Rob – The Accentism Project

Ruth

Growing up in Dudley in the 70s and 80s it was made clear to us at school that if we spoke with a Black Country accent that was wrong – punishments were given for using non-standard dialect such as “bae” and “dae” or saying ‘buz’ not ‘bus’. Furthermore, we were also told that if we spoke like our parents we wouldn’t get jobs – this was in the era when the steelworks were closed and the pits were closing. The education authority’s answer was to introduce the “Dudley Choral Speaking and Elocution Competition” – classes from primaries competing in how they learnt and recited various poems (Edward Lear and Kipling were much favoured) and individuals reading inspiring speeches. It was a big annual event: coaches to the town hall, the Express and Star newspaper covering it all, and lots of proud parents. I stopped “dropping my H’s” and forgot my dialect, as did many of my generation.

The “use Standard English” message was reinforced on reaching Uni -apply North, not anywhere South (you wouldn’t fit in). The world seemed full of RP speakers, and we all wanted to fit in. When I started teacher training the ‘SE and RP’ only message was made more explicit: to be a good role model you had to “speak properly”, which certainly didn’t mean revealing any Black Country origins – pupils would never listen to you if you did. After all, it was common knowledge that Brummie and Black Country (usually seen as the same by outsiders) were the most disliked accents in the UK and associated with lack of education. It was years before I questioned whether this was true in practice, and have come to see that children love to “latch onto” the distinctive ways in which their teachers speak and are fascinated by variety. Although I absolutely accept that sometimes differences in accent and dialect can form barrier to communication, I feel that this is rare and I truly wish I had retained more of my language identity.

Leeds Lad

I can’t count the number of times I’ve been mid conversation with someone and I’m interrupted with something along the lines of ‘wow, you’re actually really well educated/intelligent’. Or the presumption that I’m from a council estate solely because of the way I speak.

Alf

I discovered this site due to the Radio 4 programme ‘Antisocial’.

I live in Sheffield but I’m originally from Fulham, London. I’ve retained what might be described as a working class accent (possibly referred to as estuary english). The question of how I speak, the learning curve that has followed me since my teens, has informed and lead me to certain conclusions about the things that shape and define us. Although my youth and the years that followed were a series of doors opening and closing, I discovered that what matters in intent, it’s the single most valuable quality that we all share, so the use of colloquial language, while understandable, is just a way of conveying a feeling or description. What matters is sincerity and a willingness to share whatever it is that we feel matters.

Within the above I’ve also been aware of the use of swearing as a means of articulation and emphasis. Often, for many of us, the absence of a university education with the supposed benefits this is meant to bring is replaced by the use of what is sometimes called ‘bad language’. I find this term reprehensible as it assumes far too much. The use of a racist or misogynist phrase is bad language, but the use of a swear word, as long as it’s not meant to convey a threat or violence, should be accepted as easily as we accept what’s called ‘received pronunciation’.

My journey has been an interesting one, from a working class kid with no idea about what the future holds to being a journalist for high end publications and newspapers. There’s far more than that brief summary but it explains what path I’ve followed and the impact this has had on me emotionally and socially. Language, to a greater degree, is what defines us, but intellectually we are a mix of experience and the social and moral elements that shape us.

Amelia

From the north east of england bullied by the north west. Mostly the way I say “sure” and “coke”. Just got told a bully “hates my northern dialect”. Wish I didn’t receive this disrespect in 2024…..
Been rejected to speak and kicked to the kerb.

Chav

I was told “the trouble with you is that when you open your mouth people think you’re stupid”. I come from Dagenham.

Lea

My accent clearly reflects my personal history. An army brat born in Germany of an Ayrshire mum and a Black Country dad, we settled in County Durham when my dad left the army when I was 7. As an adult I moved to Merseyside living on the border between Scouse and Lancashire accents (Living on the Lancashire side and working on the Scouse side for 20 years). It’s definitely Northern English-ish but using masses of dialect words picked up from my parents and squaddie phrases from all over the place.

Throughout my life I have always been accused of being the outsider, the “other”. Northerners call me a Southerner, Southerners call me a Geordie, Scousers call me a “Woolyback” Teessiders call me a Scouser and the people of St Helens, where I live, accuse me of trying to put on a posh accent!

