EVERYONE HAS AN ACCENT

This means everyone who speaks has an accent.  To speak is to have an accent. Accent defines and communicates who we are. Accent is the map which listeners perceive through their ears rather than through their eyes to ‘read’ where the speaker was born and raised, what gender they are, how old they are…’. 

As the markets become increasingly global, organizations are more likely to employ people from different countries whose languages and accents clearly identify them as different from the local workforce. With the surge in multiculturalism we have also seen a rise in the demand of professional translation in a city like London. This is more likely to happen in London, a real melting pot, where different languages, dialects and cultures cross each other and where it is really amazing discover how people manage to interact and communicate beyond borders. The UK is a rich landscape of regional accents, evidence of English society’s continuity and change, local history and day-to-day lives. 

Translators and interpreters are supposed to convey the right message and understand foreign languages, but the way people speak is important as well. Our accents can tell the listener everything about us, they reflect our experiences. Understanding the impact of accents is vital because accents can be salient in the same way as ethnicity, age, gender, and skin colour. Multilingual society around us has helped Translation services providers to multiply their business globally. This represents a challenging task and sometimes can be frustrating because consonants and vowels are the building blocks of linguistic meaning and slight changes in their quality carry large differences in meaning, which we detect immediately, and can trigger problems. 

Notwithstanding recognizing the linguistic patterns of those around us can be a thrilling and exciting opportunity to learn more. If something is hard to do, then it is worth doing and what really marks the difference in our life and our work is being tenacious and passionate about what we do.