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FMPJ
Joined: 03 Jun 2008
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 Posted: Sun Jul 05, 2015 4:16 pm Post subject: |
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Yes, of course: every thinking person knows that all dialects are equally legitimate.
But this thread is about "perceived neutrality" rather than some sort of Platonic Ideal of English. |
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Weigookin74
Joined: 26 Oct 2009
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| Posted: Sun Jul 05, 2015 5:02 pm Post subject: |
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| Coltronator wrote: |
It also has business applications to treat it as neutral even though there is no objective way to say it is, only practicality would dictate it being so.
Call centres and other telecommunication centres that would hire hundreds of people would be located in one of these areas because their accents are understandable to a higher degree.
It doesn't make the accent more correct, just more useful because of everyone's previous experience with them.
On a related note. Ever wonder why Koreans (or insert any other native of a country whose language you are trying to learn) hardly ever (a bit of hyperbole here) understand your Korean sentence when you make but 2 minor mistakes when you would understand an English sentence with the same types of mistakes 99% of the time? It is because as English speakers we have a large experience dealing with people who are less than 100% fluent English speakers. Korean media until very recently has never really had that except in really bad (and nationalist) stereo types played for comedy, usually at the expense of Americans and Chinese. We having such realistic depictions in media and often having personal experiences with previously have little trouble with common English errors. Why are Taxi cab drivers so fun to talk to and practice English with? Their occupation has given them such personal experiences to have a good ear for "bad korean". |
This, along with a very very low Canadian dollar resulted in the Maritimes being littered with call centers. Add in the high unemployment rate meaning you could pay them low. At that time one Canadian dollar was nearly 60 cents US (late nineties to mid 2000's). So, an American call center paying 15 bucks and hour could pay 10 Canadian to an area with high unemployment, which was just a little over 6 dollars an hour American. Add in cheaper rents, the neutral accents many folks had there, it was a bargain for them. But, even that wasn't good enough. Eventually, India and the Phillipines started to get new business and as the dollar rose again, they started moving some of their operations. The brief time I worked in a couple, for an outsourced company, I'd receive a transfer call from folks in their call centers in small towns in America. One was in Nebraska and the dude sounded like an older guy with a hickish accent.
I guess the accent is part of it, but a very very small part of it. Ultimately,. it's the almighty dollar. That said, there were some companies that had outsourced and said either no more outsourcing or no more putting jobs out of America. Meant almost getting laid off except that the companies found other contracts just in time. All around crappy jobs with the head offices being far far away and often being another company due to outsourcing. So, not much mobility and not a great skill set, except for enhancing your comunication skills. The jobs do have high burn out rates. |
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jazzmaster
Joined: 30 Sep 2013
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| Posted: Sun Jul 05, 2015 11:47 pm Post subject: |
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| Weigookin74 wrote: |
I guess the accent is part of it, but a very very small part of it. Ultimately,. it's the almighty dollar. That said, there were some companies that had outsourced and said either no more outsourcing or no more putting jobs out of America. Meant almost getting laid off except that the companies found other contracts just in time. All around crappy jobs with the head offices being far far away and often being another company due to outsourcing. So, not much mobility and not a great skill set, except for enhancing your comunication skills. The jobs do have high burn out rates. |
Spot on. The outsourcing of call centers to India show that the accent is not a major concern. It's all about the money they can save. |
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Coltronator
Joined: 04 Dec 2013
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| Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2015 1:07 am Post subject: |
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Having worked AT&T before you are both correct and false. They aggressively marketed their american staffed customer service. 80% of customer contact points were in North America. As well the region non specific centres (Centres that had calls routed to them from all across the country, as opposed to example the Raleigh centre which only took southwest calls) were all in either Canada or Midwest.
Indian was used to do Agent to Agent interactions and only few customer to agent ones. |
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mangotango
Joined: 24 Apr 2015
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| Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2015 1:08 am Post subject: |
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So, staying on topic, to sum up so far:
Few comments have said: BBC/RP/General American/does not exist/in Korea it is American.
It is fair to suggest that neutral accents do not exist as they are all regionally marked. A speaker of General American is clearly American. But maybe the term 'neutral' in the context of 'neutral accent' does not carry the same explicit meaning as it would in another context?
