Joshua Daniel 12/10/19
English 11000
Professor Noelle Nagales
Analysis of Chosen Example
Many English learners often retain an accent. The accent should not be viewed as a something that denotes ignorance or a lack of education. Accents are the individual’s unique cultural traits showing through their speech. However, many people often want to get rid of their accents and recent services have been available for them to do so. Many of the people who seek such services often report about being extensively ridiculed for their accent. Some specific examples are seen in “Help for Today’s Eliza Doolittles” by Marilyn Gardner. In this article, the author, Marilyn Gardner reports the stories of many people who attended speech lessons that helped them to gain a more “acceptable” accent. As she interviews different individuals, it is important to note the various reasons that many have for seeking help in “changing” their English accent. According to Margaret Klepacz, one of the interviewees who recently migrated from Poland to pursue their career as a dentist in the United States, she wanted to achieve a more American accent in order to communicate better with her patients. In addition, a fair share of those who were interviewed were often ridiculed publicly for their accent. In order to connect this article with the rest of my essay on the discrimination of accents, I will include a few works introduced in class. I will use the Sound House by Lippi-Green as well as Everyone has an Accent by Walt Wolfram. I will argue about the importances of having an accent and what it signifies to the individual. I will also demonstrate the benefits of such accent modification programs. To back this up, I will use the article as well as the YouTube video clip on the benefits of accent modification programs.
Joshua Daniel 12/10/19
English 11000
Professor Noelle Nagales
Detailed Outline for Critical Analysis Essay
Thesis Statement:
In Help for Today’s Eliza Doolittles, by Marilyn Gardner, the author presents the case of several people who went to accent modification programs and displayed how it helped them communicate better with others. Accents are a cultural “side effect” of learning a new language and should never be considered as being illiterate or a sign of being uneducated. Accents are unique to everybody and should be celebrated rather than looked down upon. In contrast, accent modification therapies have their own benefits and are a viable for professionals to better interact with their clients.
Audience:
The intended audience for this essay is anyone who speaks, reads, or writes English.
Purpose:
The purpose of this essay is to inform the reader about the stigma surrounding accents and the significance of an accent and what that means to the individual. In addition, I will be informing the reader about the benefits of accent modification programs and how it affects professionals such as doctors in their day to day interactions with their clients.
How I Plan to Use my Sources:
- Help for Today’s Eliza Doolittles by Marilyn Gardner
I plan to use this source in several ways. Firstly, I will use this source to reference the stigma surrounding accents and how people are often ridiculed for having an accent. Secondarily, I will use this article to reference the benefits that people who took accent modification programs have reportedly gained.
- The Sound House by Rosanna Lippi-Green
I plan to use this source as a reference to how accents are developed by people as they learn a new language. I will reference the analogy used by Lippi-Green about the Sound House and how some people can never completely mimic the Sound Houses of others no matter how hard they try.
- Everyone has an Accent by Walt Wolfram
I plan to use this source to reference the cultural and personal significances of accents and what they mean to the speaker. In addition, I will demonstrate how accents and dialects are the individual cultural traits showing through their speech. I will also reference this source to write about how educators in America can help create a generation that acknowledges the importance of accents and the cultural traits of the individual.
- “Why is Accent reduction Important?” by Mariana Maritato (YouTube Video)
This video highlights the benefits of speech modification/reduction to professionals who need to communicate clearly with their clients. I can use this source to make an argument for those seeking accent reduction programs for professional reasons.
Joshua Daniel
English 11000
Professor Noelle Nagales
Critical Analysis Essay
Dear Reader,
This essay is all about accent and the ridicule people face in our country because of it. People don’t understand that accents are unique cultural characteristics of an individual displaying through their speech. Often times people feel ashamed of their accent, and many can never conform their speaking skills to that of a native. However, there are programs that help people (especially professionals) communicate better with their clients. These programs help people reduce their accents to a certain degree that they gain confidence in saying words that were previously difficult for them to say in public. In conclusion this paper focuses on the importance of an accent- what it is and how these programs are helping individuals today.
