who you are. Everyone has an accent (heck, even goats have regional ways of saying BAAH),

but what’s the science behind language acquisition and does your accent say something about you?

In an American survey, 47% of adults found British accents to be sophisticated, while

51% thought New York accents were rude; Southern accents were considered nice but possibly

uneducated, while New England accents were considered intelligent. But it turns out that

humans have a bias towards others who sound like them or have the same accent. Of course,

it’s important to distinguish between a native language accent and an additional language

accent. English native language accents depend on factors such as geographic location and

socioeconomic status. For example a cockney accent of the working class London is markedly

different than the Queen’s Received Pronunciation.

However, when it comes to non-native language accents, things are more complicated. If you

decide to move to Spain and learn Spanish as an English speaker, you will always speak

with an English accent - even if you remain there for decades. After the age of 12, the

length of residence has almost no effect on your accent. Studies pinpoint the ideal age

as 6 years old, with diminishing ability from that forward.

Interestingly, some stroke patients wake with an accent completely different to their original

voice. This condition is known as the ‘Foreign Accent Syndrome’ and results from damage

to the insula region of the brain which is responsible for language processing.

One integral aspect of language is the phoneme. Phonemes are the different sound units we

use to make up words - some of which are unique to different languages. For example, the phonemes

with TH (th and th) as in words like ‘the’ and ‘thing’ do not exist in German, making

it difficult for German speakers to pronounce these words properly. Conversely, there are

many phonemes in other languages that as English speakers we cannot pronounce or even hear

properly.

In a groundbreaking study, 32 American and 32 Japanese six month old babies listened

to a recorder play “la la la” repeatedly. When the recording switched to “la la ra”

a toy to the side would light up and play a musical tune. The babies were primed to

understand that recognizing the difference between “la” and “ra” lead to an audio-visual

reward and both the American and Japanese 6 month old babies were able to tell the difference

and anticipate the toy reward when necessary. But “La” and “ra” are phonemes that

do not exist in the Japanese language. When this study was replicated with 10-12 month

old babies, the Japanese babies could not tell the difference between these uniquely

English phonemes, showing that a critical period for recognizing phonemes and brain

development is at merely six months old.

If you try and learn a language, regardless of your age, synaptic connections are made,

which ultimately create a denser grey matter and stronger white matter networks. In fact,

those who have grown up in bilingual households are consistently more sensitive to subtle

language differences compared to their monolingual counterparts. Brain scans have shown that

bilingual babies have stronger brain responses in their orbital and prefrontal cortices,

which are areas linked to focus and problem-solving abilities.

But have you ever wondered why so many people hate the sound of their own voice? We break

down the science and challenge some people to come to terms with their own voice in our

AsapTHOUGHT video. Check it out with the link in the description

And subscriber for more weekly science videos.