Talking like a native speaker

Here are some interesting conversation I have just found on the web:

-Well, I personally think a native speaker is not the best modelone could have. In fact, I think a person who has successfully learnedthe language you are going to learn and who is a native speaker ofyour own language is the very best model you could have. After all,they have been through what you are going to go through.
Actually, I am even more concerned with what a learner wants to sound like. Unless you have a CIA (or, previously, KGB) career in mind, why would you want to sound exactly like a native speaker?

- Well, I’d like to be accurate, and I’d like to be well-received.

- But, as research by Giles and Smith (1979) shows, if you movea little in the linguistic direction of the person you are talking to, it is appreciated; if you copy them too precisely, it is resented

- Really?

- Makes sense, doesn’t it? It’s not yours (the language), and you are you (not a native speaker), and moving too close to it might make native speakers uneasy or downright irritated. I’ve written about this a couple of times (Preston 1980, 1989)


Any comments, especially from the native speakers?

Well, if you nail the native sound *exactly* and so they don't realize you're foreign, then they can't resent you (unless they're just a misanthrope).

And for me, anyway, I'm flattered when people try to learn to speak the way I do. It's easier for me to understand, too. I went to a dance with a girl with a Chinese accent -- not terribly heavy, but definitely noticeable -- and I had to ask her to repeat herself a lot in the noise and commotion of the venue.

"It’s not yours (the language), and you are you (not a native speaker), and moving too close to it might make native speakers uneasy or downright irritated."

Couldn't disagree more! I'm actually very impressed when I meet someone who is entirely fluent and natural in my language BUT has learned it as a second language.

And, as far as I'm concerned, once you learn a second language to the point of fluency, and use it routinely, it IS your language.

I wouldn't be the offended or irritated at all by a non-native speaker who manages to sound like a native. I suppose someone could be bothered by it, though I'm not sure why they should be. Maybe if the native speaker says something derogatory about the foreign speaker's people, not realizing that he's speaking to one of those very people, he might be irritated that the foreign speaker hadn't done something to identify himself as foreign.

I'm curious about what sort of accent I'll eventually have in Spanish, since I'll probably have teachers with different accents. Maybe it'll work out the way it did for me in ballet. After I reached the advanced level, I tried imitating various dancers whose style I admired. Eventually I became aware I was no longer imitating anyone, and had developed a personal style I was happy with.

Well actually, if you guys remember this topic came up in one earielr thread some time ago. There someone argued that if you overdo the thing, i.e. try to immitate a dialect or a sociolect it might sound unnatural. However, at least I drew a conclusion that as long as you try to immitate the "neutral" or "educated" variety (e.g. standard American English or standard British English) it will be fine. Now, the quote I gave you is from this article: http://www.msu.edu/~preston/Polish%20Pronunciation.pdf It seems to argue that there is no such thing as "standard" variety. How about that? Getting a bit too far, imho. There definitely IS a standard or "neutral" variety, but it may differ depending of what speech community you are talking about.

Language is just a tool, not a part of one's personality. Leaning to speak a language like a native has more advantages than disadvantages, but one must weigh the difficulty of achieving this level of proficiency against the net advantages—very often, for adult learners, it isn't justifiable (which is why so few adults bother).

Whenever you speak in any way that sounds "different" from the way others speak, they will tend to develop prejudices and preconceived ideas concerning you, which may or may not be correct. If you speak with a Polish accent, people will think that you are Polish. That may well be true, so that's not necessarily a problem in itself, but if they have preconceived ideas about what Polish people are like, and you don't happen to match their stereotype, you may find yourself struggling to overcome their prejudices simply because of the way you speak. In some situations, these problems are serious enough that they can justify studying a language until one achieves native proficiency.

There are many flavors of "native," and some are less practical to achieve than others. In English, the easy targets are "neutral" or "broadcast" English accents such as those used on American or British newscasts. The difficult targets are specific ways of speaking that are particular to small, homogenous groups; they exist nearly infinite number, so mastering them all is not practical. By adopting the aforementioned neutral accent, you can create the impression of being a "standard American" or a "standard Brit" (but not both at the same time, as there is no standard "in-between" accent), but you still may sound like you "don't come from around here."

