Is there such a thing as a neutral English accent?

[rdearman]

I believe, he would sound just like his three best mates because children try to adapt to their peer group.

[Axon]

I don't think there's any way to actually get an equal mix of accents in input. Even if somehow all the media is controlled to be perfectly equal, the child is obviously going to remember some lessons or materials more than others and those are the accents that will stick in their brain.

I've discussed with other ESL teachers the concept of the "English Teacher Accent," a sort of "corruption" of one's native accent thanks to years of living in a non-English environment and using teaching materials from all over the Anglosphere. That's far from a "neutral" English because what happens is just a mix of pronunciations and usages for different words - often inconsistently. Actually it reminds me of my boss, a guy who grew up speaking and interchanging two of the main dialects of Southwestern Mandarin. When he speaks what he calls "dialect" I can clearly hear features of both Chengdu dialect and Kunming dialect used right after the other - not some sort of phonetic middle ground.

I have one student who takes classes with me, an American, then goes home and writes down all the vocabulary from the lesson in IPA with RP pronunciation. If I ask her to produce a word without me saying it first, she often defaults to RP, but as soon as she hears me saying it once she adopts my accent.

[rdearman]

I believe, he would sound just like his three best mates because children try to adapt to their peer group.

His best three mates are American, British, and Irish!

In that case the accent will be the one of the dominant peer group member.

[devilyoudont]

My experience: I am an English native speaker, and I grew up speaking 2 dialects of English. If someone speaks to me in a dialect I speak, I respond in it, and otherwise I use the higher prestige dialect. Most people from my background are this way. There was no drift towards a natural medium.

[Speakeasy]

Which Accent?
+25% American
+25% Irish
+25% British
+25% Australians
------------------------------------
= 100% Newfoundland accent

+ rhotic (100%)
+ non-rhotic (-100%)
+ semi-rhotic (50%)
--------------------------
= semi-rhotic (50%)

What about his vowels?
a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes y.

Source: The Dialect Atlas of Newfoundland & Labrador
http://dialectatlas.mun.ca/about/