WHAT DO YOU PAY FOR - ELOCUTION OR ACCENT ? - Fasanmi Oluwashina

If accent is taught, fake will be the end product. A number of schools employ diction teachers who have no idea of what elocution and enunciation is about. Some of them are school leavers or undergraduates while some are graduates with no relevant  academic background to English Language. These teachers muddle up, add their own flavour 'tongue twisting and nasal accent' and then transfer it to their pupils. The pupils will give you a 'sing song' accent eventually. Little wonder some school owners ask many times, why don't 'we all' have a conventional way of pronouncing English words? Parents on the other hand  do not know any better. All they want is their children to sound foreign.
Teaching accent is not the goal. It is simply understanding the science of English phonetics. If you articulate English sounds correctly, place stress on the right syllable, use the right intonation, pronounce words and speak correctly, practice and master these, you will sound like a Briton not learning accent.

I have trained individuals privately who told me; 'you speak naturally, why don't you speak like your colleagues faking their accents? We can hear and understand you well, words aren't blurred, words are correctly and clearly pronounced.' Others will say, we get to ask them; 'what did you say?' 'Will you repeat that please?' 'Did you say ...?' 'I didn't understand what you just said.' 'Could you speak up please?' 'You are too fast.' These questions all refer to one thing - poor diction when speaking /accent faking. This is one of the biggest frustrations in communication. And these comics are fairly educated Nigerians who in a bid to become whom they are not, gave themselves away as insecure, cheap, pathetic and in need of psychotherapy. As I listen to some of them daily, I cannot stop wondering if there is a connection between aspiring to be in the upper class and speaking in a foreign accent. Sorry, I actually mean speaking like Beyoncé with the voice of Iya Mulika, Sister Nkuri or Aunty Ekaette. For God's sake, why is it so difficult for people to be themselves when they speak? What is the attraction in sounding like a fake British, American or a combination of the two? Is it that people who speak like this do not know how horrible they sound? It is also irritating.

There is a way you sound whenever you speak to your friend, lover, spouse, parents or kids. That is the real you. When you speak with your mom, dad or siblings on the phone and the conversation is in formal or informal English, please record that conversation and play it over and over again. That is your real accent or intonation. If you do not like what you hear, the least you could do is to enroll in a diction class -assuming you are not up to 40. At least dry bones (sorry dead bones) can still rise again. You might improve a bit and still sound right...especially if your F, P, Elu (EL) H and S factors are not so terrible. But if you can not afford to go for a diction class, by all means accept yourself and let it be. Do not commit the crime of juggling accents and or manufacturing your own bespoke accents. So many people have made it in life without speaking through their nostrils. Our president and many of my brothers in the east, the ones from Ìjẹ̀ṣà and Ọ̀yọ́ are good examples.

  You may also want to listen to General. Yakubu Gowon, Gen Ike Nwachukwu, Joke Silva, Gloria Rhodes, Chief Emeka Anyaoku, Chimamanda Adichie, etc.These are Nigerians (not sure they are trained broadcasters) and they speak the English language the way any Nigerian should speak it. If you speak differently from the way these guys speak, then you have two issues ; it's either you were born and raised overseas (which means you are not the standard for determining how a Nigerian should speak the English language) or you are mixing concoction and flowing in locally acquired foreign accent. Please stop it; you are not helping our kids. They need to know which is fake and which is real. Take it or leave it ; whenever you find yourself trying to sound like someone else, your self esteem tank is leaking and needs to be patched urgently to avoid further leakage.

And the irony of this is that we have people like Helen Paul, Falz and Funke Akindele (Jennifer) who have carved a name for themselves sounding not just like locals but like badly exposed illiterates. We can tell which is saner by juxtaposing the appeal these guys enjoy while trying to sound lower than their exposure and training suggests and the nuisance value that comes with exhibiting an offensive locally acquired foreign accent.
An accent is a manner of pronunciation peculiar to a particular individual. It will be ridiculous to force an Igbo lady with Igbo accent to speak like a Briton without having the understanding of the science of British diction/ English Language. This is what plays out nowadays between diction teachers and their students. The students are subjected to speaking in a particular rhythmic funny pattern. Let us get it right parents. I ask again, what do you pay for - Elocution or accent?