May 30, 2011

Mandarin Accents

Out of class

I was inspired by Mai Vi's practice presentation about different Vietnamese accents and their prejudices. Her presentation reminded me of the different Mandarin accents that I recognize, hence this journal entry.

According to the graph above, the main countries that speak Mandarin are China, Taiwan, and Malaysia. If I could add one more, Singapore would be my choice. As a foreigner in Vietnam, whenever I hear someone speaking in Mandarin, my full attention would suddenly be on that person. As I listen to the person speak, the first thing that I would analyze is the accent. Is the person from China, Taiwan, Singapore, or Malaysia?

A knowledge issue that I've never thought of before is that why do I try to distinguish the accents to decide the speaker's nationality? What kind of results do I get after I guess the speaker's nationality? I guess emotions play a little role in this. If the speaker has a Malaysian accent, then I would have more interest in that person as, after all, we come from the same country. 

The prejudices that are involved in this include the stereotypes that I (or many of the Malaysians) have for Chinese, Taiwanese, and Singaporean. Depending on whether the beliefs are positive or negative, my attitude towards the Mandarin speakers might be different.

Another knowledge issue that is raised through the recognition of different accents is that what if I met a Malaysian who speaks in a Taiwanese accent because he lived in Taiwan for a long time? If I just based by guess on the accent, then I would guess that the person is Taiwanese and interact with the person, maybe, with less interest and warmth. This presents a bias. 

I think it's difficult to change my habit of judging Mandarin speakers based on their accents because that is the easiest and most direct way of distinguishing people who I don't know. I guess the best thing for me to do is to remove all prejudices no matter who I meet and whatever accent they speak in.

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