DO YOU HAVE AN ACCENT?

CITY & GUILDS ENGLISH, England ON YOUR ACCENT

Which of these opinions about good pronunciation is closest to yours?
(a) Good pronunciation must be free of any local or regional accent.
(b) A slight regional accent is acceptable but a foreign accent is not.
(c) An accent, regional or foreign, doesn’t matter as long as the speaker’s pronunciation is easy to understand.
(d) An accent is part of someone’s identity; the stronger it is, the better.

Just like Katie Holmes and Sarah Michelle Gellar before her Natalie Portman, is in talks to star as Jackie Kennedy [1] in a new film. Exciting eh? Grazia Daily is, of course, ridiculously excited at the prospect of the Oscar winning actress trussed up in those fabulous outfits.

http://www.graziadaily.co.uk/conversation/archive/2012/10/01/natalie-portman-to-play-jackie-kennedy-in-new-film.htm

All of these attitudes have had their supporters.
In Britain, (a) was a widely-held  opinion in the past. Received Pronunciation or what was often called a ‘BBC’ or ‘Oxford’ accent was the only one which was expected of someone with ‘good’ pronunciation. Over the years, however, this has tended to become generally viewed  as an unrealistic and unnecessary ideal.

 A mosaic of Vladimir Lenin on November 20, 2011 in Sochi, Russia

A Russian embassy spokesman said that Lenin had visited London several times -- and had hired an Irish tutor to teach him to speak English."Lenin said that his tutor in English was an Irishman and that was why he was speaking with an Irish accent" he said 

Read more: http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/republic-of-ireland/vladimir-lenin-spoke-english-with-an-irish-accent-say-russians-16201944.html#ixzz29NGwBkqy

Opinion (b) has often been held by language learners themselves, who feel uncomfortable about an accent which sets them apart from native speakers. Perhaps the speaker has been more worried about this than the listener.

http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/113640

Revolutionary War Reenactment Image via Shutterstock

Click above image to learn When Did Americans Lose Their British Accents? 

Opinion (d) is more in tune with current thinking in many parts of the world: an accent is something to be proud of, not ashamed of.  This is a perfectly valid point of view in itself, the question is whether a strong accent helps speakers communicate as effectively as possible, in their own first language or in another language.
Opinion (c) is probably the one which is becoming the most accepted.  We communicate more than ever before and comprehensibility is the main aim.

http://www.pspgamesthemes.com/psp-wallpapers/babes-wallpapers/learning-to-speak-in-an-english-accent-psp-wallpapers.html

“Learning to speak in an English accent” in Portman. Natalie Portman worked with a voice coach for the role, learning to speak in an English accent, and had to have her head shaved in a scene in the movie.

Above text (excluding those in italics) is  reproduced by the kind courtesy of City and Guilds English dot Com

Footnotes by bunpeiris
[1] Jacqueline "Jackie" Lee Bouvier Kennedy (1929 – 1994) was the wife of the 35th President of the United States, much loved John F. Kennedy, and much adored First Lady of the United States during his presidency from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. The conspiracy behind the assassination of JFK hasn't been solved to date; the connections among the Mafia (mob), CIA, FBI, Lee Harvey Oswald, Jack Ruby, American fiasco at Bay of Pigs in Cuba, Russsian connections with Oswald haven't been untangled.
So was the assassination of Oxford educated Christian aristocrat S. W. R. D. Bandaranayke, the Supreme Leader of Free Ceylon, who stormed into the office on a nationalist platform. Though Ceylon gained independence from British in 1948, the administration of Free Ceylon continued to be in English language. It was only in 1957, English Language was done away in the oppressive system (as was depicted by British colonial civil servant, Leonard Woolf in his “Village in the Jungle” set in a village in the remote district of Hambantota) and Sinhala, the language of 75% of the population was made the national language by  Bandaranayake
Prime Minister S. W. R. D. Bandaranayake paid with his life for the boldest move ever in Free Ceylon. Buddhist monk Talduwe Somarama was convicted and hanged to death. However, the murder weapon belonged to the suspect turned witness Ossie Corea.  Bandranyake said “a man dressed in the robes of a monk” shot at him. Ossie Corea too, on the day of assassination, was of shaven head as was the Buddhist monk Talduwe Somarama.
Those were the days of assassination by CIA: The nationalist Patrice Lumumba, the first legally elected Prime Minister of Free Congo was assassinated on 17th January 1961. The cheapest assassination done by CIA is said to that of Sri Lanka' s (then Free Ceylon) S. W. R. D. Bandaranayake.Sri Lanka Holidays is the Total Holiday Experience in Sri Lanka, the Land Of Delights. Talduwe Somarama was born in the village of Talduwa on the road from Avissawella to Sri Lanka Holidays Kitulgala, the most popular white water rafting destination in Sri Lanka.