WHILE some people find accents sexy, sophisticated or endearing — like that of a certain governor or some movie stars — many American immigrants said their accents were inhibiting their careers.
Mercedes Woodward, who was born in Guatemala, is the sales executive for Oakwood Worldwide, a corporate housing provider. She has a slip of the tongue every so often. Though for the most part she sounds "American", she did what thousands of other immigrants have done: enrolled in pricey accent reduction classes.
Six months of tongue-twisting diction drills and strenuous mouth exercises paid off for Woodward. With her enunciation more Americanized, she was promoted.
"Even though we are a melting pot, people don't tolerate people having an accent that sometimes is hard to understand," Woodward said. "People get frustrated when they have a lack of communication."
Seizing on the ambitions of many immigrants to fast-track their careers, speech pathologists and dialect coaches charge about $100 a lesson to deliver what has become known as "accent reduction".
"Accent reduction" teaches Brits to enunciate their "r's" after vowels and Spanish speakers not to roll theirs at the beginning of a word. It helps many immigrants enter the American mainstream where they can earn a better living.
Services promising to do away with heavy accents have flourished in US cities like Los Angeles, where a third of the population is foreign born and speaking upward of 100 languages.
Gina Grantis, director of training at Executive Language Training, has watched her company grow tenfold in the past decade. "The demand has increased because there has been a larger influx of immigrants," she said.
Neill D. Hicks runs a low-cost accent reduction class at Los Angeles Mission College. "The gatekeepers tend to be English speakers. Unless you speak English well, you can never be the boss," Hicks said.
But even with hours of practice, the inflections will never truly erode, experts say. They are only concealed, and often not fully.
"Some people don't want to do this ?they feel like they are losing a part of their identity," said Joel Goldes, a self-titled dialect coach. "I don't like to think I am taking away an accent. I am teaching them another."
