foreign instructors

[Anthea Fraser Gupta]

This seems a very fair and balanced article, that puts forward factors concerning the speaker's skills, the hearer's skills, the cultural setting, and prejudice.
 
It strikes me that I have the impression that 'accented English' and 'English with an accent' is more used in the US than the UK. People in the UK talk about 'foreign accents' where foreign is shorthand for 'assumed non-native', and make assumptions that if you are not from an inner circle country you won't be a native speaker of English. There is certainly this shared prejudicial system on both sides of the Atlantic. But we also talk about British accents -- A LOT. Do ordinary American talk about their own accents????
 
This posting isn't very well thought through, but I do have the feeling that there is something very different across the Atlantic in terms of attitudes to accents. I notice on Ask-a-linguist that a lot of Americans have a strong idea that there is a correct way of speaking, and that there is a great deal of hostility to Southern accents. I just have a vague feeling that there is a more normative attitude to accents in the US than in the UK. In the UK people certainly have prejudices of a rather complex sort, but diversity seems to be better accepted.
 
Anyone got any thoughts??? Evidence???
 
Anthea
School of English, University of Leeds

	-----Original Message----- 
	From: owner-lgpolicy-list at ccat.sas.upenn.edu on behalf of Harold F. Schiffman 
	Sent: Wed 06/04/2005 21:14 
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	>From the Chronicle of Higher Education, April 8, 2005
	
	http://chronicle.com/free/v51/i31/31a01001.htm
	
	Teach Impediment
	
	When the student can't understand the instructor, who is to blame?
	
	By JOHN GRAVOIS