ATTITUDES TO ACCENTS

Tami
The processes of phonetics can be applied, for instance, to teach an apt pupil to
pronounce a foreign language in a manner almost indistinguishable from a native.
It is also possible to teach a pupil to make changes in his pronunciation of his
mother tongue.
The phonetic work is concerned with tongue articulations. Any pronunciation can
be combined with either good or bad voice-production. There are plenty of people,
who speak what is called ‘good’ English but use bad voice production. A person
may not hear good voice production frequently, which is combined with incorrect
pronunciation; this may be observed when good singers sing foreign songs.
Tami
As an example, many people think it is ugly to pronounce face as [fais]. We use the
vowel-sound [ai] in “nice”, “twice”, and “ice” without thinking it ugly, and the sound
cannot become ugly just because someone puts an “f” in front of it. If we think of
snow and ice or skating, many people might consider the sound of the word ice
rather pretty. But if you make the same sound [ais] in speaking of the ‘[ais] of
clubs,’ people might regard that same sound as being ugly. The sound [ais] cannot
vary its prettiness according to a person that uses it to denote frozen water.
The real reason why people who pronounce [feis] do not like the sound of [fais] is
that they connect the variant [fais] with Cockneys and slums and what they call
‘vulgarity,’ while they connect by a convention [feis] with gentility or elegance or
culture.
Tami
From there, we learn to be very tolerant about other people’s pronunciation; and
that tolerance facilitates practical teaching. If one is trying, for instance, to teach
English to a class of Cockney schoolboys, and if one is intolerant about their
speech and tells them that their way is ‘wrong’ or ‘bad’ or ‘ugly,’ it antagonizes
them. The teacher should take up a more tolerant attitude and she should also
explain that they have a language which is understood well in restricted areas, like
London, or South Lancashire, or the neighbourhood of Dundee, while others are
understood over much wider; it often comes in very usefully if a man can talk a kind
of English which is easily understood everywhere, and that is why a special kind of
English is taught in school; then the teacher can get the boys on his side, and they
become willing to learn the school pronunciation.
Tami
Conclusions
Any pronunciation can be combined with either good or bad voice-production.
Much of what is sometimes called ‘beautiful’ or ‘ugly’ in speech is merely
convention. The beauty or ugliness applies to certain environments, and we are apt
to attribute beauty or ugliness to sounds which remind us of those environments.
We ourselves use pronunciations which we might be tempted to condemn. We
thus learn to become very tolerant of other people’s pronunciation; this tolerance
on the part of a teacher of speech makes him more efficient.