Sincerely,
Joshua Daniel
Joshua Daniel 12/10/19
English 11000
Professor Noelle Nagales
Critical Analysis Essay Draft
In Help for Today’s Eliza Doolittles, by Marilyn Gardner, the author presents the case of several people who went to accent modification programs and displayed how it helped them communicate better with others. Accents are a cultural “side effect” of learning a new language and should never be considered as being illiterate or a sign of being uneducated. Accents are unique to everybody and should be celebrated rather than looked down upon. In contrast, accent modification therapies have their own benefits and are a viable for professionals to better interact with their clients. Many English learners often retain an accent. The accent should not be viewed as a something that denotes ignorance or a lack of education. Accents are the individual’s unique cultural traits showing through their speech. However, many people often want to get rid of their accents and recent services have been available for them to do so. Many of the people who seek such services often report about being extensively ridiculed for their accent. Some specific examples are seen in “Help for Today’s Eliza Doolittles” by Marilyn Gardner.
In this article, the author, Marilyn Gardner reports the stories of many people who attended speech lessons that helped them to gain a more “acceptable” accent. As she interviews different individuals, it is important to note the various reasons that many have for seeking help in “changing” their English accent. According to Margaret Klepacz, one of the interviewees who recently migrated from Poland to pursue their career as a dentist in the United States, she wanted to achieve a more American accent in order to communicate better with her patients. In addition, a fair share of those who were interviewed were often ridiculed publicly for their accent. In order to understand accents, we must first understand how an individual develops an accent.
Lippi-green’s “The Soundhouse” is a novel that compares learning and developing language(s) to building a soundhouse. Lippi-Green employs the analogy of building a soundhouse throughout the chapter to help the reader better understand how a person learns languages throughout their lifetime. According to Lippi-Green, the building of the soundhouse is initiated in early life when the infant is exposed to the different soundhouses of people around them. “At birth the child is in the Sound House warehouse, where a full inventory of all possible materials is available to her. She looks at the Sound Houses built by her parents, her brothers and sisters, by other people around her, and she starts to pick out those materials, those bricks she sees they have used to build their Sound Houses.” (Lippi-Green)
The author reaffirms her idea that speech and/or language development takes place when a person is very young. She also states that many people, when beginning to make their own “Sound Houses”, tend to model theirs after the “Sound Houses” of the people around them. As the person ages, they are ready to build their own unique “Sound House.” “The child starts to socialize with other children. Her best friend has a slightly different layout, although he has built his Sound House with the exact same inventory of building materials. Another friend has a Sound House which is missing the back staircase. She wants to be like her friends, and so she makes renovations to her Sound House. It begins to look somewhat different from her parents’ Sound Houses: it is more her own.” (Lippi-Green) The author describes how, as life goes on, we begin to meet new people and develop unique Sound Houses. Although we may be building with the same materials, we could have a different outcome based on what we decide to keep and what we decide to throw away. However, the Sound House becomes more unique with the advent of a second learned language. “When the child turns 20, she notices another kind of Sound House, built by Spanish speakers, which she admires. She would like to build an extension to her own Sound House just like it.” (Lippi-Green)
According to the author, when an individual embarks on learning a new language, they begin to change their original Sound House. The author describes this beautifully by using imagery to convey this idea. Unfortunately, when an individual begins to extend their Sound House, they can never make it EXACTLY like a native Spanish speaker’s Sound House. “She works very, very hard on this extension. But no matter how hard she works; the balcony will not shape up; it is always rickety. There’s a gap in the floorboards; people notice it and grin.” (Lippi-Green) Here the author states that no matter how hard an individual tries to imitate the speech patterns of a different language, they cannot make it perfect. This in turn leads to the individual being made fun of by the native speakers. “In absolute amazement, she watches her little sister build the exact same Sound House with no effort at all, and it is perfect.” (Lippi-Green) Lippi-Green also highlights the fact that learning the linguistics of a language may be easy for some people and hard for others-even if they are from the same family. She states that some people have different influences which make their Sound Houses similar but never perfect like the ideal Sound House of a native speaker. In addition to being a personal aspect of their speech, accents often have cultural backgrounds.