The accents that have been proposed as 'neutral' - AmE/BrE - are considered to be the standard within their own regions (USA/England). Is it safe to assume then that 'neutral accent' has the same tones as 'standard accent'? If this is the case, what about other varieties that have not been mentioned - Scottish/Irish/Aus etc.. can they also be neutral?
Interestingly someone mentioned a neutral accent in Korea is considered to be...
Is this suggesting that a 'neutral accent' is situation/region specific and would depend on the local speech community at that time? For example, if AmE is the current favoured model in Korea, it would also be considered 'neutral'. And if BrE is considered the favoured model in Denmark, it would also be considered 'neutral', but for those specific areas?
This would help explain previous claims that in USA - General American is neutral. In the UK - RP is neutral. In Korea...
This also would mean that a 'neutral accent' is more dynamic than a 'standard accent'?
If then, in regions where a local, non-native variety is considered the model - would this too be 'neutral'?
I look forward to further comments. |
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Coltronator
Joined: 04 Dec 2013
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| Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2015 1:24 am Post subject: |
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| Absolutely, a relative neutral accent is probably the only way to truly have an objective neutral. For each target accent you could draw a map where most people perceive a person with these accents as un-accented. You'd have a thousand maps but you'd have anicdotal consensus, statistical accuracy and objectivity. |
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chellovek
Joined: 29 Feb 2008
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| Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2015 9:50 am Post subject: |
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| jazzmaster wrote: |
| A neutral accent is a misnomer. It doesn't exist. |
Someone with at least some f-ing sense.
Isn't this a topic that crops up every now and then for people who want to get in an argument? It just goes round and round because, as jazzmaster pointed out, we're arguing about something that doesn't exist or matter. It's like arguing about what is objectively the best brand of sliced white bread.
Also, hats off to whoever on here who asked who sets the standard for this so-called neutral accent. Koreans? Get real. Some mid-west small town good ol' boy gets to lecture us on accents because equally moronic Mrs Kim wants her spoilt and poorly raised child to learn to speak with, what ends up happening, a slightly creepy and inappropriate ersatz Yank accent a la Arirang News. |
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Weigookin74
Joined: 26 Oct 2009
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| Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2015 4:10 pm Post subject: |
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| Coltronator wrote: |
Having worked AT&T before you are both correct and false. They aggressively marketed their american staffed customer service. 80% of customer contact points were in North America. As well the region non specific centres (Centres that had calls routed to them from all across the country, as opposed to example the Raleigh centre which only took southwest calls) were all in either Canada or Midwest.
Indian was used to do Agent to Agent interactions and only few customer to agent ones. |
Well, I do know Liberty Mutual and E Funds were two examples of companies that were keeping their calls in America, after previously sending them out of America. Their clients were sent to outsourcing companies in Canada. One was even using India, alongside us. But, I later heard they pulled it back from India. That said, most companies are still using India, Capital One and others. I've spoken to Indian agents and they have dealt with the public and not just agents. Had a friend that whenever a customer would p!$$ him off, he'd promise to send the customer to a manager. Instead he sent him to some random application department in India. My friend listed to one customer go into a rant with the Indian guy. (Customer is: "That's what wrong with America today" "No one wants to take accountability." Indian is: "Thank you sir. May I have your information or application number?" bla bla bla. Was pretty funny, really. Did it myself a few times.)
Anyways, between dropping out of university and then going back and then working a year or so, I worked quite a few of these places. High burn out rate and just awful jobs. Maybe if they paid you a real wage to put up with this crap, folks would stay.
The real kicker is guys who went to uni and got stuck in these dead end jobs and then became bitter and disillusioned about it. Call center, retail, warehouse work all the maritimes have to offer. Some of these guys would even complain about being harassed by student loans. He got taken before a judge and had to pay 100 a month. Wasn't even paying the interest. I couldn't figure it out. I told these guys to get their @$$ to Korea. (This was pre recession Korea and there was cash to be made.) No, we'll just stay here in our lousy low paying call center jobs and complain about life, they said. I think one guy was waiting for the 10 year mark (under the old rules) to declare bankruptcy.
Well, those jobs just suck and I can't image anyone being able to do those jobs for years on end. I still can't figure that one out. |
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