What is “Accent Reduction”? And Why I Don’t Use That Term
What is “Accent Reduction”? And Why I Don’t Use That Term
December 8, 2025
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One of the most difficult tasks I’ve encountered while building a business as an English teacher who now focuses on teaching American English pronunciation is what to call myself and the work that I do. When I first discovered that accent training was a real service that could be offered to the general public – as opposed to just actors on movie sets – I came across a term that made a lot of sense but felt really wrong to me: “accent reduction.”
What is “Accent Reduction”?
Technically speaking, accent reduction is the process of learning how to speak with a new accent. [1] It could be used by a native English speaker learning to speak with a different regional accent, perhaps because of stigma against the accent they grew up with. It can also be used by a non-native English speaker who wants to sound like a native speaker from a specific country or region, without their first-language accent being so noticeable.
While these explanations relate to the work that I do, I have never liked the term “accent reduction” or the associated “accent elimination” because they give the impression that the person’s original accent is so undesirable that it must be reduced or eliminated and replaced by a more favorable or acceptable accent.
These terms give off highly discriminatory vibes, which I absolutely do not agree with. As a multilingual person living outside my birth country, I know the pain of being judged for my inability to speak an additional language fluently with the local accent. So that type of elitist thinking has no place in my teaching.
I kept seeing this term pop up online though, and I started to wonder if it was considered outdated or actually still used by teachers and coaches.
According to the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, the governing body for speech-language pathologists and other communication-related medical practitioners in the U.S., the terms “accent reduction” and “accent elimination” are no longer preferred by researchers and practitioners, with new terms like “accent modification,” “accent coaching,” and “pronunciation training” becoming more popular. [2]
I’m so glad that the industry is starting to change the terminology used to talk about this type of training, but that still doesn’t fully solve my problem of how to talk about the work I do.
Why I Call Myself an American Accent Coach
In the past, when I would meet someone new and they inevitably asked me what I did for work, I used to say that I was an “English Pronunciation & Communication Coach.” But that really didn’t flow off my tongue. The title was too long, and people often wondered which English accent I focused on with my pronunciation teaching. Since I live in Germany, the assumption was often British English.
I decided I needed a shorter, more concise title that mentioned which accent I focused on. So I started calling myself an American Accent Coach.
But lately people have been asking me which American accent I teach. Boston? The Bronx? Southern? Texan?
While I know the features that distinguish those accents and can replicate most of them if I have a script to work with, I’m not well versed in regional American accents. And more importantly, I’m not a dialect coach.
What’s a Dialect Coach?
The title “dialect coach” is typically used by people who teach actors (but sometimes “normal” people) how to speak with a specific accent. That specific accent could be more general like an accent from a region of a country, but it could be as specific as sounding like a single person, real or fictional, who has their own mannerisms and speech patterns that affect how they sound.
When you think of someone working on set with an actor to play a character with a different accent than their own, you’re thinking of a dialect coach. And while I love working with performers because of my singing and acting background, I’m not a dialect coach because I don’t teach a variety of accents. And I’ve never been on a TV or movie set, sadly.
So What Do I Teach?
I teach American English pronunciation based on the General American accent (GA for short). GA is technically the “umbrella accent of American English used by a majority of Americans, encompassing a continuum rather than a single unified accent.” [3]
A fairly standardized “neutral” American accent has long been used by TV news anchors, presenters, politicians, and actors who want to be easily understood by as many people as possible, without being identified as hailing from a specific region of the U.S.
This “broadcast accent” is what most people think of when they think of GA or a neutral American accent because it’s so easily recognizable worldwide thanks to the vast amount of audio and video content online that showcases people speaking with this accent.
Many people in the U.S., especially where I grew up in the Midwest, think that they don’t have an accent when they speak because they naturally speak with a form of GA. However, the truth is that “everyone speaks with an accent; it is as impossible to speak without an accent as to speak without making sounds.” [4]
But because this style of speech has become so common, even being acquired by younger generations growing up in regions of the U.S. known for distinct regional accents, it’s starting to feel like GA is “unaccented” when compared to other accents of English.
Using General American as a Guide, Not a Rule
Despite using GA as a guide or framework, I don’t stick to a strict interpretation of GA in my teaching for a few reasons.
1. There isn’t one single GA accent.
As previously established, there is no such thing as a true “General American” accent. To keep things simple, I usually say that I teach a neutral American accent. This helps me clarify that I don’t teach a variety of accents or specific regional accents like a Texas accent or Boston accent.
I focus more on a set of sounds and speech characteristics that are typical of most American (and even Canadian) accents and that clearly set them apart from the accents of other English-speaking countries like the U.K. and Australia.
2. Sounding 100% American is (almost) never the goal or even possible.
I primarily work with non-native English speakers who already speak English at an intermediate or advanced level but want to improve their pronunciation and verbal communication skills, using an American accent as their goal accent.
- Some of my students live in the U.S. and want to feel a greater sense of belonging in their communities.
- Others live outside the U.S. but work with American coworkers and clients and want to feel more confident when speaking with Americans all day.
- And some don’t really interact with Americans often, but they don’t want their accent from their first language to come through in their English communication anymore. They simply like American accents and want to sound more American when they speak.
Very few of my students want to sound completely American when they talk. They are more interested in improving their speaking skills on the whole and feeling a greater sense of confidence and ease when communicating in English.
They also have busy lives that don’t allow for a lot of practice time between sessions, which means that it will take longer for them to change their pronunciation than someone – like an actor – who can spend a lot more dedicated time practicing.
It’s also challenging to maintain the new accent 100% of the time in spontaneous speech, which means that even for the rare few students who eventually sound like they grew up down the street from me in Wisconsin, there will always be a few tiny sounds or habits that slip back into their speech that Americans wouldn’t use.
The reason why actors can much more consistently produce a “perfect” accent in a series or movie is because they’re working with a script. They can fine-tune those pre-written words and memorize the sounds, feelings, and patterns necessary to stay in that accent. But if you asked them a random question over lunch one day, they’d probably struggle to maintain the accent in spontaneous speech.
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3. Accent diversity is far more interesting than everyone sounding the same.
I don’t teach American English pronunciation because I think everyone should sound the same. Far from it! I love accents of all kinds, and not just in English. When I speak Spanish with my friends from Madrid, I slide into their local accent. When I lived in Mexico, I ended up sounding like my friends and coworkers there.
No one should ever pressure you into feeling like you need to change the way you sound. You learned English to be able to communicate with new people, to travel, or to get a specific job. If you struggle to be understood when you speak, then working on a few key sounds from an English accent of your choosing will help to ensure that you can communicate more easily with others.
But no accent is better than another, and that includes non-native English accents. Accent coaching is a great option for people who want to feel more confident when speaking English, but the important thing is that it’s your choice to make, whether you change the way you sound or not.
Providing a Service That People Are Looking For
Most English teachers don’t even know how to teach pronunciation, so they just don’t. But pronunciation is a big part of spoken language, not just in terms of being easily understood but also being a better listener who can tune into the sounds of others.
After teaching English around the world for more than 10 years, I realized that all of my students wanted the same thing: to feel as capable and confident communicating in English as they do in their first language. Pronunciation was often the missing piece to get them to that goal, which is why I began to focus my teaching on this often overlooked aspect of language.
I’m still not sure if I’ll always call myself an American Accent Coach who provides “accent training” or “pronunciation training.” But for now, these are pretty clear terms that indicate what I do and align much better with my personal values and beliefs about languages and accents than those outdated terms like “accent reduction.”
