Voice and Accent Neutralization

As the worldwide commercial center extends another branch of English learning identified with ESL has turned out to be extremely captivating. This field is frequently called Accent Neutralization. The fundamental motivation behind accent neutralization is to help proficient English speakers talk with a more North American or British accent. The fundamental driver of this trend towards accent neutralization is the demand created by outsourcing.

Outsourcing is generally defined as the transfer of components or large segments of an organization’s internal infrastructure, staff, processes or applications to an external resource. The trend is towards outsourcing to nations where this work should be possible at lower expense to the organization. One of the most popular countries for outsourcing is India because of its abundance of highly educated English speakers. Accent neutralization becomes an integral factor when these workers address North Americans who have difficulties understanding their accents.

The basic criteria of communication or accent are that one should understand what the other person is saying and vice versa. Communication is a crucial part of globalization. This globalization has created revolution in entrepreneurship and outsourcing. The need for speaking in a neutral accent has been growing today because the customers and the clients have to interact in a universal language in a globally acceptable style and accent. The problem that arises is that many customers have difficulties understanding accents other than their own, hence accent neutralization or reduction becomes important for customer satisfaction. The demand for globalised speech has led to the creation of specialised institutes for accent neutralisation. “Those with extremely good skills don’t want to [work in call centres],” says Kiran Desai, a veteran accent trainer. “What you get is a lot of people who don’t speak very well and aren’t from the best schools,” she adds, in a crisp British-Indian accent.

During Bodhih’s accent reduction training, participants are taught how to speak in a neutral accent. This training helps to remove mother tongue influence. It helps you to speak English with a certain rhythm which sounds good in any cultural context.