The Chomskyan doctrine and foreign accents

Hello Everyone,

I'm 25 years old, and I've been living in Canada for over 10 years. My accent has been the single biggest obstacle in my entire life because I've always wanted to become more culturally integrated, but when you speak with an accent, people always see you as representing "your country" rather than speaking on your own behalf.

I've been able to correct a lot of mistakes on my own, but it's a very slow process... Usually, the hardest part is to figure out where the problems are, but when I know what to fix, I can change it in a matter of weeks if not days... It would be a lot easier if I could get some feedback from a professional... but the problem is, even those who specialize in "accent reduction" are staunch defenders of the Chomskyan doctrine in its strongest form... stating that nothing can be done about a foreign accent. Their only criterion is intelligibility. Once you can be understood, no further improvement is necessary, desirable or even possible.

As far as I know, real-world research on critical periods has produced mixed evidence with about 5% of the people surveyed slipping through the cracks... But even if it's true that a perfect native-like accent cannot be achieved, why should there be an arbitrary cut-off after which you have to stop trying to improve? Typically, the supposed plateau magically coincides with the level you're at.

Here's the deal. I took an assessment (the Compton P-ESL), and it appears that about 2% of the sounds are incorrectly pronounced, and I have intonation problems on top of that. I've been able to fix many sounds before, long after all "critical periods" had expired. However, the person who did the assessment was firmly convinced that those 2% are here to stay... (in her words, "it's untreatable"). She even had to come up with some revisionist history to support her claim. She gave me a mini-lecture, saying that spies are always trained from early childhood, and that "accent elimination" never happens after the age of 5.

However, I never asked for a guarantee of elimination; all I wanted was an incremental improvement. Had I believed the manstream view from the start, that number would have been something like 50%. They always told me the status quo was all I could hope for based on scientific research and their observations about other "foreigners".

Has anyone here had any experience with professionals? Do I have any hope of finding one who can relax the rules a little bit and call the strikes and balls *regardless* of whether they result from English not being my first language?

Your accent is not perfect. Accept that fact and move on with your life. Learn the magnificent quality of resignation. Cultural integration is overrated anyway.

Yeah don't sweat it. Don't try to have a generic GA or RP accent; the world has heard enough of those. You won't stand out at all.

I'm not talking about regional idiosyncracies... The accent can be readily identified as non-native from the first sentence... Some sounds sound blatantly foreign. As far as intelligibility is concerned, in reality, a few people do, in fact, struggle with it, especially other nonnative speakers who have no trouble understanding native speakers. Intelligibility is very subjective.

But why would it be impossible to try and correct another sound? How is it different from the previous one? How can they tell if I've hit a brick wall without even trying once?

Try something like "American Accent Training" by Ann Cook. You can buy it or steal it from the internet because it's extremely popular.
That should be enough for you.

Some actors can imitate any accent even not knowing what they say.
Nothing's ever out of your league )) but is it worth trying in the first place $-)

I also live in Canada, and working on the same problem.

if you are interested in working on this together or exchange experiences, email me usdcad@gmail.com.

Good luck !

Food for thought: Could the Chomskyan doctrine be a self-fulfilling prophecy, at least to some extent?

I've met a lot of first-generation immigrants from an older generation who could speak decent English, even though there's still a lot of individual variation. These days, if you're past the critical period, you're repeatedly told that the strength of your accent is biologically determined and you can't do any better, and teachers are routinely told not to correct errors or teach anything beyond basic communication skills. Another interesting observation is that people my age sound either like a native or like Ayn Rand / Henry Kissinger, and there's no one in-between... Could it be that blind faith in the critical period is causing a general decline in language skills among non-natives to an even greater extent that than the critical period itself?

The extent of the critical period in second-language acquisition is hotly debated, and many researches are trying to somehow reconcile their existing knowledge with new findings in neuroplasticity... However, I'm under the impression that most people (including professionals) have a very simplistic understanding of critical-period effects... Empirical studies suggest that the decline in learning ability is relative and gradual with huge variations from one individual to another. There were a quite a few studies where a few nativelike cases were found and then dismissed as outliers. In other cases, some supposedly unteachable features like the l-r distinction were successfully mastered by *most* participants in a single session - given the right method.

What I'm contesting is not the notion that speaking with a native-like accent might be impossible for X% of non-native speakers (I'll leave it up to the researchers to "find X")... It's the idea that nothing can be changed beyond what was absorbed by osmosis - or that you can establish an arbitrary cut-off point after which you can declare that no further improvement is possible for anyone.

However, teachers and professionals see it as an on-off switch, and they always take an "all-or-nothing" approach... Many of their arguments can be summarized as "I've seen worse; therefore, you can't do any better". Reality is messy and uncertain, but instead of relying on the good ol' trial-and-error method, they insist on reducing it to a flowchart.

The brain was once thought to be unable to produce additional neurons once you've reached adulthood. Nowadays we know that that is not true. The brain can always make new neurons throughout your whole lifetime. If that is the case, then why wouldn't it be possible to perfect a new language even as an adult? It might be harder, because the growth rate does slow down, but it's surely not impossible.

The arbitrary cut-off point is pretty silly. Wasn't Ken Hale at MIT at the same time as Chomsky? Hale learned languages very quickly as an adult according to sources I've read. I wonder what Chomsky thought of Kenneth Hale?

I can't write too much now. I'm hungry and mentioning Chomsky makes me want to chomp down on a sandwich.

Not even Chomsky believes what the professionals believe (e.g. English teachers, SLPs, accent reduction specialists). It reminds me of what happened to the IQ test and how it ended up being used for things it was never intended for.

There is a political guy/former cabinet member named Henry Kissinger. Maybe some people have heard of him. He shows up on TV every once in awhile. He used to be the Secretary of State under Richard Nixon (I think) and had something to do with China opening up to the West. If you listen to old clips of him talking as SOS, you will hear a strong German (Jewish, perhaps) accent. He came to the US as a teenager, I believe. If you listen to recent clips, you will note that he has lost a lot of his "heavier" accent. His brother who came to the US at a younger age, spoke with no discernable accent in English, they say.

I read or heard about him in this context (accent reduction) within the last five years ago, and found this interesting. Maybe I can find some youtube clips.

I see that Kissinger's accent is a topic on the internet. I noticed that his accent was not so heavy in the Nixon tape clips, but I'd need to see an old interview to see if it was "heavier" when he was out in public. It makes me wonder if he was able to switch between a lighter and heavier accent. Maybe Arnold S. is another person whose accent has gotten lighter over the years. What do you think?

I couldn't find clips to back this up. I'm sorry.

I once met a German woman who had moved to the US as a young adult. I had no idea she wasn't American born and bred until she told me -- she sounded perfectly native. So it IS possible. Figure out what sounds you are doing "wrong" and work on them.

And seriously, Chomsky's heyday was when? The 50's and 60's? Surely one's man's pronouncements aren't the end-all, be-all of any subject, no matter how famous he is.