As being a school of the south, Chapel Hill is a particular school that has many students with southern accents. This is due to the fact that the environment around them might have that same accent, as well. Accents are also a way of telling if a person is able to speak a different language. If a person learns Spanish as their first language and then English as their second, then a Spanish accent would come about when they were speaking English. The same goes with vice-versa. But have you ever heard of a person who speaks two languages fluently and has no accent at all, where there is influence on the speech from both nations equally?
Meet Carmen, who can speak Spanish and English fluently with no accent whatsoever. She was born in Charlotte , North Carolina and was raised by an American mother and a Guatemalan father. Her mother's parents were missionaries in Latin American countries so her mother can speak Spanish and English fluently also with no accent, but her father has a Spanish accent when he speaks English. Carmen lived in Charlotte until she was three, only speaking Spanish with her parents, and then moved to Guatemala . While she was in Guatemala , she spoke English at home and at her school, but because she was living in a Spanish-speaking country and many of her relatives could not speak English, she was forced to use Spanish just as much. She moved back to the United States when she was twelve years old, where she attended a middle school where the classes were taught in both Spanish and English. When she got to high school, she had only one class that was in Spanish, but every week her family alternates speaking Spanish and English in the house.
Transcription
Conversation with Carmen
Hannah: So Carmen can you please state you full name?
Carmen: Carmen Elizabeth Castanet.
Hannah: Uh, where were you born?
Carmen: I was born in Charlotte , in Presbyterian Hospital , 1989. (Laughs)
Hannah: Um, how old were you when you moved to Guatemala ?
Carmen: I moved to Guatemala when I was three years old.
Hannah: Um and how long did you live there?
Carmen: I lived there for about nine years so I moved back when I was twelve.
Hannah: Um, are either of your parents from Guatemala ?
Carmen: Yes, my father is Guatemalan.
Hannah: Um, and can both your parents speak Spanish?
Carmen: They do both speak Spanish. Um, my mother grew up in a lot of Latin American countries because her parents were missionaries. So she learned Spanish at a young age, as well.
Hannah: Oh. Um, did you grow up with both languages spoken in the house?
Carmen: Technically, my first language spoken was Spanish because my parents wanted me to speak at home whatever the opposite language of the country was to make sure that I learned it well. So Spanish was my first language, but we also, I also spoke English with anyone outside of the house so I learned both simultaneously.
Hannah: Uh, which language did you learn for, for school both in um like before you were three did you learn any English?
Carmen: In school, I learned English only. When we moved to Guatemala , I, for elementary school, learned everything in English at a missionary school and then for middle school went to a completely bilingual school so every subject was in both Spanish and English.
Hannah: Um, in psychology there's a critical period that is um present in people um for languages when they're about six or seven which is the critical period for them to learn languages. Um and did you, do you find this strange that when you were in a Spanish- speaking country um you were six or seven, which is the time of the critical period, and that you don't have an accent?
Carmen: I'm very lucky, I think, to not have an accent, I really hadn't thought about how strange that was until several people have pointed it out to me both that speak Spanish and that speak English, but I think that it has a lot to do with the critical period because people that learn languages later in life can learn to speak it fluently, but still have, you can still tell, they still have a little bit of that accent, either American accent or Spanish accent. But having learned both when I was so young made it so that either one could have been my native language so neither one has an accent.
Hannah: Um do you have any brothers or sisters?
Carmen: I have one brother; he is three years younger than I am; he's fourteen.
Hannah: Um, and did they grow up with you in Guatemala ?
Carmen: Yes. He was born in Charlotte , as well, but when we moved he was only, he wasn't a year old yet; he was about nine months so he really did spend his childhood in Guatemala .
Hannah: Um does he have an accent?
Carmen: His accent is not, not very noticeable. It's a little bit more than mine though because we spoke English at in, in the home so he learned English better than he learned Spanish.
Hannah: Um when you go back to Guatemala , do people say that you have an American accent with your Spanish?
Carmen: It's not that I have an accent, I don't think anybody recognizes, but there are certain just grammatical errors that I make in Spanish that native speakers don't make. Um, but other than that, they don't, I, I've never had anyone tell me that I have an American accent.
Hannah: Um and do you still speak Spanish in your house?
Carmen: Uh every other week we alternate, one week we'll speak Spanish, and then the next week we'll speak English at home to make sure that we don't lose either one.
Hannah: Um and did your parents encourage you and like still do encourage you to speak both languages equally or does one encourage one language more than another?
Carmen: Definitely they uh they both really don't want us to lose it and it's hard because um we, we don't do as well speaking Spanish in the home, we forget a lot of times, but my mom is very very adamant that she doesn't want us to lose our Spanish so we try to work at it as much as possible.
Carmen: Nací en los Estados Unidos en 1989 pero mi familia se mud? a Guatemala cuando tuve tres años, después de la muerte de mi abuela. Vivimos allí por nueve años en la ciudad. Asistí una escuela biligue llamada El Colegio Americano donde cada clase la tomé en inglés y español. Regresamos a Charlotte cuando tuve doce años.
Carmen: I was born in the United States in 1989 but my family moved to Guatemala when I was three years old after the death of my grandmother. We lived there for nine years in the city. I attended a bilingual school called The American High School where each class that I took was in English and Spanish. We returned to Charlotte when I was twelve years old.
