Why Do People Adjust their Accents? Historian's Take on Blaccent, Behind the Scenes of Ep. 1
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- Опубліковано 27 лип 2024
- Historian's Take director, Dolly Li, and historian, Danielle Bainbridge, sit down to talk about the pressures of having to adjust your accent. This is bonus material from our first episode on Blaccent: • What Is Blaccent And W...
We saw some great discussions happening in our first episode about the history of Blaccent (ua-cam.com/video/8mXaccYFKRQ/v-deo.html) so wanted to share this bonus convo between our historian, Danielle Bainbridge, and our director, Dolly Li, on regionality and their own accents. Do you feel like you've had to adjust your accent? Discuss below 👇
Thank you so much!!! I love that people are having these conversations
Thank you so much!!
Thank you for this! I would like to hear more of these conversations. To be honest, I am still trying to adjust my accent, and the main reason is beautifully summarized at the end of the video: my desire for integration and to be treated as equal.
I am a retired speech therapist and I had to be aware of my white southern accent when helping children with their speech disorders. An accent is not a disorder, obviously, but I did not want to change a child’s natural dialect for mine while we were working on a lisp. The American Speech, Language and Hearing Association has some interesting research on working with multicultural and multilingual patients.
I went to an American school in Asia. All of our teachers were American and my English language teacher especially essentially gave us accent removal training. Of the 20 or so people I remember from our graduating class, only one of us was upset about it. He posted a Facebook post and his parents roasted him in the comments. Honestly, that woman opened up doors for us. It's true, I've seen the way my colleagues make fun of the two Indian guys in our lab. I could never tolerate that. Funny accents dampen how seriously you're taken.
@@varun009 I would like to hear more about your experience.
For sure. We all are cautious of the way that we speak especially when we’re in certain settings! I’ve had so many passive aggressive racist always tell me that I speak so well for my ethnicity. LOL first off, I’m half Marshallese, my dad is American and I grew up in Hawai‘i. What in the world am I even supposed to sound like? It’s amazes people that I speak my first language so eloquently. 💀😂
@@blueDes2ny I'd like to avoid personal details, but I'll tell you what I can.
A speaker with a southern accent is the reason why I left the preliminary rounds of the regional spelling bee in 4th grade
This is such an important conversation to have. Too many times I've had Americans marvel at how I "don't have an accent" when they learn I'm from Southeast Asia. Each time, I am so tempted to shoot back, "YOU have an accent. How do I know? Because I've had to adapt to YOUR accent because I'm fed up of not being understood when I speak with my natural accent." I've refused to watch the entirety of Crazy Rich Asians because of many reasons (ask any brown-skinned Singaporeans and they'll tell you how awfully racist the movie is), one of which was a scene I saw in which Ken Jeong starts speaking with a thick Asian accent, then smile and say, "Just kidding", as if it is wrong/awful/unacceptable to sound un-White. Growing up in an ex-colony, I hate that so much. We need more awareness of our biases against those who do not fit the White normative.
It's so hard for you here. why do you stay?
@@mr.horrorchild4094 why do you stay? how easy is everything for you?
@@starfruitiger I stay because my people came and built the country and didn't look for petty bullshit to complain about
@@mr.horrorchild4094 not true. idk who you think "your" people are, but all our people built this country. and everybody has been complaining about everybody else this whole time.
@@mr.horrorchild4094 life can be hard and people complain about it. but they still do what they need to survive and stay.
Sounding “Black” shouldn’t be smeared as a negative; the Puerto Ricans from Corona Queens, the Irish in Boston, The Jewish community in Manhattan, the Italians in New Jersey, the Mexicans in East LA and the Indigenous people from New Mexico all have a twang that’s associated with their ethnic background and only enriches their identity, regardless of how long their people have been in the States.
It’s time Black people embrace our proclivities and not undermine something like speech because it deviates from whites.
Black people aren’t a monolith either. Southern people, white and black, often have more in common with each other than their racially similar counterparts in other regions, for example.
Sometimes the bias comes from within, as well. I am from NYC, my parents are from South Carolina, and I speak in a manner similar to Danielle. I have sometimes been accused of trying to "sound white". The way I speak came about naturally. I didn't put conscious effort into it at all. Not only do white people need to stop putting us in pigeonholes, we have to stop doing it to ourselves. As Danielle said, there are countless ways to be Black.
Black people have ALWAYS had to 'code switch' for survival's sake.
Literally everyone does that...
@@tedmitten8832 well sign em all up and show the proof.
@@amaznngrace everyone code switches everywhere. This isn't an American/slave descendents only thing.
For example if I talked the same way to people I work with (mostly immigrants from different backgrounds, like me) the way I talk to my bosses and customers, then my work colleagues would thick I'm an entitled ass and not work with me. And vice versa, my customers, i.e. simply and slowly with more expletives, they would think I were not educated enough and able to do the job.
@@amaznngrace Maybe str8 white finance bros don’t code switch but the rest of everybody does. Women, lgbtq, immigrants.. really anyone who’s in a minority group (which is almost everyone)
@@amaznngrace proof of what? Literally every single person talks different depending on the audience he is talking to.
As an Italian born and raised in Italy, this was really interesting to hear. In recent years, the "Southern Question" (social and economical struggles of people in/from the South) has been discussed more here, and the language/accent aspect sometimes comes up. People sometimes struggle with getting hired or finding housing because of their accent (and therefore their origin), especially lower class people who moved to the North. As a Southerner, I actually have felt compelled to change my accent on some occasions, but I decided not to because it makes me uncomfortable to convey the message that you shouldn't use Southern accents.
Here in Brazil we have the same thing, people are marginalized because of their accents.
Brazil, like USA, is majority composed by immigrants from different countries and diverse language backgrounds.
The same kind of prejudice we have in the state I live I can see when I travel across other states. It's a neverending clash among different cultures.
