Chapter 14 Delivering Presentations 415❶ What type of accent
do you have? How do you
feel it is perceived by
others from different
regions in the United
States or even abroad?
❷ Why do most news-
casters tend to speak with
a midwestern accent?
Why might that accent
be considered the most
neutral?
➌ If a speaker has a
strong regional accent,
should he or she try to
lessen it when speaking
publicly? Are there any
public speaking situations
where a strong regional
accent might be beneficial?
❹ Can you recognize
social dialects within your
own region? What percep-
tions do they carry?You Sound Like You’re From...
English may be a common language, but each of us actually speaks it
somewhat differently. A sweet southern drawl, for example, sounds mark-
edly different from the rapid clip of a native New Yorker, and neither accent
sounds much like the midwestern voice of the anchor on the nightly news.
For better or worse, our dialects carry with them certain baggage. When
we open our mouths to speak, we are conveying not only the specific mes-
sage we intended to share but often also a wealth of information about
who we are.
Whether we recognize it or not, most of us speak with some sort of
regional accent, which is intrinsically tied to the place where we live. Our
speech is also affected by ethnic background and socioeconomic status—
what linguists call social dialect (Wolfram & Schilling-Estes, 2006). In any
case, we might be judged harshly based on the way that we speak: Ameri-
cans, for example, tend to perceive midwestern accents as the most “cor-
rect,” whereas strong southern and New York City accents are perceived as
signs of lower intelligence (Preston, 1998). Such perceptions are common in
almost every culture. In the United Kingdom, BBC business reporter Stepha-
nie McGovern notes that her northern accent, which is perceived in England
as being “common” or “working class,” elicits a strong reaction from viewers
as well as others in the industry. “I’ve had tweets questioning whether I really
did go to university,” McGovern says, “because surely I would have lost my
accent if I did; a letter suggesting, very politely, that I get correction therapy;
and an e-mail saying I should get back to my council estate [the British term
for a public housing project] and leave the serious work to the clever folk”
(McGovern, quoted in Duell, 2013).
That’s why many people whose jobs require public speaking go to great
pains to shed their regional accents. Many of them head to speech coaches
like the late Sam Chwat, the “speech coach to the stars” whose clients in-
cluded the actors Robert DeNiro and Julia Roberts, as well as a host of cor-
porate executives and public figures who need to unlearn their hometown ac-
cent—or learn a new one (Woo, 2011). Chwat, a speech pathologist who had
shed his own thick New York accent in order to avoid confusing his clients,
told The New York Times in 2010, “I have seen a notable rise in the number of
self-referred corporate execs who are trying to retain their competitive edge
within their corporations, be clearly understood by customers or clients who
typecast or stigmatize them by their speech patterns” (as cited in Roberts,
2010). Although he made his living recognizing, learning, and teaching the
varied nuances of different accents, Chwat didn’t feel that having an accent,
any accent, was a bad thing. “There is no direct instruction for public speak-
ing and standard articulation,” he noted, “and there is no penalty for speaking
with an accent” (as cited in Roberts, 2010).THINK
ABOUT
THISCOMMUNICATIONACROSSCULTURES