Fake accents
I find it annoying that some people can’t tell the difference between a slang and an accent. I hate it even more when people put on a fake accent and call it a slang.For some reason, some people feel the need to start speaking in a (fake) foreign accent once they study abroad. Its nothing new; a friend goes abroad, lets say to Australia for a year, and comes home speaking English all funny and strange, in what is supposed to be a ‘foreign’ accent.
In my stay here, we were guided by seniors from Malaysia who have been in the university, some a year, others more. I really can’t stand the fact that even among just us Malaysians, they continue using their newly acquire ‘foreign’ accents which is obviously fake. Stop it. You aren’t kidding anybody. You spend 20 years of your life back in Malaysia, and 1 year of being in England and you now have a Yorkshire accent? My friend and I chuckle and make fun, because on top of their plastic imitations of the local accent, their grammar is totally out too.
In the end, what you get is a strange blend of a poor grammar spoken with an even poorer imitation of Yorkshire English, which can be totally hilarious or positively irritating, depending on how you want to look at it.
You shouldn’t try to pretend to be what you are not. Maybe some of the people never started speaking English until they came here; hence the only kind of English they picked up was a Yorkshire one. But it seems a little far fetched. Even in Malaysia, you are bound to use some English here and there. Maybe they think they should start speaking like the British, seeing how English does originate from there. But don’t they realize that even the British don’t speak proper English, save perhaps the Queen? However, to a certain extent, I do find their accent a bit charming, even if its hard to understand.
Personally, I find my own speech pattern changing according to who I am speaking to. In my 2 months working before this, I spoke a lot to my Indian colleague, and before I realized it, my girlfriend was asking me “why are you speaking with an Indian accent?” which was really embarrassing to say the least. On the other hand, when I speak to my friend, not so fluent in English, I speak a brand of watered down English full of grammatical errors which I would normally find horrendous.
Still, I like to believe that I do not ‘put on an accent’ to try and impress the people around me. The Brits will speak the way they do, the Americans will speak the way they do, why should I try to speak in any other way then the way I do now?
As they say, when it Rome, do as the Romans do. So at some point in time, I intent to try out sitting down in the local pub, have a pint of ale and talk about the weather. (I’m guessing that’s all the people do here!).
Usually, a simple ‘bye’ would suffice, the people here part by saying
“Cheers! See ya l’ter luv.”
posted by Compulsive Blogger @ 7:58 pm
Comments: 1
