The accent advantage
The initial euphoria over India being a hub of English speakers is over. Future business in call centres will be decided by pronunciation, writes GS Sethi

Philippines overtake India as hub of call centres” was the headline in the media a few days back. India has about 3,50,000 offshore call centres, but the Philippines, which has a population one-tenth that of India, has overtaken India in 2011, according to Jojo Uligan, executive director of the Contact Center Association of the Philippines.

Besides maturation of outsourcing business in the Philippines, the other factor, which has partly weighed in favour of this country, is American English accent of the people there. It makes American customers understand them better than they do Indian agents, who speak British-style English and use unfamiliar idioms. A specific example quoted is that an Indian would say, “I will revert on the same”, rather than, “I will follow up on that”. Furthermore the Philippines is stated to be a unique combination of Eastern, attentive hospitality and attitude of care and compassion, mixed with Americanisation, according to the chief executive of an outsourcing firm based out of Mumbai. In the initial stages the American companies based their outsourcing strategies primarily on money-saving motives. But now, having experienced many countries, quite a few companies don’t consider that to be the best strategy.

As it is, learning English language has become important and everyone recognises it. The ability to speak and write English properly allows people to advance in the professional world, as it also widens one’s horizon in communicating globally. As seen from the above instance, it is no less important to pick up proper and appropriate accent. If your work involves regular contact with speakers from other countries, being able to talk to them the way they do will help you to communicate with them easily. It may also help you (and the company you work for) to make sales and to negotiate and secure contracts. This may also increase your chances of finding a new job, getting a promotion or transfer to a better place of your choice.

Unique dialects
The dialect (for the same language, considering English here) varies from country to country and also within a country from one region to another. For example accents that are peculiar to England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales are different in each case. Each dialect has unique features in pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar. The term “accent” describes only the first of these three ie pronunciation. Do sentences generally end on a higher note, the same, or lower and how much variation is there in tone throughout a typical sentence, are among the elements which make any accent peculiar.

Considering India and a few other countries:

• Philippine English employs a rhotic accent that originated from the time when it was first introduced by the Americans during the colonisation period to replace Spanish as the dominant language used in politics.
  
• The accent of English spoken in Hong Kong follows mainly British, with rather strong influence from Cantonese on the pronunciation of a few consonants and vowels, and sentence grammar and structure.
  
• In India a number of distinct dialects of English are spoken, the reason being existence of many Indian languages, which tend to create different English language accents.
  
• The Malaysian accent appears to be a blend of British, Chinese, and Malay influences.
  
• There are two main types of English spoken in Singapore — Standard Singapore English and Singlish. There are a large number of foreigners working in Singapore. Thirty-six per cent of the population in Singapore is foreigners, who constitute 50 per cent of the service sector. Therefore, it is very common to encounter service staff not fluent in English. Most of them speak Mandarin Chinese. Those who do not speak Mandarin Chinese tend to speak either broken English or Singlish, which they have learnt from the locals.

Tips to improve pronunciation
The right “accent” (for a given situation or job requirement), having become so important, many education centres /organisations have come up offering accent training (British or American). One such organisation advertises its offering as follows:

“You will be amazed by how quickly you improve your American English pronunciation with our proven American Accent Video Training method available on DVD or by Digital Download. You’ll get amazing results while learning at your own pace. Our remarkable American English Pronunciation Course will teach you things you will never learn in an English class. This interactive video is like receiving personalized instruction from your very own Speech Coach. It is the fastest and easiest approach to significantly improving your Spoken English Pronunciation and American Accent”.

Usually, when people learn to speak a second language, they use the sounds and pronunciation rules (and often grammar) of their native language. This is what gives them an accent. Here are a few tips in general, which could help you improve your accent of English language to meet the requirements on the job, you are holding.

To begin with, it is important that you speak English clearly so that others may be able to understand you. Then there are few things that you can do to improve your pronunciation. This will help you acquire correct
accent.

• Most schools teach written English. The students are “studying English” instead of listening and speaking. Listen to spoken English as often as you can.
  Observe how other speakers pronounce various words and phrases and try to imitate what you hear.
  
• Refer to phonetic alphabet page, which most dictionaries have. Use this as a guide to pronounce new words you learn or pick up.
  
• Word stress is important. Each English word has its own stress. For example the word “believe” has two syllables (be and lieve). Only the second syllable is stressed. A dictionary will show the syllable stress by an apostrophe (‘) before the syllable to be stressed. Stressing a wrong syllable can sometimes cause misunderstanding.
  
• Practise the sounds that you often find difficult.
  Suppose you find it difficult to distinguish between “p” and “b”, try to practice the words which are same except for the sound “p” and “b”; e.g. “pie” and “buy”, “pond” and “bond”.
  
• Understand intonation and sentence stress. In any given sentence, all words are not equally stressed. Normally the “information” words (nouns and verbs) are stressed. Sentence stress is not “fixed” like word stress. In fact, one can stress words that are normally unstressed so as to highlight different meanings.
  
• Learn to speak at normal speed. Speaking too fast, you risk skipping some words or not pronounce them properly. On the other hand, speaking too slow may look unnatural, and may make the listener uninterested.

Learning foreign languages is going to be a valuable asset in the times to come. The need is going to be very much dictated by business interests, besides other reasons. Here is something from a recent media report (TOI Nov 28, 2011): “In Gujarat, good economics decides which languages Gujaratis speak. As CM Narendra Modi looks to China and Far East countries, including Japan, for investment, youngsters from the state are queuing up to learn Chinese and Japanese in big numbers. While private Chinese classes are running full batches for the first time, Gujarat Vidyapith has started its first-ever Japanese course, giving in to growing demand.”

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