Is my accent a crime? (UNCLASSIFIED)

Mon Aug 2 23:16:57 UTC 2010

Being monolingual (Latin in high school) I'm not a party to this discussion, but I would agree with the thoughts below from another list.

Of course this is a sensitive issue, and there can be excellent teachers with accents and poor ones with no accent. Nevertheless, as an adult language learner, I prefer to learn a foreign language from a native speaker with no accent. I would not want to learn Russian, Portuguese or Korean ( the languages I am currently studying)  from an English speaking American, no matter how well he or she spoke the language.

After many years of learning French from English speaking teachers in Canada, it was only when I finally got a true French speaker as a teacher, at university, that I became truly committed to learning French.

Author deleted

Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL7+
see truespel.com phonetic spelling

>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Jonathan Lighter
> Subject: Re: Is my accent a crime? (UNCLASSIFIED)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> The blogosphere is ablaze with condemnations of the "law." I'm beginning to
> wonder very seriously if there even is one:
>
> http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/05/22/arizona-seeks-reassign-heavily-accented-teachers/
>
> JL
>
> On Mon, Aug 2, 2010 at 12:20 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > Sender: American Dialect Society
> > Poster: Jonathan Lighter
> > Subject: Re: Is my accent a crime? (UNCLASSIFIED)
> >
> > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > The precise wording of the law is elduing me, but here are a couple of
> > seemingly useful sites. The first gives some background; the second is the
> > CNN report:
> >
> >
> > http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/30/arizona-ethnic-studies-cl_n_558731.html
> >
> >
> >
> > http://amfix.blogs.cnn.com/2010/05/24/arizona-wants-to-reassign-teachers-with-accents/
> >
> > JL
> >
> >
> >
> > On Mon, Aug 2, 2010 at 10:31 AM, George Thompson > > >wrote:
> >
> > > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > > -----------------------
> > > Sender: American Dialect Society
> > > Poster: George Thompson
> > > Subject: Re: Is my accent a crime? (UNCLASSIFIED)
> > >
> > >
> > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > >
> > > > >
> > > > > Arizona has decided that it's unacceptable to have teachers
> > > > > whose spoken English is deemed to be heavily accented or
> > > > ungrammatical, even
> > > > > though the latter has little to do with the former.
> > > >
> > > > Anyone who has gone through an engineering curriculum at a state school
> > > > in the last generation probably has horror stories of trying to
> > > > understand a lecture given by a non-native born grad student whose
> > > > accent was so thick as to make communication impossible. I know I do.
> > > >
> > >
> > > Was there not a court case perhaps 30 years ago, in which a university
> > was
> > > sued for using graduate students who were incapable of speaking
> > intelligible
> > > English to work off their scholarship & stipend to teach undergraduate
> > > courses?
> > > As I recall, the plaintiff's position was that he paid his tuition to
> > take
> > > the course because he wanted to learn calculus, or whatever, and that it
> > was
> > > a form of fraud to assign the course to a teacher whose command of
> > English
> > > was inadequate to communicate his knowledge of the subject.
> > >
> > > I did note with interest that the 3 murderers who escaped from the
> > Arizona
> > > penitentiary last week all had surnames that suggested that they were
> > Real
> > > Americans and fluent speakers of English.
> > >
> > > GAT
> > >
> > > George A. Thompson
> > > Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
> > > Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.
> > >
> > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > From: "Mullins, Bill AMRDEC"
> > > Date: Monday, August 2, 2010 9:55 am
> > > Subject: Re: Is my accent a crime? (UNCLASSIFIED)
> > > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> > >
> > > > Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
> > > > Caveats: NONE
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > > -----Original Message-----
> > > > > From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On
> > > > Behalf Of
> > > > > Tom Zurinskas
> > > > > Sent: Sunday, August 01, 2010 3:07 AM
> > > > > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> > > > > Subject: Is my accent a crime?
> > > > >
> > > > > Arizona has decided that it's unacceptable to have teachers
> > > > > whose spoken English is deemed to be heavily accented or
> > > > ungrammatical, even
> > > > > though the latter has little to do with the former.
> > > >
> > > > Anyone who has gone through an engineering curriculum at a state school
> > > > in the last generation probably has horror stories of trying to
> > > > understand a lecture given by a non-native born grad student whose
> > > > accent was so thick as to make communication impossible. I know I do.
> > > >
> > > > The idea that the teaching of English to those who can't speak it
> > should
> > > > be done only by people who _can_ speak it, clearly and well, with a
> > > > native accent, is not all that draconian a restriction.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > That prohibition led the great Andrei Codrescu, an author who taught
> > > > English
> > > > > for 40 years but who came from Romania, to wonder out loud on NPR,
> > > > "Did I land
> > > > > back behind the Iron Curtain half a century ago?
> > > >
> > > > "Not being able to get paid to teach English if you have a thick
> > accent"
> > > > = "behind the Iron Curtain"? Overreact much?
> > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > Yet what is an accent?
> > > >
> > > > If the original author doesn't know the answer to this question, then
> > > > there are probably multiple reasons he/she shouldn't be teaching
> > > > English.
> > > >
> > > > Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
> > > > Caveats: NONE
> > > >
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> >
> >
> >
> > --
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