Successful session, accented English

[Tabouli]

Phew, (says a somewhat hoarse Tabouli).  Just got back from delivering my biannual three hour session on Australian culture to new international students.  Tricky, because you're working with a highly educated, critical group of about 40 which includes both students who are from non-Western, non-Anglophone countries and nervous about using English, and outspoken native English speakers from the US, Canada and UK (who grow to resent the fact that most international student orientation sessions in Australia pitch almost exclusively at Asian students).  But all went well.

Athene (quoting me):
> Though I confess that I have on occasion committed the
> nefarious crime of mistaking a Canadian accent for a US accent.
> Canadian mouths have thinned.
>
>>Ah, yes. I'd guess it was due to our sensitivity at occasionally 
>>being regarded as the 51st state, when we are in fact an independent 
>>country. We're usually quite determined to distinguish ourselves from the US.

Indeed.  Though if you Canadians are sensitive about being mistaken for Americans, you should have seen how the French took being assumed to be Americans in China!!  (Tabouli stifles unseemly giggling).  My, my, they were *not* amused.  The continental Europeans in general got very stroppy indeed about being taken for Americans.  I was always assumed to be American as well, of course, but as someone from an English-speaking country I was prepared to be tolerant and correct them with minimal tooth-grinding.

[Of course, I'm probably not a good example, as I've had people guessing my nationality around the world for decades.  I used to keep a list of all the countries people had guessed me to be from, which include Mexico, Greece, Iran and Russia, among many many others (my list got up to about 62 countries)]

Accents are fascinating things.  I've met many an American (and Canadian, for that matter) visiting Australia who comments wryly that every single person they've met has made the brilliant observation "You're from America, aren't you?" seconds after they open their mouths, after years of not thinking of themselves as having an accent.  Then you have the other way around... my father, whose Australian accent is very mild indeed by Australian standards, often goes to California and reports regular trouble in making himself understood, as people get so little exposure to Australian accents in the States.

When I was in South Africa, I went to a party held in what was a "coloured" area under Apartheid and discovered that while the "whites" had had no trouble understanding me, the people at this party, presumably poorer and less well-travelled, were having difficulties.  I said I thought my Australian accent wasn't particularly strong, and they laughed and told me to listen to myself!  (?)  I then demonstrated a true broad Australian accent (which they were unconvinced was really English), and then I jokily adopted an English accent.  Ah!  they said, that's *much* better, can you speak like that from now on?

By contrast, there was an Englishman I met in China with whom I spoke quite cheerily for around half an hour before he asked me "what part of England I was from".  I told him I wasn't from England, and invited him to guess... he worked his way around the Mediterranean and then gave up.  I put on my best nasal Aussie drawl and intoned "Aww, should I put on me raaw colonial accent for ya then, mate?" and his face shrivelled with disdain.  "Ohhhh," he said, as if he'd just trodden in something nasty, "you're *Australian," and more or less turned his back and hurried away before I could pollute him!   And tried to avoid me thereafter!  Grrrr.  I made it as hard for him to avoid me as possible.  I would corner him in corridors and deliberately enforce my uncouth Australian presence on him.  I'll give *you* Australian, *mate*, I muttered darkly to myself...

Tabouli (donning her Akubra hung with corks and chucking another shrimp on the barbie...)


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