Traveling made me a better person and I recommend to everybody who can afford.
That’s very interesting. Thanks for sharing - I didn’t know that about Italy.
I'm white and even I feel pressured to codeswitch. I grew up in the South, kind of all over but my family is mostly from Louisiana, both sides are from the country but my mom's side, in particular, are pretty out there. So she had a pretty thick accent and would speak in countryism and use Cajun phrases all the time, but she was also an English teacher and insisted that my sister and I learn to speak 'properly' and know when to speak that way so people don't think we're uneducated hicks and can get jobs and such. Because of course people make assumptions about my intelligence if they hear me speaking in a country accent. But if I speak 'properly' around people from the country or my own family, they'll start acting like I think I'm better than them. Speaking with more of an accent makes them less likely to be hostile towards me. But my natural way of speaking is also somewhere in the middle, like Danielle said about hers, I do have a southern accent, and I actually kind of enjoy speaking in countryisms sometimes (some of the best, funniest, and most accurate simile ever) or using cajun words and phrases. It's a part of who I am. I don't see anything wrong with codeswitching though, I think it shows awareness and intelligence. I just wish there wasn't pressure to do so, like you might not get a job if you speak naturally instead of needing to speak 'properly'
Makes sense. I once heard one of my professors said they can’t take a doctor seriously if they have a southern accent. So I can see poor whites or ones with a southern accent talking to someone who isn’t, being in that spectrum of being judged by their accents/background and losing opportunities.
Proper speaking is simply speaking the version of a language that can be understood by all speakers of that language regardless of their dialect. If it’s a spectrum, proper speaking is the middle. No one has trouble understanding a Midwesterner, say an Ohioan- both a Cajun and a New Yorker will understand the Ohioan even if neither can understand the other.
@@fifthcolumn388 I don't think it's just about speaking a language properly, though. If a person from rural Georgia speaks English perfectly, they still may be discriminated against for their accent. There are people in places outside of the southeastern United States that will see them as being uneducated or somehow backwards. There's also a difference between truly not understanding a person's accent and thinking that people from region x are less than.
@@fifthcolumn388 'proper' is a concept that's as subject to bias as everything else. There is no 'proper' way to speak, that's why I put in quotes because I don't take the word seriously or literally in this context. As long as you're being understood, you're speaking properly, regardless of if someone in academia would grade you an A or an F.
Why are some people against anything different than themselves?
Sure, miscommunication can be frustrating, doesn't have to be taken as a personal attack on anyone else's understanding of language. & I promise folks are missing out on some of the best colloquial phrases by not being decent enough to choose to be better than a bully about something as harmless as how another person's voice/words sound.
In 1970, when I was in ninth grade our family moved from north-central New Jersey to Michigan. I had a rapid-fire "machine-gun" accent, including the complex sing-song patterns used to add extra layers of meaning, with a bit of Southern, Yiddish and Italian dialects and slang mixed in for good measure. Yes, we lived in a vibrant multi-cultural and multi-ethnic working-class neighborhood.
Upon arriving in our middle-class white-bread Michigan suburb, nobody could understand me unless I s-l-o-w-e-d w-a-y d-o-w-n and enunciated very carefully. They were confused: I looked white, but I didn't sound anything like their version of white. I was actually asked if I was raised in America! That's how insular that community was.
In the coming months I adapted, mimicking those around me, until I had acquired that white Michigan non-accent, and no longer stuck out like a bent nail needing to be pounded down. (Side note: For several decades, the search for "accentless" newscasters for national programs significantly favored those from Michigan and California.) My part of Michigan was so boring, so uniform, devoid of the great diversity I had grown up with.
My transformation had some interesting side-effects: I became good at impressions. I also became better at singing, despite having had no coaching. Combining these suddenly made me funny and interesting (imagine Richard Nixon singing The Beatles).
When I joined the US Navy after graduating high school, I was back in the melting pot, happy as a clam. But I was unable to revert to my New Jersey accent! I could speak it for a while, but would shift back to the Michigan non-accent when my attention drifted. Something fundamental had been lost. My birth accent was just another accent to imitate, no longer my own.
All these years later, and I still miss my New Jersey accent. I still resent Michigan taking it away from me. Though I do still like being able to imitate folks and sing!
Love this conversation. Being raised bilingual while also consciously and unconsciously code switching in English was my entire childhood. Not to mention having a mother from Colombian and father from Nicaragua. I feel like the US needs to embrace the beauty of dialects and remove the stigma and realize we are not just using "accents." These are distinct linguistic, potent forms of communication that should be celebrated
I have code switched most of my life. I stopped during the pandemic. I decided to be authentically myself. I adjust my register based on the setting but I remain true to my accent and cultural vernacular in the hopes of giving others a taste of how my culture sounds.
I grew up in the Bronx in a Spanish speaking household. My parents never spoke to us in English bc they didn't want their kids to speak with a Spanish accent and be disadvantaged by that. Speaking Spanish at home helped me retain it and I've used that skill in multiple jobs. I also had a *much* stronger NY accent as a child - I have recording of myself and it's crazy how I shed my accent without trying to because I moved away and lived outside NYC after high school.
wow. Same, but from out on Long Island, and without actually getting to speak Spanish at home, just hearing it, because my Kindergarten teacher told my compliant parents to stop speaking to me in Spanish. I ended up having to "learn" Spanish in school and I am still insecure as a consequence. (Also my grandparents lived on Walton Ave near the Stadium and Courthouse, so I spent so much time in the Bronx as a kid)
I am also from the Bronx, but I'm African-American with parents from South Carolina. My mom always made me speak proper English. God forbid we said the word "ain't" around her, even at home. In NY, people always said I had a generic American accent. Now that I live in the south, I'm told I have a NY (or at least northern) accent.
