Fun Stuff > CHATTER
English is weird
Case:
--- Quote from: sitnspin on 25 Nov 2020, 11:38 ---There is what is widely considered to be a "neutral" accent in American English, it is generally taught in broadcasting school/training. This could be what people mean when they say they "don't have an accent".
--- End quote ---
Not to speak for Oddtail, but I think what he means is something similar to what Margaret Atwood (she of 'Handmaiden's Tale'-fame) meant when she wrote that little essay about the 'one-way mirror' along the US-Canada border.
That when the Canadians look south, they see Americans, but when Americans look north, they see only reflections of themselves.
--- Quote ---The noses of a great many Canadians resemble Porky Pig’s. This comes from spending so much time pressing them against the longest undefended one-way mirror in the world. The Canadians looking through this mirror behave the way people on the hidden side of such mirrors usually do: They observe, analyze, ponder, snoop and wonder what all the activity on the other side means in decipherable human terms.
The Americans, bless their innocent little hearts, are rarely aware that they are even being watched, much less by the Canadians. They just go on doing body language, playing in the sandbox of the world, bashing one another on the head and planning how to blow things up, same as always. If they think about Canada at all, it’s only when things get a bit snowy, or the water goes off, or the Canadians start fussing over some piddly detail, such as fish. Then they regard them as unpatriotic; for Americans don’t really see Canadians as foreigners, not like the Mexicans, unless they do something weird like speak French or beat the New York Yankees at baseball. Really, think the Americans, the Canadians are just like us, or would be if they could.
"Through the one-way mirror", Margaret Atwood, 1984
--- End quote ---
Thing is - it's not only the Canucks anymore feeling like that. It's basically anyone whose lives have been shaped to a not-insignificant degree by the process called 'Englishization' (and the US becoming 'the sole remaining superpower'). Of course, we on the other side of the one-way mirror come from vastly different places, with vastly different degrees of privilege - but at the core, there's an experience that a white MAWG from Germany shares with people from India, exchange students from China or my former office-mate from Kamerun: And that's being 'not-default in the eyes of America' - or more polite, but no less vexing: 'Default in the eyes of America when we're reallyreally not'.
And yes, it does feel exactly like that - Americans do tend to speak as if they instinctively assumed they are the default, and that everybody else is just the same, except maybe for a regrettable fact of their having to run to catch up so they, too, can "get with the program already" (And yes, 'Merricans abroad actually do say that line. And no, it's not just the pinky-skinned ones).
And it's a lot of 'you' - to varying degrees - even admirably ethical and painstakingly considerate folk like IICIH (sorry for making an example of you, IICIH)
It's OK, we still like you - Why do you think we spend non-negligible shares of our free time seeking out conversations with 'you guys'? And it's not like it's your fault being shaped by the place you were born into, just like we all were. It's just ... yeah, it is 'a thing' - and 'the thing' in this our world and these our times is that there's lots of places, and then there's America.
[Edit: And no, I don't think it's the same thing as 'American Exceptionalism' - rather something adjacent. And no, this isn't an accusation or a 'you have to change your ways' or anything. It just ... is.]
P.S.: Come to think of it: You, SnS, are probably the 'worst' example of an American to tell this to -> I have yet to see you write something that even remotely smacks of your assuming yourself to be the default, in any meaning of the word. Just coincidence, hope I didn't overstep my bounds.
Cornelius:
Some people seem incapable of seeing an accent as something that could apply to them. Some of them will even maintain that theirs in no way differs from what is seen/ set as the standard.
I suspect in some cases, that may be true; that through lack of opportunity or inclination, they never developed the ability to hear the differences. Actively hearing a different phonology is what makes learning another language difficult, and some people simply map approximating phonemes they know over ones that they don't.
This is even stronger if the media they come into contact with, uses an accent that is close, if not simply the same as theirs. Any difference they may pick up, is easily rationalised as just another register of their language, since it is broadcast. As an aside, many people will shift register if interviewed.
And some can be just simply arrogant, and dismiss anything but their own accent as inferior. But I suspect you can find those in any language.
Warning: an interesting post came through while you were typing,
Okay, I'm letting that speak in stead of the second part I was writing.
Edited to cross dotted t's and dot crossed I's.
Morituri:
I thought that was just what accents are, almost by definition: one of the things about your own speech that you yourself never hear.
"I don't have an accent" is best interpreted as a joke, or as a statement so obvious it's dumb. Somebody might as well say "The sky looks blue to me." Give it a belly laugh and go ahead with what you were doing.
FreshScrod:
I always thought it's really silly whenever someone points out accents. Like, who cares? I'm sure some people do, and it's interesting to listen to different ways the same language can sound. Doing it in person, seems like another unnecessary divide between people. Sometimes, as a joke, I'll respond like: "I don't have an accent. Nobody has an accent.", have an inward chuckle, and keep doing whatever it is I was doing.
sitnspin:
--- Quote from: Case on 25 Nov 2020, 15:01 ---
P.S.: Come to think of it: You, SnS, are probably the 'worst' example of an American to tell this to -> I have yet to see you write something that even remotely smacks of your assuming yourself to be the default, in any meaning of the word. Just coincidence, hope I didn't overstep my bounds.
--- End quote ---
To be fair, I am pretty far from the "default" as far as the culture of the USA considers it, being a gay Indigenous woman. I am only an "American" because the current occupying force has labeled me such.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version