I always go for the most neutral, widespread accent I can when studying a language. That way I sound as "un-foreign" as possible to the greatest possible number of native speakers. With English, this would correspond to a General American English accent, which has more native speakers than any other.

If you intend to interact primarily with people from the UK, you might want to learn a British accent instead, but the problem there is that there are _so many_ identifiable accents (compare to the US, which is highly consistent over great distances) that it can be hard to choose one that everyone will consider neutral. RP is geographically neutral, but socially very marked. Estuary English is not geographically neutral, but it is less marked socially.

This raises another interesting difference between British and American English: not only is American English more consistent over larger geographical areas, but it is far less linked to social class, since American society has far less formal social stratification to begin with. In UK-produced English courses, people in different social positions always have different accents that mark their position; but in the US, accent is largely independent of socioeconomic class, so the same GAE accent can be used for everyone.

To me, as an American, GAE sounds "clean," that is, it sounds totally neutral and normal. This is true for Americans from just about anywhere, since the GAE accent is very consistent and widespread. People from Los Angeles sound just as normal and neutral to me as people from Iowa or Pennsylvania; they all speak pretty much the same way. British accents, on the other hand, always sound "exotic." Some of them are very pleasing to the ear (often those that the British themselves consider "posh"), while others are so unpleasant that one tends to make fun of them. I'm glad I grew up in a country with virtually no significant variations in pronunciation.

Vytenis: >>In fact, I think a person who has successfully learned the language you are going to learn and who is a native speaker of your own language is the very best model you could have.<<

This is quite a good point, but even so, why would you be reluctant to take a native speaker as a model, especially in case of languages where you don't find speakers from your own country - I wonder how many successful speakers of Hindi or Tagalog I could find in Hungary, for example. :)

As I see it, the thing a native speaker (of any language) would find the most annoying or resenting is not a foreigner's accent, but a lack of fluency in their mother tongue - even if they don't admit this openly. Talking about English, in my opinion it is reasonable to take one of the standard pronunciations as a model, and take effort to come as near to it as possible. I don't think any native speaker would object to this. But this should go together with an as much native-like fluency as possible.

Talking about possession, by the way, a language is not copyrighted to belong to any native speaker, it belongs to anybody who ventures to learn and speak it.

"Talking about possession, by the way, a language is not copyrighted to belong to any native speaker, it belongs to anybody who ventures to learn and speak it. "

I wonder how much money does the UK gain because of the spread of English.

English belongs to the UK and the US because it's their business

The UK gains immeasurably because of the spread of English, and it likes to take credit for it, even though the spread of English is actually due to the influence of the United States. The UK also likes to believe that it "owns" English, and that's just as baseless as the idea that people are learning the language because of any imaginary influence of the UK.

The main impetus to learning English in the past century or so has been the influence of a monolingual United States. Today, the US influence is not the driving force so much as the trend is self-perpetuating. Even non-native speakers of English will still use English as a lingua franca when speaking to each other—even if they never do any business with the United States. So it's getting to the point where even US influence is unimportant in the spread of English.

Coming back to the main point, I think I agree with the idea of speaking the "neutral" variety. However, as I mentioned "neutral" may vary greatly depending on what speech community we are talking about. For example, if I go to UK to live among the people of lower social classes, then probably my "neutral" RP accent I learned at school will not be considered so neutral after all. Or if I go to Scotland then probably the most "neutral" speech there will be the Scottish accent, the one that is most commonly spoken in Scotland, not RP English.

Another great point is that your native-like accent must go together with native-like fluency and ease of command. If you speak with native accent, but still cannot speak fluently enough, you may sound really weird. I know this because this is what happened to me when I went to America :)

In North America, some (light, not thick) accents will actually make you seem smarter to some.

ie: the Dutch guy in the ING direct commercials.

What about Australia and NZ? What accent would be considered the most "neutral" for a foreigner to learn? Is there such thing as "standard Australian English" at all?

"standard Australian English''is what sisters Minogue use when they sing :) You cannot go wrong with such a nice accent :)

The Minogue sisters? It's anything but Australian. Compare them to Missy Higgins