Insight into an Acquired Accent of Maritime English Learners

Abstract

The target audience of this article is Maritime English teachers. We have been researching students’ pronunciation before and after a shipboard training in multinational crews. We described the phenomena: The students after a long (approximately 6 months’ shipboard training at sea) returned in the English lecture room with a new acquired accent. From the planed interviews with the surveyed we got information about the national composition of the multinational crews. Then we analyzed information about the peculiar properties of these nations’ pronunciation. We also studied the features that form an accent in English of the Ukrainians. We claim that the theory of converge (make their speech similar to the style of their addressee) and diverge (make their speech different to the style of their addressee) can explain the accent of the students after the shipboard training in a multinational crew. But we assert that inaccuracies in the pronunciation of certain words can distort the accuracy of the utterance and will lead to violations of professional activity. In this connection we consider that any accent in seafarers’ speech has a negative effect on the safety of navigation and seafarers should tend to Standard English pronunciation. Nevertheless, an acquired accent as a result of convergent behavior, have a positive effect in the social-psychological aspect. The research proves that the teachers of Maritime English should: consider the accent as manifestation of ability to use convergence; teach and accept only Standard English especially in the context of safety of navigation; understand the psychological origins of the desire to demonstrate the acquired accent as a manifestation of divergence and skillfully shape the motivation of students to have a standard pronunciation.