3 Responses for "Read Michael’s OhMyNews Article: “오바마의 인기가 백인 말투 때문이라고?”"

1. Dreamax February 27th, 2008 at 10:11 am 1

   Well, first I want to say that I agreed most of your opinion in Ohmynews today. however I just want to know you’re thinking about being black in USA.

   As far as I understand, many of undereducated, untrained, and under-middle class african american use different english compared with the well-educated (those who had a chanse to go to college) african american, who use almost same english that I heard from white (cause I’m native korean, I can’t distinguish minor accent).

   I’m not sure why they are using different words, different expression, and different accent, however one thing I know is many american judge someone by english he uses. Therefore I originally thought that many african american are trying to say like being white specifically in their wor, and it makes them looking professional, well-educated and polite people.

2. SJ February 27th, 2008 at 10:39 am 2

   I read your article in the ohmynews.
   I agreed your opinions strongly.

   I have been thinking that there is big differences between while’s English and Black’s English. When I was in US Arny as a KASUSA soldier, I didn’t understand black’s English.
   Of course that’s why my English was not good.

   Through your article I realized that my thought was wrong and not reasonable.

   Thank you and I’d like to meet you if you are OK.
   I’m studying in Finland, I will go back to Korea next month. Also your English materials are good to learn English futhermore for free !

   p.s I registered here to get a membership, but I didn’t get password from here by an e-mail. How can I get that? Let me know the way.

   Bye

3. Jong March 5th, 2008 at 8:30 pm 3

   Thank you for the good point of view!
   I also want to know what are widely shared feelings about different english accents in US. ex: Texan accent, African-American accent, Korean accent, etc. I think we actually don’t know much of it, and I admit that African-American accent doesn’t have very good reputation in Korea. Of course it should be changed as it is a kind of prejudice.

   And I also want to introduce my thoughts about the accents, too. This is a kind of self confession, and I hope to listen to more personal feelings on the accent.

   Frankly speaking, I also had prejudice about African-american accent. I thought it is too strong and never sophisticated. (I also thought Black French accent was terrible and noisy. These images made a bad synergy ensemble.)

   This may be due to the images we accepted from the movies. You know, in movies, black guyz had often been described as gangsters or hip-hop boys. This seems recently being changed and as more as we get positive images from the movies and news, our stereotype must be changed along.

   More I wonder about the existence of the golden rule of valuation in our brain, more I am for the relative valuation by the culture and environment. It’s all about image. Simply assume that English royal family has used the actual African-American accent. Who would have a bad conclusion about the accent?

   We may need a scientific research to get the conclusion. But even if the research would reveal that there is actually a golden rule for the preference of accent, we still can not disregard the images we create.