| Accentuating the positive |
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I, of course, am a graduate of the
Maurice Chevalier school of language. Monsieur
Chevalier was a Hollywood film star and singer living
in the USA who specialised in the role of the romantic
Frenchman. Perhaps his most famous song started off
with the line ‘Sank ‘eaven for leetel girls', which
would be enough nowadays to have him put on the
sex-offenders register, although in fairness, the song
did then continue with the line: ‘for leetel girls
grow beegger every day'. That was my introduction to
the French accent. I would not have gained that first
idea of the accent so easily simply by listening to
the French speak french, because the words would not
have meant anything to me.
A few days ago, we were invited to a dinner party at which one could hear Scottish, Irish and (when I chose to use it) Welsh accents. Whilst it was alright for me to play around with my own native accent and use it or not as I chose, it would not have been polite to spend the evening speaking in what I fondly imagine is quite a good, albeit generic, Irish accent to the Irish lady sitting next to me at the table. She would have thought I was trying to take the Mick. And she would have been right. I could as a joke have attempted my imitation of it perhaps just the once, but that would have been it. On the other hand, the week before we were dining with the couple who own the Hotel next door to our apartment in Annecy. I could have chosen deliberately to speak French in an blatantly English accent, but that would have been treated as a joke and, if continued throughout the evening would itself have been impolite, granted that they know that I can speak with a French accent which has at least some similarity to that of my mentor Maurice Chevalier. So when I am with fellow Brits, I cannot try to speak in their particular accent because it would be impolite and when I am abroad, the opposite rule applies. It is perhaps this confusion which lay at the heart of a conversation I had with an Italian lady in France who speaks (and teaches) French albeit with a mild Italian accent and can read and understand English of considerable complexity but doesn't pronounce it very well. Her view was that to pronounce another language really well, you had to be a mimic or an actor, and it wasn't in her nature to be either. But of course, that presumes that we regard a foreigner speaking our language with a reasonably good accent as doing something embarrassing, because it is so highly artificial when, in fact, we listen both with amazement that it is being done and gratitude that we will not have to struggle so hard to understand what is being said. It is not after all artificial for us to hear our own language spoken correctly - it is perfectly natural - and so, for the listener, it is not akin to hearing a music hall act when a foreigner speaks their language with the correct accent or something approaching it. After all, if we join in community singing, we do at least try to sing in the same key as everyone-else. We don't pick our own key in order to avoid seeming to mimic others. That then leaves the question of what the correct accent actually is when you are speaking a foreign language. My own view is that, as a foreigner, you should try to speak in the accent of the national newsreaders. They at least are understood everywhere and so the benefit of your investment of time and effort is maximised. I still remember meeting a young French teacher who spoke essentially perfect English, but with the accent of the area where she had lived during her two or three years in this country - Handsworth. What they would have made of it in Glasgow, I have no idea. Paul Buckingham February 2007 |