That’s really interesting. After my Abuela died, my parents specifically refused to speak Spanish to me at home /because/ they thought I would develop a Spanish accent in English and didn’t want me to be discriminated against. Because they were discriminated against for their accents
Joke’s on them because I slowly forgot Spanish and was then bullied horrendously as a “coconut” who only half understood Spanish and wasn’t a real Puerto Rican for it. I’ve since spent thousands of dollars in language classes to relearn the language. Now I understand 90% of of what I hear and speak decently, but there’s still a lot of embarrassment and mental blocks I have to fight through when I make mistakes or miss something that spoken too fast for me to catch
Moral of the story: always teach your kids your cultural / first language. They will be grateful for it later and not have to deal with a bunch of emotional and cultural trauma of being a half-baked coconut. They’ll get perfect English outside of the home
Code switching is normal, expected and important if we want to be able to communicate clearly with one another. It's as old as humanity.
Yes yes yes yes YES. "The Multiplicity of Blackness" id so real. I loved that answer.
Absolute cringe
@@tedmitten8832 it's rude to talk about your own mom like that, even if she is absolute cringe
It is very peculiar how the Black diaspora is seen by the West as not being diverse and yet in Africa, there are over five hundred different languages and cultures, Blacks are one of the most diverse races on this planet. UK
@@Kiraiko44 is there a reason your mind cannot understand the subject being discussed?
@@Jenjen-qc5eq that's because western black diaspora is a uncultured homogeneous mixture built upon the bedrock of thug and bad music
I have a tendency to adjust my accent based on exposure. If I am around a certain accent for a while (hours,) I will start to shift toward it.
I had a job where I spent my day on the phone with trucking companies in the South all day. I am not from the South. Yet, completely unintentionally, by the end of each day, I would have a noticeable "southern drawl" - and to this day, decades later, I still use "y'all" regularly, even though "y'all" is absolutely not a common word where I am.
It is interesting watching and listening to this, then reading the comments seeing that everyone regardless of race and language have to conform to a standardized accent or accent that has more of a socially "preferable" status.
In my own country Trinidad and Tobago we are taught from a early age to speak standardized Caribbean English and how to code switch. It never felt or seemed like a racism issues but just one of facilitating easier communication with the wider world.
Though I must say it is confusing and so weird hearing Danielle treat Jamaican Patois/Creole as if it is a accent, it is a full on language, we Caribbean islanders have hard time understanding each other's Patois/Creole languages. If it wasn't for hearing Jamaican Patois from a Aunt, TV and Music I wouldn't understand a thing a Jamaican says to me in that language, at best I can now only understand around 50%.
I watched this video in part soaking in your experiences and knowledge, in part also trying to relate to my own accents.
In portuguese I sound carioca. Growing up near Rio de Janeiro, my accent was the desirable one, due to a cultural centralism, whereas basically all other accents would be viewed as a handicap. I edit this comment to add that my portuguese accent and the way I speak do reflect my social class and educational background (Hopefully not sounding arrogant to describe it that way).
As an English speaker I sound partially Brazilian but was very influenced by the year I spent in the Midwest, so although I can always be recognized as a non native speaker, I sound kind of Midwestern.
Being also a german citizen and having lived near Frankfurt almost half of my life, I am very proud of my accent. Starting to learn German in my thirties I am fortunate enough to speak grammatically correct German. Phonetically, on the other hand, I surely give away my heritage. I never tried to hide it, but definitely sounding "not German" is seen as very detrimental in my second home country. Racism here is a given, it doesn't matter how well I articulate myself, I'll be always regarded as a foreigner.
Thanks as always for your content. I am still so thrilled to have the privilege of watching further videos from you.
Take care, greetings from Wiesbaden.
That was a powerful conversation between to lovely New York w.o.c. 💜💚
Yeah, the 'blaccent' is definitely dominant in the area I grew up in, and when I left that area, I had to remove every trace of it, because even having the body language can make people uncomfortable, either because you seem too urban, or that you're making fun of a culture.
In Jamaica, Patois is frowned upon as we still operate with a colonial mindset in professional and formal settings. Being able to speak English without using patois, is usually learned in school and is the preferred way of communicating. Those who cannot adapt are usually unable to move up socially and there is an immediate mistrust when some hear a person speaking deep patois. On the other hand, the more affluent Jamaicans speak patois with a distinct accent called Uptown or UPT. It's still patois but the speakers sound educated. This is an oversimplification though.
I teach Interpersonal Communication and embarrassed myself a few weeks ago. I have a student who is 2nd generation from Jamaican parents. We were talking about code switching and she mentioned that at home she'll speak "broken English." As soon as those words were out of her mouth I cut her off without thinking and said "don't say that." It was very inartful, but I apologized and explained that that term, calling her family's English "broken" was racist and that her dialect (really a patois, but I was flustered and embarrassed) was a valid and authentic blend of English and various African inputs. I hope that she heard me ultimately, because I did NOT handle the situation properly. It just hurt to hear her describe her own language as "broken."
never stop this series!
My English teacher used to say...
"Learn to speak English at a high level, you can always move along the scale. But it's much harder to scale up than down."
Once you're smart, it's harder to be dumb
Sounds a bit prescriptivist? Also I don't think there's really any evidence for that in linguistics, as dominant styles of speaking don't become dominant because they are the most common but in most cases they take over the common spaces by the actions of a dominant group.
such a good conversation, thank you for sharing!!
I would love to see a bonus conversation like this one after every video!
i really needed this. like seeing my exact thoughts and words represented on screen, seeing these conversations while I simulate the same ones just me and myself in my head , ah. this dialogue and just getting it out there, making it accessible is so so important. I need a podcast version or something as related to this youtube channel and these discussions. like I need this in an hour podcast form lol I would run through all of them!
