对口音的误解

- For native speakers of English, there is no standard way of speaking. An American speaker of English from Texas will sound distinctly different from a Scottish speaker of English from Glasgow or an Indian speaker of English from Gujarat. Also, non-native speakers of English outnumber native English speakers by almost five to one. This creates a vast and varied use of style, pronunciation, grammar and usage. So rather than thinking of English as one monolithic language, let's shift our terminology to global Englishes, the many different ways English is used throughout the globe. What is an accent anyway? I mean, linguists have a hard time defining the term but they agree on one thing: that an accent is determined not by the speaker but by the listener. This means that the way you speak will be perceived differently depending on who your audience is. And as listeners, we are remarkably flexible in understanding varying pronunciation patterns. It also means that as speakers, we all…