Wednesday April 22, 2009. Fourth period English. We’ve just opened our literature books to a copy of the Declaration of Independence. We groan as the sheer volume of words meets our eyes. We know what comes next: we’re going to read it. Our teacher offers us the hints of a smirk, amused and at the same time exasperated at our reaction. I can just imagine her thoughts: Of course we’re going to read it. This is English class. Amidst our complaints, one of my classmates has a suggestion.
“We should read it with accents!”
A cacophony of opinions immediately resound throughout the room. Our teacher laughs as do several other members of the class.
My immediate reaction: Hah. You’re funny.
My reaction once I had the chance to fully process the sentence: Oh, please no. I’m begging you. Reading the thing is torture enough; don’t make me go through it while listening to about 30 horrible variations of a British accent.
Do I hate British accents? Heck no. Actually, that’s as far away from the truth as you could possibly get.
See, I have this little thing that if I wasn’t American I’d be British. Why? Well, to be completely honest, a big reason is because of their accents. I’ve always (and I can’t stress that enough) adored the English accent. And the Scottish. And the Australian. And…well, you get my point. There have been several occasions when I’ve even tried imitating a Scottish, Australian, and Irish accent to name a few with my friends but those attempts failed horrifically so I now restrict myself to a much more private audience: myself.
Now I have another little story. So, I was on YouTube the other day just looking up videos and I stumbled across an interview of one of my favorite actresses, Yvonne Strahovski who happens to be Australian. As I was scrolling down the list of comments, I found one, by an Australian, that interested me. Here it is:
Haha, me and my friends are always talking in an american accent (its usually
always the southern american accent :P) and we love it! i would love to have an
american accent but i'm stuck with an aussie one
Now, I’ve always had the absurd idea that no one wanted an American accent. In fact, my reply to that previous comment was exactly that. Why would someone with an accent as cool as an Australian one ever want an American accent? It’s so…boring. I mean, we don’t have fantastically awesome pronunciations for words like “fish and chips“ or “no”, which, as parodied by another great actor, Zac Levi, is pronounced in Australia as “naeiou”. But then again I suppose it’s a matter of perspective.
This leads me to my next point. We all seem to want an accent other than our own, for the most part at least. Australians want American, Americans want British, etc. Agreed? So riddle me this: why is it that foreigners are, in general, so good at imitating an American accent while we lousy Americans couldn’t copy a decent foreign accent even if someone phonetically recited the pronunciations to us? Really. It’s a mystery me. And I’m not even talking about foreign actors playing Americans in movies and TV shows (Who are phenomenal, by the way. Have you heard Hugh Laurie and Christian Bale’s American accents? One word: whoa) Take my Australian cousins, for example. They have pure Australian accents complete with words like “mate” and “bloody” in their daily vocabulary but can switch to near flawless American accents in a second. I, on the other hand, managed to get out, “Hey, mate.” before my cousins burst out laughing at my ridiculous rendition of their accent.
Personally, I have a have a theory as to why exactly this is the case.
American TV is popular, right? Not only here in the U.S. but around the world as well. I mean, I went to the Philippines over Christmas break and I was watching “Lost” and “Grey’s Anatomy” along with my cousins. “And American TV is so popular that the UK independent Channel Five is starting a new digital channel called Five US, which will show nothing but American programming.” So it’s safe to say that shows like “CSI: Miami”, “ER”, “Bones”, and all those other primetime programs that we love so much are just as popular abroad as they are here.
But what about foreign shows? Do you ever see much of them on our channels? No, right? Personally, I make it my duty to watch some BBC World News and an episode or two of “Extras” and “MI-5” which are both British shows but it’s not like you can just tune in to ABC and see a mob of MI-5 agents led by the dashing Matthew Macfadyen take down a group of terrorists in the London Underground (which is basically what they do on “MI-5”).
Because of this, it seems that foreigners get much more exposure to our American accents than we do of their accents. Therefore, they’re able to pick it up a lot easier since they’re so familiar with it. Our exposure to English, Irish, Scottish, and Australian accents, on the other hand, are limited to the occasional British news correspondents stationed in Iraq or Afghanistan and, of course, dear, sweet Simon Cowell.
Pathetic? I sure think so. What’s up with that, America? Are we that conceited that literally the only thing dominating almost every other channel is our oh-so-phenomenal accent? That we even expect foreigners to perfect our accent when we can’t even say something as simple as, “Hey, mate.” with a decent imitation of an Australian twang?
*sigh* This makes me sad.
Answer to riddle: Both of them! Kevin is from Scotland and Simon is from Australia. Gotcha didn't I? Haha.
I really liked reading this blog entry. I like your voice and tone, it's fun, but informative, and you get your opinion across.
ReplyDeletePeople wanting what they don't have isn't something new. People with straight hair want curly hair, people with curly hair invest in hair straighteners. It's definitely fun to use accents, when they're done accurately, and especially when they're not!
I think some non-Americans have a hard time imitating an American accent, although I don't think of my English as an actual accent.
Check out "communitychannel" on Youtube. She's an Australian girl, who has some videos where she imitates an American. It's funny!
-daisyfriend
Actually, you didn't get me. I had no clue who those two guys were anyways. haha
ReplyDeleteAnyways...Same with Miss Daisyfriend over here, I think it's funny how people want a certain trait, and people with that certain trait want what the other people have. I kind of chuckled at myself because I totally can see you blogging about a topic like this. Personally, my so-called British accent is downright weird yet almost believable (according to a few sources), with random lilts here and there that it almost sounds a bit Cockney. (I can't believe I'm even saying this in an accent as I'm typing this.)
Your theory is pretty good. But I wouldn't classify the American's way of talking as an accent. Or maybe the only reason why I'm not calling it an accent is because to me, the term "accent" is simply "anything different from the way English is spoken." Also, I think another reason why the American accent is easy to imitate is because it seems to me that the British and the Irish simply have to remove their little "elaboration" on words they simply say and state them bluntly because in the "American accent", we say the words as they usually are (unless they have some French origin or something). If you look at, let's say, Filipinos, you can still hear traces of their Filipino accent when they attempt to speak English if they've been speaking Tagalog for a pretty long period of time.
"...because in the "American accent", we say the words as they usually are (unless they have some French origin or something)."
ReplyDeleteWell, one could argue that a Brit says words "as they usually are" because to them, they have no accent just like you pointed out that many Americans don't see their accent as a real accent simply because we're used to it. So, again, I think it's a matter of perspective. Everyone has an accent because there's no such thing as having "no accent".
And Cockney, huh? Personally, I think Cockney is one of the thickest and hardest of the of the English accents to copy. I know this sounds weird but my favorite English accents are the Manchester and London accents. XP
To be frank, this is probably the best blog post I've read informing people about a topic that is completely impractical. And I mean that a good way. It's like one of those "overlooked topics;" things people don't normally think about--at least in my opinion. A better explanation is that it feels like a topic that would come up in a random conversation amongst good friends. As for accents, I completely agree with the fact the people tend to like accents that aren't their own. I myself am fond of both Brooklyn and British accents. What I also find interesting is that people of particular races tend to find things funnier in their ethnicity's accent. For example, filipinos tend to think that phrases performed in filipino accent are funny, which is why people like Rex Navarette and Christine Gambito are so funny. It's just how people roll.
ReplyDelete