Affected accent or natural adaptation of two

Affected accent or natural adaptation of two

A criticism of Plath in my poetry class was that her accent seemed affected to make her sound more sophisticated. My professor argued that, though she was an American, she spent several years in England. The accent has unmistakable elements of RP. What do you think: is it false or the product of the union of two distinct accents?

Here is a link to one of her readings: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hHjctqSBwM

Why do you care?

Why should we not care? Since when has any knowledge been superfluous? How the rain falls in Africa has little to no effect on my life, but to those people who rely on it for their crops, it is very important.

Any deviation from the pattern of speaking which one learns as a child after the age of about 16 can be considered an "affectation". So, whether to apply the pejorative connotation of affectation to Sylvia Plath's speech? I would say that an educated person who has become proficient in his native language, and then changes that pattern later could be considered affected.