 at 10:39pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Hmm, interesting. I had no idea as to the extent people gravitated towards General American; thought it was more just a media thing but course the media does affect the population. Yeah, a heck of a lot of Scots and Irish emigrated to Canada. In many areas of Scotland people pronounce "about" more like "aboot", so that'll be where the Canadians get that from. Would like to visit Canada and the US sometime, the problem is choosing where to go! Regarding the topic on difficulty in getting some jobs depending on accent, I think that the prevalence of that kind of attitude is exaggerated or misunderstood. I think it's more about social background than accent acting as a barrier. Seems the place where this kind of favouritism is most often found is in the legal professions. My dad used to be a property lawyer and noticed how you would get firms where pretty much everyone was of the same social and/or religious background. One firm might have almost entirely Catholic or Jewish people working there, or some would favour people from a certain university. Certainly not all firms are like that, but there are at least some here in Glasgow and presumably elsewhere in the UK. Of course, people who speak in dialect at job interviews can be at a disadvantage against those who choose to speak in standard English for certain jobs but that's more about displaying clear communication skills. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Elexi Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5557 days ago 938 posts - 1840 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 51 of 70 31 May 2012 at 11:40pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Jazzboy, I must say that I don't agree with you about accent.
I am an academic and was formerly a practising lawyer and so have sat on interview panels in those jobs - strong accents will generally be commented on by the panel after the candidate has left, if only because strong accents (Cockney, Geordie, what have you) tend to be a sign of a lack of education or, if that isn't the case, a certain attitude to life that makes a person considered to be generally unfit for such jobs. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| buchstabe Tetraglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4694 days ago 52 posts - 108 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, French, Spanish Studies: Czech, Swedish, Japanese | Message 52 of 70 31 May 2012 at 11:41pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I'm not sure to what degree those actually influence which accents people model after. Maybe they just choose the one that's easier to maintain? (There are lot of prejudices and cliches about Americans out there too.)
I. for one. didn't, the British accent had more appeal to me, and I feel closer to the UK with regards to mindset and personal values than to the US. Still, my pronunciation currently mostly follows the American model.
I'm someone who picks up accents unintentionally and unconsciously (including regional accents in my native language), they just rub off on me without me even noticing. At the same time, the English I'm exposed to is 80% US, 10% non-native and 10% British, which made it an uphill battle to try to stick with UK English, as originally planned. American(-like) pronunciation kept creeping in and at some point I simply gave up. A fried who's a language professional told me it was the same for her. She loves England, she much enjoys listening to the various UK accents, but she gave up trying to imitate it as not realistic in her current situation - too much exposure to spoken US English at work. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| jazzboy.bebop Senior Member Norway norwegianthroughnove Joined 5410 days ago 439 posts - 800 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Norwegian | Message 53 of 70 01 June 2012 at 1:44am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I stand corrected then. Did you find this to be quite a common response from the others on the panel to such accents even when a candidate used formal, Standard English? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| lecavaleur Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4769 days ago 146 posts - 295 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Spanish | Message 54 of 70 05 June 2012 at 7:18am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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The reasons for the preference for American English are probably numerous, but I think
one of the biggest reasons is that about 3/4 of the world's native English speakers are American. Add Canada to that figure, since their English is nearly identical to American English, and the statistic only gets stronger. As charming as certain British accents may be (and G-d knows not all British accents are as eloquent as others), there are only about 60 million Brits, which means they make up only a fraction of the world's 400+ million native speakers. Add to that the cultural and economic proeminence of the United States for the past 50 years or so and you've got yourself a cocktail for a dialect preference among learners. I think it is analgous to the reason Brizilian Portuguese tends to be more popular than European Portuguese among learners. Same for European French vs. Québec French. It's a question of numbers. Edited by lecavaleur on 05 June 2012 at 5:53pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Pisces Bilingual Pentaglot Senior Member Finland Joined 4614 days ago 143 posts - 284 votes Speaks: English*, Finnish*, French, SwedishC1, Esperanto Studies: German, Spanish, Russian | Message 55 of 70 05 June 2012 at 9:46am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I don't know that there is a preference for American English in Europe. I think many Europeans think of British English as more correct or more sophisticated. Also, its being European makes it more attractive to some people.
For what it's worth, my English has become somewhat more British sounding since I moved to Europe ten years ago. Actually I think this thread represents a lot of mostly native English speakers obsessing over something that isn't that important for ESL learners. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4820 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 56 of 70 06 June 2012 at 12:12am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I find it interesting that a lot of my fellow Britons adopt more and more American
usages, for all the obvious reasons, but the one thing they don't usually do is display any sign of an American accent. Our accents have definitely changed over the years, and the strong regional accents of yesteryear have tended to soften or even die out (for all the obvious reasons), but so far anyway, we don't seem to have adopted anything like an American accent. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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