The Perfect Voice By Carl Elliot

Accent associations “By trying to change your accent, you are rejecting something of who you are” (Elliot). Carl Elliot's article, ”The Perfect Voice" and Raymond Hernandez’s article, "When Accent Becomes an Issue," offer perspectives on the effect of accent on perceptions of class and social status. Both authors describe the connection between identity and job title in relation to accents. However, the author’s opinions differ in that Elliot believes the role of accents is self-presentation whereas Hernandez believes it identify’s class or race. In the article, "The Perfect Voice," Carl Elliot offers perspective about the relationship between a persons accent and the ways society perceives that person. Elliot describes Stephen Hawking, who uses a voice synthesizer, which happened to have an American …show more content…
Others, such as Southerners, are afraid of sounding like hicks, so they revert to transforming their southern accent into a better accent, most of the time an American one. Hawking’s opinions are parallel to two tensions in modern identity of enhancement technology; tension between natural and artificial, and tension between self and self-presentation. An example of the first tension is a computer-generated voice that makes one feel more like themselves and feel better about themselves, just like steroids. Tension between self and self-presentation is tension between the self from the inside and the self as it is presented to others. There is a gap between the two, but Hawking closes the gap by identifying with the American accent and not wanting to go back to his original British accent, if he had a choice. Elliot explains further by saying that an accent is what’s presented to others, not the self as it feels in the inside. Elliot explains the connection between voice and identity by saying, “My voice is always distinctly my voice, but often I will not think of it as such until someone