accents – Success Across Cultures

When we hear someone speak a foreign language, their accent often stands out as a clear indicator that they are not a native speaker.

But what exactly makes an accent recognizable?

For the past couple of weeks, we’ve been talking about how different cultures exhibit varied lengths and frequencies of pauses in speech.

This study takes a look at the pauses that non-native speakers make during speech and explores whether they are a significant contributor to the perception of a foreign accent.

The Role of Pauses in Speech

Pauses are a natural part of any language, but they can vary in duration, frequency, and placement depending on the language being spoken.

The researchers aimed to determine whether these pauses could be a key factor in identifying a foreign accent.

To investigate this, they recorded native English speakers and non-native speakers of German or Serbo-Croatian – each highly proficient in English – reading an English text at different speeds.

The recordings were then analyzed to compare the pauses made by both groups in terms of number, length, and location.

Findings: More Similarities Than Differences

The results were surprising.

Although native English listeners could clearly identify non-native speakers, the study found that pause patterns had little impact on this identification.

Both native and non-native speakers showed similar pause durations and ratios of pause time to total speaking time.

Additionally, when the speed of speech changed, both groups adjusted their pausing behavior in a nearly identical manner.

As the reading tempo increased, pauses became fewer and shorter; as it slowed, pauses became more frequent and longer.

This suggests that pauses are not a significant factor in creating a foreign accent.

The One Key Difference: Pause Frequency

The most notable difference between the two groups was the frequency of pauses.

Non-native speakers paused more often than native speakers.

This may be due to the additional cognitive effort required when speaking in a second language.

Even those who are highly proficient might need a bit more time to plan their speech, resulting in more frequent pauses.

However, these pauses were not longer, nor did they significantly disrupt the flow of speech.

This indicates that while non-native speakers may pause more often, the nature of these pauses doesn’t heavily contribute to the perception of a foreign accent.

Pauses Are Not the Primary Factor

The findings support the “No Contribution” hypothesis, which suggests that pauses do not significantly influence the acoustic characteristics of non-native speech.

Pauses are easy to produce and perceptually obvious, so they might be one of the easier aspects of a foreign language to master.

Alternatively, the similarity in pause patterns between native and non-native speakers could be due to universal cognitive processes that govern speech in any language.

Beyond Pauses: What Really Contributes to Accents?

While this study focused on reading aloud, it opens the door to further research on how pauses function in spontaneous speech and how other elements, such as pronunciation and intonation, play a larger role in the perception of a foreign accent.

It suggests that while pauses are a noticeable aspect of speech, they are not the primary factor in what makes an accent sound foreign.

Instead, elements like the pronunciation of specific sounds and the overall rhythm and melody of the language may have a greater impact on how accents are perceived.

Cross-cultural barriers.

That’s what you’re facing when ethnocentricity enters into international communication.

You’ll run into every communication barrier imaginable, some variables of which include:

Language, itself
Nonverbal communication norms
Authority ranks
Technological environment
Social environment
Natural environment

Understanding the cultures with which you are working and studying up on these variables will help you combat your own innate ethnocentricity, allowing cross-cultural communication to go infinitely more smoothly.

Let’s take a look at how these misunderstandings arise.

Linguistic Misunderstandings

It goes without saying that language is paramount to communication.

But when you work cross-culturally, you may not speak the same language, which means you and your counterpart will be relying on translators to assist communication.

Hiring a good translator can make or break communication, especially considering, even without a language barrier per se, linguistic understandings can still occur.

Take American versus British English, for instance.

Both cultures speak English, with minor differences in vocabulary, so you might assume communication would be cut and dry. But the culturally-grounded differences in vocabulary, phrasings, and accents have the potential to throw a wrench in communication.

Sociolinguistics

Enter, sociolinguistics.

Sociolinguistics creates rifts in cross-cultural communications via the social patterning that sometimes distinguishes class, inflates stereotypes, or highlights other national prejudices.

In fact, the differences between American and British English actually stem from class distinction, itself.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, the British exported the English language to America.

Those who settled in America pronounced the ‘r’ in words, something known as “rhotic speech.”

Meanwhile, in the UK, to distinguish themselves from the commoners, the upper classes began softening their ‘r’s. But the distinction didn’t last long as the masses naturally followed, thus creating a profound difference in pronunciation between British and American English.

The change in spelling and vocabulary was more intentional.

Without standardized spelling, dictionaries were necessary to preserve the pronunciation of words.

Those in the UK were created by scholars in London, while those in the US were compiled by lexicographer, Noah Webster.

According to some, in order to establish cultural independence from the motherland, Webster changed the way American words were spelled (no ‘u’ in colour, for instance), thus creating further differences in the English language across the two cultures.

Minor Details are of Major Importance

Minor details are crucial when it comes to business negotiations, therefore the fine print might be blurred by minor differences in language.

The more minor the detail, the more difficult it is to correct.

For instance, you can spot a major translation error from a mile away. Although correcting such errors may consume a lot of time, look unprofessional, and put stress on negotiations, at least they’re easy to catch.

However, accents, dialects, and cultural language choices can strain international negotiations between two cultures who are, more or less, linguistically on the same page.

We’ll talk more about this next week.

Tag: accents

Detecting Accents: Do Pauses Matter?