Is It Important for Nonnative Speakers to Lose their Accents?

From the Marshall Memo #444

In this article in Foreign Language Annals, University of Utah professors Rachel Hayes-Harb and Johanna Watzinger-Tharp sum up their study of whether having a “foreign accent” affects being understood by a native speaker. “Although nonnative speakers often strive to ‘overcome’ their accents,” say the authors, “they should be reassured that an accent in and of itself does not necessarily pose an obstacle to intelligibility. In fact, a nonnative accent signals to listeners that the interlocutor’s speech will contain features that are different from their own. A similar process takes place, of course, when native speakers with different regional or national accents interact with each other… More generally, learners may benefit from understanding that in a communicative exchange, both listener and speaker share the communicative burden regardless of native/nonnative status. Such awareness has the potential to empower the language learner not only to assume a more ‘equal’ role with the listener, but also to accommodate the speech of the interlocutor, who of course is also a speaker with his or her own accent, in order to achieve successful communication.” 

“Accent, Intelligibility, and the Role of the Listener: Perceptions of English-Accented German by Native German Speakers” by Rachel Hayes-Harb and Johanna Watzinger-Tharp in Foreign Language Annals, Summer 2012 (Vol. 45, #2, p. 260-282), 

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1944-9720.2012.01190.x...