영어의 악센트

Accent in English

  The term ‘accent’ has been misused and misunderstood not only by most Korean students but also by some leading figures in the Korean society, hence raising a linguistic as well as social issue on ‘the value of English pronunciation’ or ‘accent’ in the English language learning in Korea. ‘Accent’ refers to the way you pronounce a language including segmental and suprasegmental features of pronunciation excluding any lexical and syntactic properties. Especially in learning English as a foreign language, people are inevitably speaking with foreign accent, the accent affected by Korean pronunciation rules in particular. In this paper, it will be suggested that the term ‘accent’ has to be used differently from the terms like ‘stress,’ ‘intonation,’ ‘tone,’ and even ‘dialect,’ based on the more accurate definition of the term. The paper also summarizes the historical development of social attitudes toward pronunciation/accent, introducing the concept of the ‘accent-neutral’ view and therefore suggesting that we should cultivate the accent-neutral attitude in the Korean society. In the survey for college students on a preferred accent, it was found that American English is more preferred to British English and that Korean students have a somewhat negative view of their own accent.