Aarav Week #1 - The Danger of Being Conscious of an Accent

On what might have been the hottest day of this summer, I left my mom’s Toyota Corolla and approached

my friend’s house. After I knocked on the door, taking note of the many plants present in the front yard, I

was greeted by his mother. We engaged in some small talk. Once his mother left, my friend appeared and

jokingly asked me if I developed an accent over the summer so far. I started to realize I was “rolling my

r’s”, “retroflexing my d’s”, and even using some Hindi in my dialogue with her. I brushed it aside and

simply made up the excuse that my past trip to India altered my accent in general for a bit. 


A guide on retroflexed consonants by Karl Rock

Later in the day, once my friend’s mother came into the room we were sitting in, I began to talk. I think I

was forcing my accent rather than letting it naturally show in my words. I don’t know if I did this to uphold

the lie I told my friend, or because I was simply conscious of my speech patterns. I couldn’t help but

wonder if I was simply faking my manner of speech, questioning if its authenticity was lost forever. I

even saw myself researching a little bit about what really makes an Indian accent in order to “reclaim” it.

This feeling resided with me for a few days, until I slowly started talking “normally”. Whenever someone

mentions accents, however, the feeling arrives again and usually influences my voice temporarily. 


An interesting observation I noticed was that I don’t talk to my parents with an accent. I use my usual

English pronunciation, even though my parents do not. This made me curious about why I was even using

an accent in the first place. I figured out that I was using it to impress people, specifically Indian parents,

by showing them I was someone “of culture”, as I believed that would appeal to them. It then made sense

why my awareness led me to fake my accent: I was knowingly trying to be more appealing to the people I

was talking to.


As paradoxical as it sounds, it definitely hurts to be conscious of such speech patterns, because if the goal

isn’t about trying to fix them, the genuineness of the accent is lost. I believe losing that is dangerous,

because I feel that it removes a part of the culture that I come from. I am willing to trade the

acknowledgement of my attempt to impress using an accent for authenticity. While this is not ideal, of

course, I never want to worry that my manner of speech sounds fabricated, and that one of the core parts

of my identity has been tainted simply due to my awareness. Ultimately, even though an accent is a vital

tool to express cultural identity, being conscious of it often makes for an inauthentic performance. 



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