Far beyond "pronunciation" ...

A lot of people think accent is all about pronunciation, but beyond all of the elements that make up an accent (like word stress and intonation), there's also the concept of "communicative competence." Those of us who studied TESOL know that this concept has 4 components: 1) grammatical competence, 2) socio-linguistic, 3)discourse, and 4) strategic.

For non-native speakers who have lived in the US for many years, this is less of an issue, and it truly is about "accent," that is speaking clearly in terms of the traditional components that make up an accent, but for those living in other countries, the concept of "communicative competence" takes precedence.

Especially in countries where English is learned at a young age, yet the majority don't use English socially or in informal conversation, like India, communicative competence is a major concern. In fact, a good accent can mask other issues ( such as limited comprehension), leading a listener to think the "interlocutor" (or speech partner)understood, when in fact, s/he did not ( or perhaps not completely).

The broader issue is whether or not communicative competence can be achieved if the non-native speaker does not come to live in an English speaking country (like the US) for a period of time. The question becomes "Is communicative competence teachable?" Some people learn better (and faster) than others, and obviously factors like age ( younger people tend to learn faster ) and exposure (like immersion programs) can mimic actually living in another country, but how does one learn to be "communicatively competent." Is it just too broad? Wouldn't it take a lifetime?

The other issue is measurability. How can we judge how communicatively competent someone is? Do we develop a "test" they can take and how do you compare the end results to where they started from? An unbiased third-party native speaker will, in all likelihood, be able to notice the difference in terms of their comfort level talking to the person, but is that a valid way to judge? And if it is, think of how time consuming the process to measure it could be, having multiple native speakers talking to each person for an extended period of time in an effort to discern what they can or cannot understand and respond intelligibly (and appropriately) to in natural conversation.

And realistically, would anyone be willing to invest in such a service? Isn't it just easier to send people to live in the target country where the language is spoken for some period of time prior to expecting the employee to perform with communicative competence when addressing those from that culture? It appears that as all-consuming as communicative competence is, it would also change substantially depending on the culture the target language is spoken in, implying that to work in a BPO in India successfully, one would have to be "communicatively competent" in British, American & Australian English, just to name a few.

Although fraught with difficulties in implementation and evaluation, at least we can begin to see that this concept of "communicative competence" extends far beyond pronunciation so that modifying an accent, while desirable in some cases, is only scratching the surface of the wider global issue of communicating in culturally appropriate and effective ways that allow everyone to resolve issues and conduct business successfully around the world.