Accent Neutralization and the 50 states

On lunch table today, we were just discussing about the dormitory facilities available in Indian IT companies, (That could be a separate discussion all together), which lead to the training time, and various interesting training programs that took place when we joined the company. One of the most interesting was the cross cultural training and the attraction in that training is; you get to experiment on real continental food. Though the usage of silverwares was highly emphasized, in my little over three years stay in US, I did not care to remember the correct sequence of using those as were trained. The point is, if you are at a group lunch or dinner, you can always wait a few seconds before someone starts and as long as we are blessed with the ability to emulate, every trivial act is pretty manageable. And, if you are eating alone, you are the king of your world, you set the rules, and you are good to go. Okay, discussion on food always stops me longer that it generally should, the cross cultural training course somehow missed out a vital point back then. The accent. Immediate course of actions were taken when the crucial issue of Indian IT professionals’ inappropriate accents was identified, and a new training program was born. Accent Neutralization.

In India, the English we speak, we call it British English. Though it sounds nowhere near to the English that the real English speak, but the grammars, usage of words are pretty much same, it’s considered as one of the farewell gifts the British gave us.. But when it comes to accent, I always had a tussle between Yes Minister and Friends. The accents were so different, and so were the words. Few American movies later, and few Victorian movies in parallel, I could distinctly distinguish the European Vs American access. But when it came to my own accent, I had developed an accent far more vernacular than European or American. Irrespective of all the distinctions, I had no idea what the neutralized accent is. Fair enough if the verdict goes for Brit English as they are the pioneers and the patent can easily go to them. Needless to mention, I was as curious about this training as I was about the dining etiquette training I had couple of years back.

The training was conducted by a practice unit which received few customer comments on the accents of IT professionals who work on the client site. The client was located in Connecticut, and the project team, on behalf of the practice unit took charge of developing the training program. It was a two fold training program, in US; few people will be trained to adapt American accent and will go back home and train the rest of team on their learnings.

The training was especially programmed for people who had issues in communications (the thread was already broken, I thought it was about accent!!), and I was considered one with a good communication, so I did not get nominated for the program. But eventually when the nominations were poor and the program had to be successful, I could get myself in. The first 10 mnts of the program gave away a clear message that, it was not about neutralizing your accent, it’s about adapting to a foreign accent where the degree of understandability by the American co workers is enhanced, and it was about talking simple and talking in their accent so as to make them understand what you are babbling about.
It made sense, a clear business deal, and its okay; it’s okay as long as the title of the program is not “accent neutralization”. I jotted down at least 5 suitable names that the program could have picked, but no, not this one. I was asked to pronounce “Connecticut” as “Connedicut”, I called a Printer as “Prinnau”. After 3 hours of session, I heard myself as one from the 6PM American sitcom.

It felt a little weird using that accent in India, and fortunate enough, I flew back to US in short time. I sure did use that accent in the east zone for as long as I was. I had stopped wondering about the reason behind the naming of the program, no one in the training team could give me a more satisfactory reply than say “it was meant from American accent point and all the local accent that was there in our accents, were being normalized to close the gap between local and American accent”. Made sense. It made my 2 years stay in east coast pleasant and I hardly ever had to repeat what I said.

Things were just fine before last year when I moved to the south of the country. In the introduction meeting (I like the name “icebreaking meeting”) with my client managers and coworkers, I could not help being reminded of all the civil war or southern movies I have seen so far, to be honest, I still need the subtitle on, when I watch a southern movie. My reporting manager was referring the entire team as YOUL which took me so long to decipher as “You All”. This was the easiest example. Now, I was in the other side of the table where I still had to repeat least, but the requests for repeats were way too high. I could not stop wondering, “ Do they have accent neutralization for a client based in Alabama?” This time, the title did not bother me at all.