Analysis
When I first learned of Carmen's story, I thought that maybe since she's so involved in the American culture and how almost all of her classes are in English, that maybe when she went back to Guatemala , she would have an American accent; however, this is not the case. A study was done by Grace Yeni-Komshian at the University of Maryland in 2000 to test the accents of Korean immigrants, who learned Korean first and English second. Children who had immigrated to the US who had learned to speak Korean between the ages of one and five had no Korean accent when they spoke English. This is exactly the same case with Carmen in that she spoke only Spanish until she was three and then moved to Guatemala where she spoke English too. The result with Carmen was the same as with the experiment: no accents.
The analysis of the critical period is crucial in examining Carmen's anomaly. In 1967, Lenneberg came up with the Critical Period Hypothesis, which says that there is a specific time in a child's life where it is the perfect time to learn a language. If a child is learning more than one language, it is best to have the child learn them both during the critical period. If one language is learned in the critical period and another after the critical period, then one language takes control over another and does not allow an accent for the second language to be present. The critical period ends at puberty, which explains how Carmen, since she learned Spanish and English at the same time in the critical period, does not have one language dominating the other. Since there is no domination, she instead has a perfect accent for both of the languages. Linguists have also discovered that in second language acquisition, as age increases, the ability to become fluent in a language decreases. Because Carmen learned to speak Spanish and English at such an early age, it increased her ability to reach fluency in both much faster.
Another instance in which Carmen's rarity is demonstrated is with a study by James Flege at the University of Alabama . Flege's experiment measured the fluency of individuals who were bilingual with the languages Italian and English. The result of the experiment showed a majority of the speakers had an accent when speaking English; however, there were a group of 18 participants, who had dominance in English, whose foreign accents could not be noticed. According to this study, if Carmen had English dominance when she was growing up, it would still lead to the fact that she has no accent. It's just when Spanish is the dominating language is when an accent is present.
Conclusion: Many studies have shown that Carmen's lack of an accent is very rare and obviously noticeable. Carmen has only been living in the United States for five years and she lived in Guatemala for nine. I believe that eventually, when speaking Spanish, Carmen will develop an American accent because her English will more and more dominate her life. I just hope that she practices her Spanish more and more to avoid this and instead embrace her rarity.
Hello my name is Hannah Settle. I was born in Decatur Illinois and lived there for 18 months and then my parents and I moved to Charlotte. We have been living there ever since. I have been taking Spanish since preschool, but I am not fluent, but am very experienced. I have been to other countries, but not ones where I could practice my Spanish. I have been to England, France, and Italy. I am pretty good with technology, but if something is new to me in technology it takes an extra little bit of time to get the hang of it. I used to play the piano and the drums, both for 2 years, but I lost patience and quit them both. I am able to sing pretty well and have been in plays where I needed to sing. I love performing in plays and have been in plays since middle school where our school actually won the award for best play 13 years in a row. In this course, I would love to learn about different time periods and instances that changed language into what it is today. I want to know how certain slang words developed and how certain words instigated others in history. I also want to learn about accents and how a certain age of learning a language can stop you from having an accent. I don't want to be an expert at anything because experts are able to call certain moves and practically can see what will happen, when it happens, and how to win. Expers seem to take the fun out of the game of chess and I think that if I became an expert of something, the fun would be lost from it too.
As being a school of the south, Chapel Hill is a particular school that has many students with southern accents. This is due to the fact that the environment around them might have that same accent, as well. Accents are also a way of telling if a person is able to speak a different language. If a person learns Spanish as their first language and then English as their second, then a Spanish accent would come about when they were speaking English. The same goes with vice-versa. But have you ever heard of a person who speaks two languages fluently and has no accent at all, where there is influence on the speech from both nations equally?
When I first learned of Carmen's story, I thought that maybe since she's so involved in the American culture and how almost all of her classes are in English, that maybe when she went back to Guatemala , she would have an American accent; however, this is not the case. A study was done by Grace Yeni-Komshian at the University of Maryland in 2000 to test the accents of Korean immigrants, who learned Korean first and English second. Children who had immigrated to the US who had learned to speak Korean between the ages of one and five had no Korean accent when they spoke English. This is exactly the same case with Carmen in that she spoke only Spanish until she was three and then moved to Guatemala where she spoke English too. The result with Carmen was the same as with the experiment: no accents.
Hello my name is Hannah Settle. I was born in Decatur Illinois and lived there for 18 months and then my parents and I moved to Charlotte. We have been living there ever since. I have been taking Spanish since preschool, but I am not fluent, but am very experienced. I have been to other countries, but not ones where I could practice my Spanish. I have been to England, France, and Italy. I am pretty good with technology, but if something is new to me in technology it takes an extra little bit of time to get the hang of it. I used to play the piano and the drums, both for 2 years, but I lost patience and quit them both. I am able to sing pretty well and have been in plays where I needed to sing. I love performing in plays and have been in plays since middle school where our school actually won the award for best play 13 years in a row. In this course, I would love to learn about different time periods and instances that changed language into what it is today. I want to know how certain slang words developed and how certain words instigated others in history. I also want to learn about accents and how a certain age of learning a language can stop you from having an accent. I don't want to be an expert at anything because experts are able to call certain moves and practically can see what will happen, when it happens, and how to win. Expers seem to take the fun out of the game of chess and I think that if I became an expert of something, the fun would be lost from it too.