27 Jul My Accent Identity & The Singing Method of Accent Training

Try out a different accent by singing a standard accent training text

Accent, Identity, and Decision Making: A Personal Story

As a British accent coach specialising in Modern Received Pronunciation (sometimes called “Standard Southern British English” or “General British”), people often ask me about the difference between an “accent” class and a “pronunciation” class. 

It’s a fair question, and I normally explain by saying that pronunciation classes are for people who are currently experiencing a transference of speech sounds and speech patterns from their native language. Pronunciation classes at British Accent Academy are primarily for people who want to be clearly understood but who don’t mind maintaining a flavour of their home country. 

Accent classes, meanwhile, are for people who are already happy with the clarity of their speech but who want to switch between different accents or dialects, or who want to modify their accent to shift their identity so that it matches where they live and how they want to feel. 

We offer both of these services at British Accent Academy. 

In this post, I’ll reflect on decision making regarding my own linguistic identity as an international British person living in Canada, with a Canadian passport, who has lived in francophone Canada for the past decade and maintained my British RP accent, while allowing my French accent to sound more Canadian. In celebrating a decade of making my home in a new country, I’m celebrating my identity shift from European French to Canadian French. My British accent is as RP as ever!

I’ll break down how I practise accents and try on different identities for myself using the “jazzy singing method”, and touch on how I make decisions about how I’d like to sound, using standard practice texts like “Arthur the Rat“, a passage that phoneticians have used for decades to compare different dialects and ways of speaking. Most of what follows will be audio examples, so you can hear the nuances of my reflections in my own voice. It will be kind of like a podcast split into three sections. 

Arthur The Rat

Arthur the Rat is a standard dialect coaching text that traces its roots to a children’s tale called I Don’t Know, written by Gertrude Sellon in 1876. The passage gained a second life when phoneticians such as Henry Sweet began using it as a standard tool for studying dialects and accents. 

I use Arthur the Rat with my clients (both accent clients and pronunciation clients alike) during an initial assessment, when monitoring progress with an accent or pronunciation goal, when examining intonation and connected speech, and when measuring progress in clients as they work toward and finally achieve their speech goals. 

Now let’s talk about the singing method to remove the awkwardness from trying out a new accent when your identity makes you feel weird about practising new things… 

Here’s the text:

Arthur the Rat
Once there was a young rat named Arthur, who could never make up his mind. Whenever his friends asked him if he would like to go out with them, he would only answer, “I don’t know.” He wouldn’t say “yes” or “no” either. He would always shirk making a choice. His aunt Helen said to him, “Now look here. No one is going to care for you if you carry on like this. You have no more mind than a blade of grass.” One rainy day, the rats heard a great noise in the loft. The pine rafters were all rotten, so that the barn was rather unsafe. At last the joists gave way and fell to the ground. The walls shook and all the rats’ hair stood on end with fear and horror. “This won’t do,” said the captain. “I’ll send out scouts to search for a new home.” Within five hours the ten scouts came back and said, “We found a stone house where there is room and board for us all. There is a kindly horse named Nelly, a cow, a calf, and a garden with an elm tree.” The rats crawled out of their little houses and stood on the floor in a long line. Just then the old one saw Arthur. “Stop,” he ordered coarsely. “You are coming, of course?” “I’m not certain,” said Arthur, undaunted. “The roof may not come down yet.” “Well,” said the angry old rat, “we can’t wait for you to join us. Right about face. March!” Arthur stood and watched them hurry away. “I think I’ll go tomorrow,” he calmly said to himself, but then again “I don’t know; it’s so nice and snug here.” That night there was a big crash. In the morning some men—with some boys and girls —rode up and looked at the barn. One of them moved a board and he saw a young rat, quite dead, half in and half out of his hole. Thus the shirker got his due.

And here are my personal reflections on my own accents and identity:

Let me know by emailing katie@britishaccentacademy.com what you think of this technique and try it out for yourself. 

Join any paid programme or buy anything at British Accent Academy to join our next live group workshop on Zoom, where you can receive accent and pronunciation support. Anything from speech sound perception to intonation and connected speech. The Zoom space is yours to practise in and it’s the perfect place to receive guidance from me, Katie, your speech coach.