When you first meet a person, the visual information you have at hand can suggest a person's origins - the looks of an Asian. Caucasian or African-American would suggest where they may originate or their family history.
When you first hear a person speak, the auditory information you gain can suggest a person's identity - the Aussie accent of one in Africa, the American accent of one in England, or the Scottish accent of one in Hong Kong could suggest where a person is actually from or has spent time.
Genes indeed play a key role in determining looks and one, by looking at me, would most probably be able to easily tell my asian/oriental, if not Chinese, origin. However, accents can be passed on from parents/family or caregivers, learnt from those around like friends/teacher and simply from social interactions. Could one then be able to tell my mixed cultural identity from combining looks and accents?
From experience, it would seem that the combination of looks and accents can indeed tell one a lot. In Hong Kong my spoken Chinese accent alludes the fact that I am a Chinese from overseas (most likely as my Chinese appears to sound like that of a child's at the age of 5 when I first left Hong Kong). In Western countries, my English language alludes the fact that English is a language fluent to me, if not my first language. Whilst the increasing immigration, travels and internationalism has present a greater mix of accents making it more difficult to gain a person's cultural identity from combining looks with accents, it would seem the accents can still represent a person's identity. While my own, for example, sounds American to most English, Australian to most Americans, and an identifiable mix to others, my identity is indeed one that is mixed and intercultural. I take pride in having that undistinguishable mix of an accent that sounds like American with English slang and an Aussie twang.
When you first hear a person speak, the auditory information you gain can suggest a person's identity - the Aussie accent of one in Africa, the American accent of one in England, or the Scottish accent of one in Hong Kong could suggest where a person is actually from or has spent time.
Genes indeed play a key role in determining looks and one, by looking at me, would most probably be able to easily tell my asian/oriental, if not Chinese, origin. However, accents can be passed on from parents/family or caregivers, learnt from those around like friends/teacher and simply from social interactions. Could one then be able to tell my mixed cultural identity from combining looks and accents?
From experience, it would seem that the combination of looks and accents can indeed tell one a lot. In Hong Kong my spoken Chinese accent alludes the fact that I am a Chinese from overseas (most likely as my Chinese appears to sound like that of a child's at the age of 5 when I first left Hong Kong). In Western countries, my English language alludes the fact that English is a language fluent to me, if not my first language. Whilst the increasing immigration, travels and internationalism has present a greater mix of accents making it more difficult to gain a person's cultural identity from combining looks with accents, it would seem the accents can still represent a person's identity. While my own, for example, sounds American to most English, Australian to most Americans, and an identifiable mix to others, my identity is indeed one that is mixed and intercultural. I take pride in having that undistinguishable mix of an accent that sounds like American with English slang and an Aussie twang.
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