New Accents
by Ouyang YuPrescribed for HSC English 2024–2027 (NESA) · Last reviewed New Accents is a poem by Chinese-Australian writer Ouyang Yu that reflects on the mispronunciations and struggles of Chinese immigrants learning English in 1990s Australia.
Summary
New Accents is a poem by Chinese-Australian writer Ouyang Yu that reflects on the mispronunciations and struggles of Chinese immigrants learning English in 1990s Australia. For the HSC, it is studied in Module A: Language, Identity and Culture as part of the Contemporary Asian Australian Poets anthology.
Overview
Throughout his New Accents, Ouyang Yu reflects cynically on his encounters with Chinese immigrants in the 1990s. He moves from recalling their mispronunciations with a tone of light-hearted jest, ‘Neechosen Street’ (instead of Nicholson) to doing so with more resentment and frustration, as encapsulated by the ironic mispronunciation of ‘English’ as ‘Anguish’ – anguish is exactly what the poet knows the Chinese immigrants must feel because of their circumstances, and it is what he feels for them too.
The poem ends with Yu confessing that he too was a victim of mispronunciation: he lost his place in a Master of Arts at university because of his difficulty with English. He believes this to be not just a loss for himself, but for the university too, which speaks to his awareness of the value migrants such as himself have in Australian society, as well as just how high the stakes are for those who emigrate from foreign countries.
Indeed, while Yu speaks of the Chinese immigrants with a tone of frustration, it is important to consider how much of this is shaped by his own personal circumstances. It is probable that he is projecting his own bitterness and the pain he experienced during his immigration process onto those whom he encounters.
Context
Ouyang Yu was born in Huangzhou, China, in 1955 and migrated to Australia in 1991 to undertake doctoral study in Melbourne. He has since become one of Australia's most prolific bilingual writers, publishing poetry, fiction and translation in both English and Chinese, and founding the Chinese-language literary journal Otherland. He arrived at a time when many Chinese students and migrants were building new lives in Australia, and his early poetry records the frictions of that experience: accent, mispronunciation and the daily labour of being understood. New Accents appears in Contemporary Asian Australian Poets (2013), an anthology of writers of Asian heritage exploring identity, migration and belonging. Yu's blunt, ironic voice challenges the celebratory story Australia often tells about multiculturalism, making the poem a sharp fit for Module A's focus on how language shapes and reflects identity and culture.
Cultural Assumptions
Turbulence of Assimilation
Yu’s poem represents his struggle to grapple with the often traumatic and distressing process and consequences of assimilation. He rejects the token multiculturalism of Australia, and instead explores the constant ‘othering’ migrants are subject to. He resentfully reflects on the way in which migrants are deprived of opportunities because of their disadvantage, but at the same time are burdened with prejudiced expectations that ensure they will fail, or at the very least struggle even more intensely.
Quote Table
“What a wonderful Anguish that I’ve spent all these years / Labouring on, with myself, with my students”
- Technique
- Pun, Anaphora, Accumulation
- Idea
- Perspective on and relationship with language, Collective experience
“Some would say veg-ee-table …”
- Technique
- Phonetic breakdown
- Idea
- Cultural perspectives and experience of language
“They lost in a genius in me / with their English / And my Anguish”
- Technique
- Rhyme, Pun, Juxtaposition
- Idea
- Cultural position of and perspective on language, Perspectives on Australian multiculturalism
“The people I met constantly spoke English / With new accents”
- Technique
- Juxtaposition
- Idea
- Australian multiculturalism, Changing nature of language
“Anguish”
- Technique
- Repetition, Irony, Pun
- Idea
- Cultural position of language, Language as cultural barrier
“P” and “C”
- Technique
- Abbreviation
- Idea
- Universal experience of assimilation and its cultural impact
More Contemporary Asian Australian poetry
Contemporary Asian Australian Poets - Visual Aid
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| Themes |
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| Context |
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| Quotes: Nostalgia, Memory and Storytelling and their Ability to Shape Identity |
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Frequently Asked Questions
- Which module is New Accents studied in for the HSC?
- New Accents is studied in HSC English Module A: Language, Identity and Culture as part of the Contemporary Asian Australian Poets anthology.
- Who wrote New Accents?
- New Accents was written by Ouyang Yu, a Chinese-Australian poet who migrated from China to Melbourne in 1991 and writes in both English and Chinese.
- What is New Accents about?
- The poem records Ouyang Yu's encounters with Chinese immigrants in the 1990s, moving from light-hearted jest about mispronunciations to frustration at the anguish migrants experience, including his own loss of a university place because of his difficulty with English.
- What are the main themes of New Accents?
- The poem explores the turbulence of assimilation, the constant othering of migrants, the gap between token multiculturalism and lived experience, and the way language can both exclude and define identity.
Same module
More Module A texts
- Asian Australian Poetry
- Bush Studies and Inside My Mother
- John Donne & Margaret Edson's W;t
- Frankenstein and Blade Runner
- Hamlet and Emily Dickinson
- Julius Caesar and The Prince
- Keats and Bright Star
- Richard III and Looking for Richard
- Lawson Stories
- Miss Peony
- Mrs Dalloway and The Hours
- Plath & Hughes Poetry
- Pride and Prejudice and Letters to Alice
- Shafana and Aunt Sarrinah
- Swallow the Air
- Tempest and Hag-Seed
- The Castle
- The Namesake
- The Collected Poems (selected) - Langston Hughes
- The Perseverance - Raymond Antrobus
- Blake and Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead
- The Quiet Girl
- Unpolished Gem
- All Module A texts
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