The Perfect Voice and Talking Proper
Rough Draft Is it safe to say that your accent is a part of you? By trying to change or reduce your accent, are you consequently changing who you are? Our voices change all the time throughout our lifetime anyway. Who cares if it changed intentionally or naturally? Carl Elliot in “The Perfect Voice” and Lynda Mugglestone in “Talking Proper” both speak about accents. Although they both explain the effect of accents on class and social status, it is safe to say their perspectives are not so similar. By examining both articles, we are able to get a clearer view on what exactly the authors want to convey in their writings. It is very clear that both Elliot and Mugglestone believe that accent has an effect on class and social status. In his article, Elliot provides several examples to show this idea. Even during his own childhood, while watching other southerners on TV, he realized something. These people sounded like hicks just because of the way they spoke. They had a certain accent that made it hard for anyone to take them seriously. I9t is because of this social pressure that people were willing to go to “the Perfect Voice” clinic and spend $45 an hour to “reduce” their accents. You identify with your accent, so by changing it you are changing the way others think about you. An example that Elliot gives is of a man from Pennsylvania who was running for public office and wanted to reduce his northern accent in order to improve his chances for winning. Mugglestone, also, provides examples to show the fact that accent have an effect on class and social status. Burrell, whom Mugglestone quotes, says that the best way to sound like a decent, educated person is not to have an accent at all. It is their duty to speak in a way that people will not know where they come from. Although he says it is not wrong but provincial, it is said in a way that indeed makes it sound wrong. Although both authors know there is a relationship between your voice and the way society thinks of a person, their perspectives are not so similar. Unlike Mugglestone, who doesn’t seem clear with her own perspective on the issue, Elliot is very blunt with his opinions. He states that by changing your accent, you are essentially rejecting something of who you are. Although it may sometimes be necessary and something we are all to blame for, it is phoniness. He doesn’t beat around the bush and but rather very clearly states his opinion. He is saying that by going to a clinic, you are treating your accent like something that spiraled out of control and needs to be “fixed”. In his opinion, this is not the case. He knows that it is not sounding southern that worries people, but sounding, in a word, stupid. However, this worry that southerners have leads him to worry that the distinctive feature of the south, such as their accents, are going to disappear. Mugglestone, however, is not so clear on her opinion. She makes it her point not to necessarily explain her perspective but rather just present us, the readers, with information to reflect on. Although we can suspect that she is, like Elliot, against changing accents by her tone, we cannot be sure of it. By stating that Burrell, a person who represents all those who agreed on having a “standard language”, won’t say that some ways of speaking is wrong but nevertheless condemns it, Mugglestone is in a way mocking his words. She makes a joke out of the situation, comparing those who are able to conquer their accents as victors and those who cannot as failures. Although her view is not apparent, there is certainly no evidence that she agrees with the likes of Burrell.
It is no secret your accent is a part of you. By trying to change that, you are essentially changing a part of you to conform to a society that instead of embracing our differences try to make us all the same.