01 你的口音代表了你的一切 What Does Your Accent Say About You

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Whether you say tomato or tomato, it's clear that your accent is a defining feature of who you are. Everyone has an accent (heck, even goats have regional ways of saying BAAH), but what's the science behind language acquisition and does your accent say something about you?

In an American survey, 47% of adults found British accents to be sophisticated, while 51% thought New York accents were rude; Southern accents were considered nice but possibly uneducated, while New England accents were considered intelligent. But it turns out that humans have a bias towards others who sound like them or who have the same accent.

Of course, it's important to distinguish between a native language accent and an additional language accent. English native language accents depend on factors such as geographic location and socioeconomic status.

For example, a cockney accent of the working class London is markedly different than the Queen's Received Pronunciation. However, when it comes to non-native language accents, things are more complicated.

If you decide to move to Spain and learn Spanish as an English speaker, you will always speak with an English accenteven if you remain there for decades. After the age of 12, the length of residence has almost no effect on your accent.

Studies pinpoint the ideal age as 6 years old, with diminishing ability from that point forward. Interestingly, some stroke patients wake up with an accent completely different to their original voice.

This condition is known as the 'Foreign Accent Syndrome' and results from damage to the insula region of the brain which is responsible for language processing. One integral aspect of language is the phoneme.

Phonemes are the different sound units we use to make up wordssome of which are unique to different languages. For example, the phonemes with TH (/δ/and /θ/) as in words like "the" and "thing" do not exist in German, making it difficult for German speakers to pronounce these words properly.

Conversely, there are many phonemes in other languages that as English speakers we cannot pronounce or even hear properly. In a groundbreaking study, 32 American and 32 Japanese six-month-old babies listened to a recorder play "la la la" repeatedly.

When the recording switched to "la la ra" a toy to the side would light up and play a musical tune. The babies were primed to understand that recognizing the difference between "la" and "ra" led to an audio-visual reward and both the American and Japanese 6-month-old babies were able to tell the difference and anticipate the toy reward when necessary.

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