Blog #11

In Lippie-Green’s chapter 2 article, they talk about non-accent English. I find this concept to be really interesting to think about. If non-accent English is apparently Standard English, then who exactly speaks Standard English. I kind of think that every native English speaker has the belief that they speak Standard English. For example, when I hear myself speak English, I do not consider the fact or acknowledge that I may have an accent. However, when I talk to my cousins that live in Missouri they say that I say certain words weird. On the contrary, I have the belief that they say words differently and that they have a slight accent. Yet, we all think that we speak Standard English. How can we all speak Standard or non-accent English if we pronounce the same words differently? We stress different syllabus and pronounce some vowels differently. This shows that there really is no such thing as a non-accent. If native English speakers have an accent, then it’s not fair to judge an English language learner, or someone who does not speak English as their native language, by their accent. In the article, it mentions how a Hawaiian bilingual did not get a promotion because he had an accent. Due to his accent, he was seen as unfit for the promotion. He could read and speak perfectly well, but his accent was viewed as a setback. But why? What is so wrong with having an accent? Like I mentioned before, I think that all native English speakers do not recognize that we do in fact have accents. We have this mentality that we speak perfect, Standard English. However, if we (as a native English speaker) have an accent and the Hawaiian bilingual meteorologist has an accent as well, what makes the native English speaker’s accent superb to the other? This mentality makes me wonder about the way that I speak Spanish. I probably speak Spanish with more of an English accent versus a Spanish accent. This is probably true because I learned Spanish in the United States, surrounded by other native English speakers. If I speak Spanish to a native Spanish speaker are they going to think lower or less of me because I don’t have a native Spanish accent? Or, would they just accept the fact that I can speak the language even though it is not my native tongue. I would hope that my Spanish would be accepted by native Spanish speakers. But this creates a double standard. Non-native accents in English are not appreciated as much, yet I have hope that my non-native Spanish accent will be respected. We should respect all accents and all dialects of any language because when it comes down to it, everyone has an accent. I also thought there was a very interesting quote on page 48 saying “Do people like these choose to speak English with an accent? Have they not worked hard enough, long enough? Are they not smart enough?”. I think that is a very naïve way of thinking. An accent has nothing to do with the intelligence or ability of a person. Every person is different; some people can learn to speak English with a native accent while others do not. No one has the right to say that one person is more able than the other due to the accent that they speak with. When a young child has a speech impediment we do not think of the child as stupid or unintelligent. And some children grow out of their speech impediment or fix it through speech therapy while others do not. It doesn’t make one child better than the other.