He gets everyone to agree.
Warm, charming, funny, intimidating… A person’s accent influences their image to others. Listening to him, the brain works and analyzes the words it hears, forming a subconscious opinion of this person. A new study conducted by SpaSeekers reveals that some accents are more calming than others. One, in particular, is said to be the most relaxing in the world. “There are a number of different factors that can affect how relaxing we perceive an accent to be. For example, there are trends in how ‘relaxing’ an accent is versus how ‘friendly’ it is.” explains one of the authors of the study, Dr Chris Montogomery, lecturer in dialectology.
The researchers conducted a survey of 1,500 people. They were asked to rate each accent on the following factors: relaxing to non-relaxing, easy to difficult to follow, and friendly to hostile. First surprise, among the 10 most relaxing accents in the world, 40% come from European countries. In the top 5, we find Spanish accents (36% of votes) and New Zealand accents (37%) respectively in fifth and fourth position. The French language, renowned for its charming accent, arrives on the podium of the most relaxing accents. Her intonation and soft consonants place her in third position, with 38% of the votes. In second place we find the Australian accent, G’day mate! This accent is recognized for its absence of strong pronunciation of the “r” – we are talking about a “non-rhotic” language (like standard British English) – and the use of inflection at the end of sentences. In Australian, sentences often resemble questions.
At the top of the podium SpaSeekers, on the first step, the most relaxing accent for 41% of those questioned is none other than the Italian accent. This accent, because of its intonation and variable rhythm, has the reputation of being melodic, “musical” or molto melodico ! The Italian accent is therefore considered calming for most people. Grazie and presto!