I worked for a few years in a job that required me to contact Insurance Companies and sometimes Agents to get information about whether or not the owner of a property had Insurance on the property. I spent lunch with one of my coworkers with a VERY heavy Southern accent one day, and then went to call one of the Agents in the South who had been doing everything he could to delay giving me the information he was supposed to provide. I didn't realize that during lunch I had slipped into a more Southern-sounding accent, and this man who had been completely unwilling to speak to me before (and had once muttered about no-good Northern bi%*%es while ending a call), suddenly gave me all of the information I asked for and was the sweetest man I had spoken to in a long time - respectful, polite, pouring on the charm. After that, I purposely used a more Southern accent when I had to talk to Agents in the South, and went from files sitting on my desk all week because the Agent was being difficult to passing them on to the next person the same day I got them. It is amazing how much people's perception of us can change with just how we sound.
There is research that suggests when you mirror the way your conversation partner speaks and uses gestures than they will feel more comfortable talking to you.
It's amazing to me how much out and out discrimination or totally inaccurate stereotyping i've felt in jobs simply being a New Yorker with a New York accent. My last job basically made me have to prove that I am very good at talking to people from all around the world simply because I have an accent deemed as "ghetto". The ironic part is all the non-New Yorkers had horrible communication skills when talking to anyone who wasn't exactly like them. My skills are constantly deemed less important or less professional until they need my help. I stopped being ashamed and I am proud of growing up in New York City and sounding like it!
This series hit home. I have a very "white" sounding LA accent, but I often speak black English and I been more unabashed by it recently. It's part of who I am and I should be allowed to speak how I please.
I love this extra take and discussion. Thank you so much. I was just talking to a Chinese-American friend about accents. Her parents migrated here and operate a store in a predominantly African-American neighborhood, and have for a long time, so she was saying that her parents' English has definite strong "Blaccent" features, and she does, too, but only when talking to her parents. So, it is fascinating that this woman will speak with some Blaccent only when talking to her born-in-Asia parents not to African-Americans. (Oh yeah, this is in Philly, which has a very challenging to copy white working class accent- see Mare of Easttown, which is quite distinctive, but whose other local accents are otherwise indistinguishable from that generic Northeast "American")
For my own part, I grew up on Long Island, bilingual and had a very strong Long Island accent, something I became aware of when traveling to NASC national student council conferences, but being bilingual, my accent felt a bit fluid anyway. When I went to college, I noticed that all of us (at Harvard) sort of converged on this "Harvard accent" which was bland and generic, definitely not the distinctive Boston accent all around us. I never quite understood why this was the case. Although some might think it was a class thing, it was definitely not a sort of Upper class accent, but it might have been a subconscious code switch, especially those of us who were not from the privilege of most of our classmates, a sense that we needed to blend in because of future job opportunities or whatever. I really don't know, but I noticed it clearly happening. The fact that the student body tended to be bilingual or multilingual might have played a role, as well, in the fluid ease of transition, even for white people who might not otherwise have been accustomed to code switching or accent switching.
Also, Mary C. Waters wrote a an interesting study on Caribbean immigrants in New York City called "Black Identities" in which she observed Caribbean parents attempting to maintain their accents to distinguish themselves from African-Americans to avoid discrimination. I would be very interested to hear Dr. Brainbridge's take (gotta drop that title, you earned it) on this, given that she observed the opposite in this video. Did her thoughts on Blaccent shift? More Blaccent in Black spaces, but more acceptance of a Caribbean accent (though likely not Patois) in white spaces? Or, is her experience completely at odds with what Waters observed?
Also, I loved how Dr. Bainbridge said that she's Black so that the way she speaks must be the way Black people speak. It sounds just like something my mom coached me to say as a child. I am Puerto Rican and my white classmates out on "the Island" would often tell me that I didn't "look Puerto Rican", so my mom told me to tell them, and I did, that "well, I am Puerto Rican, so this must be what a Puerto Rican looks like." :) Thank you for that reminder of an identity affirmation.
I am so glad I stumbled upon this channel. I love the content I've encountered. This is such great conversation and sparks introspection. Keep up this thought provoking work.
In the Netherlands almost everybody learns to adjust their accent to 'standard Dutch'. In our 'small' region three different regional languages and about thirty different dialects are spoken. Different accents are spoken in different cities, neighborhoods or classes. When speaking with my West-Flemish family in law, I understand 20% of what they are saying.
Everybody speaks in an accent, some are standardized, some aren't. Knowing different accents can be a useful skill, but always be proud of your mothers tongue!
Thank you so much for this discussion. These types of conversations do not happen enough. I grew up Trinidadian Canadian in a predominantly white community in Ontario in the 80’s ,with expectations to speak like the Black folks they saw on TV.
I am of Jamaican decent as well. I grew up in the States during the 1980’s, went to schools of different cultural, ethnic, and racial makeups, and now work in predominantly white corporate America, I can say this piece is 100% spot on as it relates to my experiences.
This was soooo good! The conclusion was on point! I can’t wait for the next video!
More videos like this please, love hearing these genuine conversations between poc. Helps us (white folk) gain insight and understanding to the lived experiences we would not be privvy to otherwise, and this sort of communication is so vastly important for true racial empathy that has really lacked due to years of various forms of essentially information segregation that has lead to poc being silenced and overlooked about to what they've experienced. i hope that makes sense.
@Cosmicnaut; In London, there’s a big ethnic mix and a lot of young people (early Millennials downwards) speak with a “blaccent” - think Ali G, but they’re not being ironic.
AAVE is referred to as “Jafakan” in the UK though.
^^ “younger” Millennials.
Thank you for this. The last sentence succinctly summed up my whole dynamic struggling with defining integration as "equal treatment" even when my non-diverse community growing up would interpret it "aspirations" towards "proximity to whiteness." Thank y'all for both of you 😭 - Asian American here
Dr. Danielle Bainbridge should be nominated for Noble Peace Prize award!!
