Forms of Rhetoric: Accents and Judgment

Growing up, the mother dear, sistertraveller and I used to always tease the father dear because he didn’t “properly” pronounce the word “tiger.” Whereas the three of us pronounced it “ty” (as in the word “tie”), he pronounced it “tay” (as in the word “take”). We’d go into fits of giggles whenever he said the word.

So when I hosted a dinner party several months ago, at which both the mother dear and the sistertraveller attended, we were all bowled over when one of the other ladies attending pronounced “tiger” the same way that the father dear has always pronounced it. I had never heard anyone pronounce it the same way as him before.

“You must be from the Ottawa valley,” the mother dear said immediately (it was the area that the father dear grew up in), and it turned out that she was correct: apparently the long “tay” sound is part of the Ottawa valley accent.

Although saying “ty” or “tay” in “tiger” doesn’t carry any connotations of “correct” or “incorrect” English, I was nevertheless reminded of this example when I began to read Jila Ghomeshi’s Grammar Matters: The social significance of how we use language. Ghomeshi points out that we often think of one accent as being “proper”, “correct”, or “standard” English, whereas other accents are “incorrect”, “lazy”, or “ignorant.” But the way that a person speaks obviously bears no reflection on their intelligence: it is simply an arbitrary perception that has been created over time.

One of the striking points about language that linguists make repeatedly is that the production of sounds in a casual speech style takes no less effort than in a formal speech style, even though the difference is perceived as “sloppy.”

Even though it has nothing to do with whether or not the person is intelligent or knowledgable of the English language, there’s no doubt that judgments are made surrounding the way that we speak. People often try to adopt British accents when they want to be perceived by others as clever; southern drawls are often associated with being a “common” person as opposed to an academic.

How do you feel about this? Have you ever adopted (or tried to adopt) a specific accent in order to be perceived differently from those around you? Do you think that this is a problem in today’s society?

Click here and here to read a couple philosophical discussions on the topic of judgment.