So you speak with an Afrikaans accent?

Perhaps the most frequently asked question I get when coaching in presentation or media skills is, ‘What about my Afrikaans accent?’ What indeed! A young, talented and vivacious psychologist told me she’d been desperately self-conscious presenting a paper to an international audience, overseas. Her words were, ‘What can I do about it?’

I didn’t answer her question. Instead (the timing was perfect), I said, ‘Have you seen the TV footage recently of Trevor Manuel at the WEF (World Economic Forum) meeting in Davos, in Switzerland?'  'Yes' was her reply.

I continued, 'Did you listen to some of the other speakers? People from Spain, Russia, Ireland and so on?' Again, 'Yes'. Then I said, 'Did you notice the sometimes very heavy accents and how they muddled tenses and used a plural where a singular should have been, and so on?' A pause, the start of a smile and she said again, 'Yes'. So, I continued, ‘If those accents – some very heavy and indeed very difficult to understand, were acceptable in an international forum, why should your Afrikaans accent be any different?’ The light bulb went on. To the great amusement of the University business school audience, I raised both of my hands towards her and said dramatically, ‘Be healed, Sister!’ They applauded wildly. I think she was indeed ‘healed’ of a misperception in that instant.

Living in South Africa means that we live in a seriously multi-lingual society. We’ve developed a great ‘ear’ as a nation for understanding a variety of accents and speech inflections. Unlike North Americans, who, unless the English is American or Hispanic inflected, look at you blankly, like you’re speaking classical Cantonese.

Many, many years ago, accents were used as social discriminators. They were used to pigeonhole people into socio-economic boxes, to be looked down upon. The BBC would never have employed as a newsreader anyone with a ‘regional’ British accent. It had to be plummy Oxonian English. ‘The bow tie’ voice, as they described it. Then, mercifully, along came amazingly talented actors and movie stars in the form of Michael Caine, Vanessa Redgrave, Ewan McGregor and their ilk and they spoke with regional twangs. Gone was the stereotype and to the amazement of the BBC bosses, people didn’t switch off their radio or TV sets. In fact, the opposite occurred. More people tuned in. They were better able to identify with the ‘everyday’ voices they heard. So, quit any unnecessary sense of inferiority just because you speak one language with the accent of another - whether in business or your private life. Most South Africans do, anyhow.

Linguistics studies demonstrate quite clearly that when you speak with an accent, people pay better attention to what you say. It makes them (quite unconsciously of course) focus just that little bit harder, on what you’re saying as opposed to how you’re saying it.

The message is this: Regardless of your accent, provided that your speech is not excessively fast or your articulation (the clarity) blurred or fuzzy, the accent really doesn’t matter! If you spend part of your time talking inside your own head about how you sound or what people will think of your accent, you’re doing a grave communication disservice to yourself. Even the most expert of communicators can’t carry on an ‘auditory internal dialogue’ (AID) process, whilst making much sense on the exterior. So, be yourself, be comfortable, be prepared, be professional. But above all, be natural, real, down-to-earth, credible, believable and sincere. That way you can’t possibly go wrong. Now what was that you said about your accent, again?

Comments

[Meg Vermaak]

A "related" pet peeve of mine is the horror of the pronunciation issues that abound in our multi-lingual English News reporters! If one's pronunciation is correct, the accents simply make it all interesting! Surely our television stations recognise that first requirement? One could write a book! (It would be rather humourous if it were not simply so bloody sad!)

[Zuena]

Clive,

It has always been a pet hate of mine, people (particularly English speaking) ripping off those who do not speak English with a flawless accent (although there remains a lot to be said about the South-African English accent.)

It’s like being disabled – the minute you open your mouth to speak (even though your spoken or written English might be excellent) if you have an accent, you are considered stupid and “from the other side of the railway tracks”.

I have found that in many cases, when ripped off by English speaking people about an accent or grammatical mistakes, these very same people can not even string together one decent sentence in Afrikaans. Why are we admired when we as South African are able to speak French or Russian, for instance, but when it comes to Afrikaans many English speaking people are actually proud (in a seriously warped way) of the fact that they do not know the language?

It’s a very sad state of affairs.

Regards,

Zuena