It is interesting how they mentioned adjusting their accents. I am white and I never consciously had to adjust my accent, but I spent most of my childhood living in the Philadelphia area before moving overseas and going to an international school. It wasn't until I visited my family in Philly after 2 years that I heard the Philly accent for the first time and being shocked because I didn't notice it before. My half-sister who grew up in DC told me I used to have a Philly accent as a kid. My accent changed because I was in a different environment. My Dad who grew up in Philadelphia and didn't leave until college says standard English was his second language and he had to make a conscious effort to change the way he spoke, his accent often changes when he is around family. Although for my Dad, adjusting his accent was about class, not race.
Fascinating discussion. Thank you both.
Thank you for speaking so honestly and openly about something that is often kept hidden because it is painful.
I love this video so much. So authentic in highlighting the human experience ♥️
Living abroad as an English speaker I get to hear English accients from around the world. I think I'd find it boring if everyone around me sounded the same.
How could we collectively contribute to accent acceptance and fight against accent resentment?
we can't, directly. Accents themselves aren't problematic in any way, regardless of who's using them, you could look at them as one of the most naturally innocuous aspects of culture. As humans we're generally compelled to speak like those around us to form an accord. Simply speaking does not oppress anyone, instead it's baked into the greater drive to accept other cultures. Plurality itself is what will make us stop resenting accents, the psychological association of an accent with a negative trait or experience is the issue, so we just need to work on that and let accents do what they will :)
There is no wrong way to be a POC. Everyone is a complex individual, and that should be celebrated, not discouraged.
I think it's normal to adjust how you speak with different people, especially when you know someone will have difficulty understanding you clearly otherwise.
Which isn't to say that it's wrong to have an accent or speak a certain way, it's just that even within the same language there can be a lot of variation. There's nothing wrong with that, and there's nothing wrong with people having difficulty understanding it, in the same way that there's nothing wrong with two people who speak completely different languages would have difficulty communicating.
You can't expect everyone to have a working knowledge of other languages or accents, however you absolutely can expect people to treat each other with compassion and respect regardless of how they speak
That closing line was powerful. Thank you both for making this.
In the UK they have an accent called Received Pronunciation. This is to differentiate it from class and regional accents.
I'm so pleased that you guys went, this is a discussion that we ought to into deeper. When I moved from Bed Study Brooklyn to Keep Gardens Hills, I saw and had to confront my own bias. Id not had any Asian friends. You could have knocked out me over with a feather when hearing someone, Asian with a Brooklyn accent, someone Asian with a southern drawl. And it is true you are a product of your environment.
I enjoyed and appreciated this so much. When I would love to see is what I alluded to, in that if you go up in Texas and say you are Asian, if you speak with us Southern drawl that's not cultural appropriation. And I'm not bringing this up to counter the Aquafina Blackccent observation. But as I mentioned for someone for example that's of Asian descent that are have only known from their parents sounding will not speaking with any discernible accent other than what is a result of their environment.
Around 2003-ish I was watching CNN while folding my clothes, and heard John King accidentally let his STRONG Boston Mass accent come out. Let me tell you, I dropped a sock it scared me so bad. It was like a spirit entered his body. And then he tucked it back deep down inside of himself and I haven't heard it since. I've looked everywhere for that footage. A lot of people code switch or hide their accents!
I grew up in small towns that honestly were full of a lot of white trash. I could count on one hand the number of black people I had seen in my life until my family moved to Washington state and I later joined them. This was honestly a major culture shock for me and the hardest part has been forcing my intense curiosity down and learning how to not stare.
Black people come in a staggeringly beautiful array of skin tones and hair types and clothing colors and styles! I have no idea why people would ever think this is bad!
I hope to learn more as i had no idea about any of these things prior to moving here and all these cultures and subcultures deserve recognition for being awesome!
I work in a hospital that happens to have a handful of Jamaican nurses. And forgive me I don't remember the proper term for it, I know you just said it, but I don't want to spell it wrong. But when I listen to them talk to each other in their dialect it makes me happy. I'm about as white as human being as you can get, and knowing people are comfortable being able to do that is a good thing to me. The idea that there are situations where that's not an option makes me genuinely sad. Their life and their experiences are a part of what make them good nurses. Your life and your experiences are what make you good historians and journalists. I grew up around different accents. And I have become accustomed to processing different accents. I have an auditory and visual processing issue in general, so listening and processing my own accent requires as much energy and effort as one unless familiar with. I think in some ways it's weirdly easier if I'm not familiar with it, because I'm already primed to try to do that. How can a white person make it clear without overtly saying it and sounding funny that a person shouldn't feel the need to change their accent to speak in a certain way around me. Whether someone is speaking with a thick Jamaican accent or a strong African-American accent or prominent Asian accent, it doesn't change their life their experiences or what they can contribute to society. And I wish we could figure that out as a society
Jamaican here, our dialect is patois. It's the default way most Jamaicans will speak unless they're from the more uptown areas, in which case they'll sound American-esque.
I really love the Asian accent! I'm very sorry she feels it's the least desirable. I wish I could encourage both of these ladies to speak however they wish, but know they're right when it comes to how people would perceive them.
One of my favorite college professors was from Venezuela, and he spoke English better than I did, and I'm a native speaker. Yet every year his evaluations were filled with people complaining about how difficult he was to understand. Hell, I had more difficulty understanding some of my fellow American professors than I ever had understanding that man!
Thankfully that experience showed me where the real problem lies. With my fellow white people who punish the 'other'. I'm not going to say I've always understood heavily accented people since then, because I haven't. I have however taken my time and shown them patience and encouragement while making every effort to understand them. Even if it takes longer to reach understanding. They are at least trying, and if they're trying to communicate with me, then I should try just as hard to hear and communicate with them in return.