In Walt Wolfram’s article Everyone has an Accent, the author highlights the stigma surrounding accents and dialects. According to Wolfram, no one speaks perfect English. He further supports this claim by pointing out mistakes in famous pieces of English literature. “Most people are unaware that a few centuries ago, the pronunciation of ask as ax was perfectly acceptable among the socially elite classes of England. And early masters of English literature, including Chaucer, routinely used the “double negative” — as in They didn’t go nowhere — without any fear of sounding illogical or conveying unintended meanings. Contrary to the common belief that standards of language are fixed forever, they respond, like any other aspect of culture, to the dynamics of social change.” (Wolfram, Walt) Wolfram also demonstrates the ridicule that children face because of their accent. “Tanya’s experience is repeated every day in classrooms across the country. The Appalachian child from Kentucky who moves to Detroit, the urban child from Boston who moves to rural Texas, the Native American child from the Navajo reservation who moves to Tucson—all are subject to charges that they ‘talk funny.’” (Wolfram, Walt) This behavior is also reciprocated in adulthood where many adults are also ridiculed for having accents. “Ms. Gomola tells of a woman from a well-to-do family in Puerto Rico who worked in the US at a school for troubled teens. Although she was “marvelously cultured,” she was “ridiculed by her co-workers. She was not able to advance.”” (Marilyn, Gardner). Accents have deep cultural significance and should not be used to ridicule the speakers.
Accent modification/reduction programs help people to reduce their accent. Many people who seek such programs are often ridiculed by their peers. Others who take this program are professionals who need to communicate more efficiently with their clients. “”I have to be effective as a communicator,” says Dr. Klepacz, of Acton, Mass. “When I speak, I would like people to listen to what I have to say, rather than to my accent.”” (Marilyn, Gardner). These programs have their benefits. For example, even families benefit. Last month Mrs. Morgenstern began working with an engineer from Korea. Even after living in the US for two decades, he often found himself too shy to talk socially and at work, fearing that he was mispronouncing words. As a result, he tended to speak quickly, which, Morgenstern says, “made him even more unintelligible.” In just one session, the man learned to pronounce “th.” Now he says, “Thank you” rather than “Tank you.” As his English improves, even his children will benefit, Morgenstern says, because he reads to them.” (Marilyn, Gardner). These examples are also seen in the YouTube video “Why is Accent reduction Important?” by Mariana Maritato. In the video, the narrator highlights the importance of clarity in speech when communicating on a professional level. Accent modification enables parents to influence that new accent to the future generations as well. Accents should not be considered as a defect. Instead, they should be recognized as a demonstration of an individual’s cultural background.
In conclusion, accents are the cultural characteristics showing through an individual’s speech. Accents have unique cultural meaning to the individual and a person should not be ridiculed for their accent. However, in a professional setting, it is imperative that the client fully understands the professional. This is where accent reduction programs play a key role. These programs enable professionals to communicate more clearly with their clients better on the professional setting.
Works Cited
Wolfram, Walt. “Everyone Has an Accent.” Teaching Tolerance, www.tolerance.org/magazine/fall-2000/everyone-has-an-accent.
“Help for Today’s Eliza Doolittles.” The Christian Science Monitor, The Christian Science Monitor, 3 Nov. 1999, www.csmonitor.com/1999/1103/p13s1.html.
Lippi-Green, Rosina L. English with an Accent: Language, Ideology, and Discrimination in the United States. Routledge, 2012.
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