Having studied accents and dialects in theatre, I find this actress's ability to slip in and out of 21 accents in 2 minutes nothing short of amazing. Listen for yourself.
As a TESL teacher, I am very conscious of my accent when speaking to students, because I want to speak clearly and be understood and to have them emulate my pronunciation. But there just is no such thing as a neutral English accent. The so-called trans-Atlantic accent now just conjures the image of Katherine Hepburn.
Sure, you may believe you are accent-less, but that is a subjective judgment relative to where the listener is from and how they speak. Since I'm from Maryland, I have more or less a Middle Atlantic American accent. But my accent sticks out like a sore thumb in any other U.S. region, and even more so in UK-accent-partial Europe.
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
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