Hi, white southern girl here, I’ve definitely been in situations especially out west where folks automatically assume I’m dumb b/c of my accent, or I’m trying to be black due to my natural a-curing blaccent. I’ve traveled and lived in 5+ states and Canada and I’ve picked up accents from every place which I assume is natural? Out west everyone obviously knew I was southern, but oddly when I lived in Alabama folks thought I was from Louisiana and cajun?? I’m from VA originally btw. Ppl always think I’m from everywhere except VA 😂 accents is such a weird and interesting conversation, TY for this series! Wanna add I just feel so bad that poc have to work so hard at it!! Personally I love hearing Asian & other accents/ broken English, it’s beautiful and endearing.. most white ppl do not understand how hard it is to speak multiple languages, nor how complex asian languages are, the same sound in different tones mean different things. Personally my favorite accent is India 🇮🇳 Americans, maybe b/c I’ve worked for many and it’s always been such a positive loving thing. But I also think their natural language and others like Arabic almost sound like singing and it’s just beautiful. Maybe I’m just weird!! 😂
Great conversation & transparency👍🏾👍🏾
3:09 east asian ,be specific as asia is pretty diverse even diverse than europe,americas,maybe not Africa
This speaks to me so much as a Black woman who's always been told she "talks white." Now that I'm older I understand the nuances of this. You ARE more likely to be listened to and regarded as someone who "knows what they're talking about" against someone speaking AAVE who has more knowledge about a situation. I've cultivated a certain speech pattern for years and it does change depending on whom I'm talking to, though lately I feel as though I'm "rebelling" against what I used to do (at the age of 42 no less lol), but there's also a safety of some sort in being able to speak in this way.
I honestly believe that having the ability to articulate is most important. Everyone who speaks, speaks with an accent. This is most notable when outside of one's native (not necessarily ethnic) realm. Those who would categorize others by how they speak as opposed to what is being spoken are missing the point. P.S. It's awesome to see you back! Origins offers a unique and thought provoking opportunity and I thoroughly enjoy it.
Thank you so much for sharing your points of view and how you've had to think of accents and accent changes. I am a white woman and never felt too much that I had to change how I talked. I do know that sometimes people in MA have felt the need to speak in a way that sounded more neutral (think the movies...maybe Californian) because they felt their own accent made them sound uneducated or lower class. I worked with someone who grew up in RI who felt the same way. I took the rebellious route (pronounced to sound like "root") and decided purposely to not fall in to speaking like others in the California Bay area when I lived there for a year and stuck with my MA accent. Sometimes it was work to do so because people frequently can fall into speaking how their peers are speaking at that time. I hope this makes sense because I just wanted to share my experience. Anyway, thanks again.
1. I'm a 4th generation Bostonian - I moved to Arizona and other Bostonians have asked - why don't you sound like a Bostonian? My answer was my grandmother would've killed me, also neither she nor her mother spoke with a Bostonian accent - they tried to cultivate a Mid-Atlantic accent.
2. My great grandmother emigrated from Jamaica as a white presenting 14 year old girl, who had to that point been raised by her grandmother who presented as a black servant - when she arrived she spoke like her grandmother with a heavy Jamaican accent. Her white passing mother had been raised to be a house servant and had worked hard to sound like the family she had worked for - she was horrified when her daughter showed up sounding like that.
3. As a young child I would be asked where I was from - while I was partially raised by my heavily accented Greek stepfather, it was mostly due to my unusual extremely Greek name. People would hear my name and would expect to hear an accent.
4. I've moved a few times to areas with different accents and noticed shortly there after that I would start to adopt pronunciations of my new region. I'll find myself quite often accidentally using an accent I've been hearing a lot of lately and having to force myself to switch back so someone doesn't ask why I'm suddenly speaking with a southern US/English/Scottish/Australian accent.
I think it's a rare glimpse into your "personal" accents and how do you sound without reading from a teleprompter.
Love both voices and accents, although they mostly sound the same.
Well said to you both.💯
Excellent conversation!
I always thought it was cool in a lot of other countries people take pride in their local accents. It's wild to me that in the US accents are so controversial.
Frankly, I don't think there's any issue with codeswitching. You speak in the way which communicates the most clearly and appropriately with the audience. Coming from a multicultural society, it is natural to codeswitch in different situations. Of course, those in the the lower socioeconomic tiers may not be able to switch to the acrolect, or those living in the ivory towers don't know how to use the basilect, but most can.
I don't think so. It is common to steal from black people. Stop trying to always whitesplain and make excuses for what is self evident. No one mocks an Asian or Spanish accent so they can better understand them. Just face it, people try to be cool by stealing and profiting from the very thing they demean with black people are being themselves. Smh
Yeah I code switch all the time, when I’m around people in my community or town I know I can speak normally and then when I’m outside of that I will make sure to speak clear so people understand me, makes feel like dick tho when I speak posher😭
So good!
Noam Chomsky makes it clear there is no inferior language.Having lived in various cultures I’ve had to modify my ne Tex accent and vernacular in the interest of clear communication,not because it is inferior, but because accurate transfer of ideas is more important than prideful adherence to my culture.I learned Spanish among immigrants from Chihuahua.Some times it seemed that I was putting on airs because I also did a lot of reading in a more international vernacular.I never tried to assume a “Mexican “ accent.When I hear that, it’s offensive.Even so it’s obvious where my accent comes from.Can you imagine how incongruent the words of John Henry Faulk or Molly Ivens would sound if they didn’t speak Central Texan? We need a clear and powerful voice like Barbara Jordan to SPEAK UP in times like these.
My story is a little different as I'm white Scottish who moved to the East of England. I had to adjust my accent pretty quickly just to be understood, I got fed up with having to continuously repeat myself. Now, when I'm in England, people tell me my accent is still strong but when I'm in Scotland people call me "posh". And I'll adjust my accent depending on who I'm talking to and how well I know them, but I think most people do that.
