EPISODE 677 - Asian American Accent

[JulyDiaz 2797]

Lakshmi Sundaram and Andrew talk all about whether there is such a thing as an Asian American accent. Be sure to keep leaving us messages at (323) 389-RACE.

[DirkBender 31]

Don't think Lakshmi and Andrew ever really answered the guy's question--he wanted to know if his notion of an "accent" was, in fact, racist. But it's all good I guess.

[action52 554]

You know, my experience is that Asian Americans tend to have a strong generic American accent. What I mean is, white kids are likely to be kind of a spectrum ranging from what we call the "standard" Midwest/California accent to whatever the local dialect is in the area. Whereas Asian Americans tend to be very much at the "standard" end of the spectrum. Like, if they're from the south they tend to have a much fainter southern accent (or none at all). So my thinking is that the caller just hears this as different from how the white people speak, rather than hearing it as them speaking essentially a stronger version of the white American accent. I would guess this is also because he is predisposed to hear white people as having "no accent."

 

I definitely agree that confirmation bias has a lot to do with this, like Andrew said, and that if this guy just heard an Asian American talking without knowing his race beforehand, he would not be able to tell the difference between that and a generic talking white person.

[omondieu 7]

I have only a very basic knowledge of linguistics, but maybe the caller is referring to not quite an accent, but more of a lilt? I've always understood lilts to be very subtle accents, as I have friends who have referred to what I have as a lilt. I'm third generation Canadian with a Ukrainian background, but grew up speaking both languages from birth. As a result, each one has influenced how I communicate in the other. I don't speak either language like a true native, but the very faint differences in how I pronounce words aren't strong enough to qualify me as having an accent. But that's to be expected of any child who has grown up in a multilingual household.