NOooo !!!!...the video was far too short. In the UK it is not simply just a Black accent v white accent it is also class, white -working-class people are also discriminated against too. UK
The UK does have black specific accents though, especially with the influence of Nigerian and Caribbean immigrant communities
I lived in the UK in the 80s and it was fascinating to me how British people could place someone on the class hierarchy immediately after just a few words. I'd love to learn more about how immigrant communities have had additional influences on British accents.
@@specialtramp As a Black Brit I find it amusing that some upper middle class British people have adopted Jamaican words and phrases, like ' big up and fit' ...UK
I can totally sympathize with Dolly. My answer to the same question would be exactly the same as Dolly’s. It’s so sad 😞
I was born and raised in São Paulo city, south-eastern Brazil, and I've always switched around three accents: my family's north-eastern Brazilian accent, the "thought-to-be neutral" accent of São Paulo city and the one I consider to be my comfort zone, the "Zona Leste" (East Side) accent.
I know there's a term for this, but I have a tendency to adopt the accent of the person I'm speaking to without realizing it.
I also tend to repeat prior conversations with someone I had difficulty understanding. It makes it easier to understand later.
I'm white, but I grew up in a lower income and mostly hispanic neighborhood in Houston, TX. So my natural way of speaking (when I'm not "trying to sound professional") is 1 part "country" (y'all, fixin to, etc), 1 part "blaccent", and 1 part "chola". In fact, I used to straight up sound like a chola without even knowing until I was moved to a predominantly white suburb and my "accent" was made fun of by the white girls in my classes. It was so 2nd nature to me to the point where I was using spanish words mixed in my every day speech (aka talking in spanglish). But today teenage me would be mistakenly accused of talking in black/brown face? While I agree that ppl who do that intentionally should be called out for it, should there be a little room for nuance in the cases of those who didn't purposely change their speech because it was trendy?
Love this!! You're so intelligent and I adore your braids!! Thank you for having these NEEDED conversations.
What a great conversation! The immediate thing I think about with accents is that I don't really have one - I sound like most Americans and never had to make a conscious switch. It's a shame because it means that everyone is starting to sound like everyone else. Plus the Maine accent is pretty fun sometimes.
A very important conversation. I must also add that all this 'accent politics' is deeply rooted in ytness and imper*alism and it re-perpetuates these harmful practices and ideas. Also, due to the myths and miseducation, people have continued to internalise these distorted ideas and images of themselves. It centerss ytness as the "normal" and "Others" everyone else (who are the world majority might I add). For example, the the study of post-colonisation examines how colonisation institutionalised the 'Othering' of non-yt people. Language is power. It carries cultural knowledge, customs, spirituality and more. Linguistic imper*alism (aka accentism) is another form of domination and psychological w*rfare. It informs who we deem as "worthy" and acceptable and hence deeply problematic. It also subconsciously informs who we see as worthy of harm. It's an incredibly layered problem. I for one, I'm still unlearning decades of indoctrination which were also passed down through generations. From a diasporic perspective, I'd recommend folks read Decolonising the Mind by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o.
Great episode.
We need to talk even more about the unique challenges of immigrants to the United States and initially acquiring "American" English.
Comparing Black, other PoC, and White immigrants to the United States and how that intersects with AAVE and the appropriation thereof.
Work like this is especially NECESSARY right now in this historical moment of tension between African Americans and Asian Americans. We can't be tunnel visioned about our histories or perpetuate harmful misunderstandings from our refusal to holistically contextualize these issues.
Again, great episode. More along these lines.
(Amos and Andy was a great show though and which the shows merits weren't dismissed so casually. But that's another episode.)
Would be great if you could invite some of the people from the "Bad Rap" documentary as well as the director.
I like accents and am always intrigued by them. Life would be bland without accents; they're all good. Now grammar, that's where I may cringe. i admire perfect grammar and am always trying to perfect mine, as should we all in the name of good communication.
I'm not American, but a Malaysian Chinese. I definitely code switch quite a lot - like if I'm speaking to my family, I'll use English mixed with Cantonese and Malay but if I'm amongst friends I'll use English only. Whether it's American or British English depends on who I'm speaking to although I don't think I have an accent. When I'm in the UK and want to be more formal/polite I think I have a slight RP lilt but I'm not sure
I wish this video had more views on it in comparison to the first!
There are a lot more class factors intersecting this topic than fit into the limits of the current Overton window. The accents they’re describing aren’t seen as “unprofessional” just because of their association with racial minorities but also because they’re associated with poor and working classes.
White people with southern, Boston, Jersey, etc accents will change how they speak if they go into higher education for similar reasons and their native accents being perceived as lesser/dumb/ignorant/etc. The “high falutin” southern accent, often found in South Carolina and Georgia (ex. Lindsey Graham) is viewed very differently than the more “country” and “poor” accents that you find in the upper south and moving west over to Arkansas and Missouri. (My original accent is considered “southern”, though I grew up just north of the mason dixon line, outside Carbondale, IL. The first week of college, I realized it was going to be a significant barrier and immediately started training myself out of it. Now, after many years in northern cities, I mostly sound like the professor but will “code switch” with family and other rare situations)
The “blaccent” gets copied now by white kids because of it’s association to the wealth and opulence of hip hop and entertainment. While there’s a long history of appropriating the “blaccent” in music and acting, it doesn’t really show up in middle class white everyday speech “teen lingo” until the 1980s and 90s with a surge in popular black celebrities. Then it started to represent both a new edginess/ challenging the status quo and new money success; it’s not surprising then that teens would emulate it. Only in this very specific performative context is it seen as advantageous; even many black celebrities who a strong “blaccent” as part of their brand seem to drop it for serious interviews
This behind the scenes almost doubles back on everything about the “Blaccent” that was talked about in the episode. You mentioned regional accents, which is important distinction, because it’s about where you’re from not who you are. You also mentioned that there are as many ways to be black as their are black people, which could be applied to any race. If you’re not “trying to talk white” then someone who naturally speaks with an “urban accent,” is not trying to adopt a black accent. That would be a double standard. We need to move away from color identity, and focus on shared cultural identities, regional identities, and embracing people of every color and background. Yes we are different, but we’re also the same.
I have a bit of a boho surfer accent. It's not heavy, but it can cause bias to those that hear it. It's not necessarily thick, but it's there. FL native.
I am "white passing". My mother is from the Philippines and I grew up in the USA among a predominately white suburban are. I went to high school in the South. Even though I don't call myself Southern, people perceive me as "Southern". I really try not to use Southern phrasing and tones when I speak to people outside of the South. I am very conscious of how I speak to people.
My mom unfortunately gets a lot of comments about her "accent" because of her skin color and background. She speaks like a native English speaker and is highly educated. Unfortunately people have viewed her as uneducated and non-American because of heritage. People would randomly praise her for her English and condescendingly state "oh your English is so good" She get very flabbergasted by people's comments to her.
I grew up in a hispanic community where ebonics with a heavy influence of spanglish was the norm, then I'd spend half the year down south where I was in the boonies with deep southern accents all while being mostly raised by my grandma who apparently had a very thick german accent with a heavy american southern drawl.
When I'm home I speak the spanglish ebonics with a slight southerns drawl on certain words or sounds. At work I have to code switch completely and whenever my southern drawl comes out I get made fun of or teased. I find myself even changing my accent even with my husband because I know how odd and thick of an accent it can be and even though I know he doesn't judge me or tease me for it, I just subconsciously keep my accent under wraps as much as possible. It's only when I get very excited or mad is the only time I allow myself to fully let everything go.
When she talked about seeing how your accent is perceived and it affecting you, it made me think of how typical Southern accents are seen as racist and dumb. Even myself as a white southern have tried to shy away from talking in what we call here in the South like a “redneck” or a “hillbilly” accent. I have a more “professional” accent I use at work as well but even at home and around friends I don’t always use my southern accent and I live in the South. I’ve even made fun of other Southerners by “putting on” a heavier southern accent than I really have. This video has really made me think and made me sad for all different types of accents deemed not worthy, not smart, not professional. My own dilemma is less societally punished than either of these women on the video as well and those issues are of great importance to keep in mind. I just really sat back and thought about maybe my own internalized stigma against my own southern accent and thought “whoa”.
That 'sound white' comment is so annoying. I'm black, my parents are black, and so are theirs. I grew up in the suburbs and that's what I sound like. It feels like an extra dig becuase I tend to get that comment more when I speak eloquently, implying that black people shouldn't sound like that.
I grew up in a very diverse community and when I’m outside of that I’ve been told so many times “your trying to hard to fit in” or simply that I’m trying to sound “black” people cant help the way they speak but I guess people don’t understand that yet.
Agree....!!
I don’t adjust anything. I love accents. They delight me. Keep them. Be you.
This is a series?! I thought Bainbridge was onto bigger and better things. This is like Origins of Everything all over again (which honestly isn't a bad thing, and is even welcome).
I adjust my accent all the time. I’m black and I married into a white family so I code switch a lot at family events. With members of the family I know better I just speak how I normally do (slight blaccent and light to moderate AAVE). I do it so often I don’t even think about it.
I codeswitch a lot. It's usually mexican country and educated accent and then there's the white people talk. I have my own that is in-between all those. I remember I spoke with a white person accent with a white acquaintance and he tripped out when I had my own accent with my friends. Lol.
People say i have accent went i speak they said im european because my skin is white and i don't look like my mother family alot times people said im adopted because my skin and accent im mexican american and my mom is mexican and her family is mexican
Diasporic is a yummy word! 😋 All accents aside!
Because of my autism I seriously can't help lightly copying my co-workers accents (they're from all over). They thankfully understand that I'm not being mean. I've got a natural very strong north east Canadian accent. But for people who can help copying somebody's accent, that's something they shouldn't have to do. Also I admitt I have a very strong accent.
Me too. I feel such shame over it. When i am stressed i go mute completely and its too frustrating. I am afraid my friends from Asia think i am mocking them 🥺
@@AliciaGuitar at work we have Indian's, Syrian, Romanians, Bulgarians, two from central China, one from the Caribbean, and finally a few French speaking Canadians. So it's really difficult for me. I feel the pain
Is such a thing as a mirroring. Most likely just a evolutionary tool we have programmed in our minds for adaptation reasons. Spend enough time in another country and it will start affecting your language.
I find it incredibly annoying to listen to news stories wherein the American (presumably white) reporters repeat everything said by anyone with an accent not dominant in the U.S. I'd rather they asked a third more questions than spend their time code-switching for people who often speak English perfectly well.
I adjust my accent but only when I talk to british ppl pretending like I have a british accent with out even realizing it
Code switching can be cool. But over time when a person is comfortable with himself he or she knows where they use a certain accent, language, grammar, and inflection. What really matters is the content and substance of what a person has to say.
Oakland, Ca school district- Ebonics.
I was interacting with a fellow Secular Humanist who was Black (I'm pretty white), and I noticed when I repeated an AAE phrase that she said, in my whiteccent, it sounded really awkward.
Another great video, but I’m really not sure there is any issue with the concept of “code switching”. That’s just being able to intelligently use speech to cater to your audience and attempt a connection on a very basic level. To me, it’s like cooking food, it wouldn’t be insensitive of me to cater a guests dinner to something of their cultural palate. Of course, these things can be done maliciously but there is seldom mention of how constructive uses differ.
I love this. Black populations are as heterogeneous as any other. Why should we all sound the same? We're not all from "da 'hood", like so many non-Black populations seem to believe.