The worst thing is, whatever people assume my accent to be, they always perceive it to be false and condescending, that I am trying to appear superior. Nothing could be further from the truth. Because of this I have spent most of my life not saying much in public and I truly believe that it has been a major contributory factor to the social phobia that I now suffer from.

I love my voice because it’s a reflection of me – my family background, my upbringing, my life journey and I won’t be changing it. My mum did that when she moved to England because her Scots was too broad and now feels like she has lost a vital part of her identity.

Annie

I am not officially a Geordie as far as the rules go of being born in sight of the Tyne, my home town is 20 mins from Newcastle but on the Northumbria border, however I did grow up with a mild ‘Geordie’ accent. I say mild because my mother wouldn’t allow us to speak like some of my relatives who had much stronger accents/dialect. We said talk rhyming with walk, whereas they rhymed it with talc. Of course, I said whey aye and whey na and I divntna….. but my accent was softer and more restrained around my mam.

I was never aware of my accent or in particular my strong vowels till I moved to Spain to work as an au pair, my host was an English teacher and as I switched from Spanish to English, she burst out laughing and said how much deeper my voice sounded. That was the beginning of my awareness of my accent and that it wasn’t necessary a good thing.

Marrying my southerner husband, living in London, teaching in Kent , being surrounded by people, adults and children who openly laughed at the way I prounounced things meant that I changed the way I spoke, there are certain vowel sounds I cannot change and wouldn’t want to (book, poor, sure) but I have also found that I have lost the ability to form other sounds I grew up saying.

I now live in Germany and teach English in a secondary school. I am very aware of the need to be neutral for the sake of the students but I have had many discussions with German collegues about standard English pronunciation and grammar.

I have always been very proud of where I come from but my friends back home rib me for my posh accent.

I am angry that I was made to feel stupid for how I sounded and that I felt I had to change my accent to fit in and that there was and still is a perception of the ‘right’ English to speak. My daughter is even more annoyed as she loves Geordie accents, and wishes I still sounded like the rest of my family, she lays on her best northern vowels when her southern grandparents come to visit!

Ana

I am a Spanish national who moved to the UK almost 30 years ago and I am proud of the level of fluency I have achieved in my English. In the early years I lived in Scotland (married a Scot) and for a few years I lived in the Midlands. I have always loved diverse accents and for the last 22 years I’ve lived in rural Wales.

English was my favourite subject in school and although at the end of school I was able to string sentences together, I credit my fluency to lots of reading, listening and being immersed in the language and culture while studying, working and living in the UK. I also believe my acute hearing has contributed significantly.

Recently I have reflected on how hard I consciously or unconsciously worked on my accent so I was not seen as an oddity or labelled with the stereotypes generally given to my compatriots. This manifests in how I speak and how I conduct myself, to the point that perhaps I have eroded my own identity as a Spaniard. When I meet people they’re often surprised to hear English is not my first language or they say they can’t place my accent. My own family often comment how I’ve become very ‘anglicised’ which may not be a compliment.

Yojimbo

I was born in the 1950s in Glasgow so I am part of a generation who learned the language from parents born in the 1930s and grandparents born in the 1900s. As a result my early speech would be considered very broad Glaswegian by today’s standards. I was made acutely however aware from my earliest years of the undesirability of this accent by the same relatives who modelled it. Their good intentions ensured that I was careful to speak standard English at home in a way which would have invited utter ridicule amongst my school friends. Over time my speech became consistently more standard in terms although I retained my West of Scotland accent. This seemed to be a successful strategy until two incidents made me wonder. The first came in my early 50s. I visited a teaching camp for Spaniards learning English as one of the volunteer English coaches along with speakers from all over the English speaking world. At the end of the week one of my fellow attendees from Spain confessed that none of her compatriots wanted to be paired with me because I was too difficult to understand. I was more upset though to hear my fellow English speakers from North America, Australasia, Africa and even England itself agree that they found me equally unintelligible. I was quietly offended and dubious until I met my partner from Dumfries and Galloway a few years later, who proclaimed me ‘the most Glaswegian person’ she’d ever met. I highly doubt this however my attempts at standardising my accent clearly haven’t been as successful as I thought. I am at an age now, or I live in an age, where I no longer feel the need to change.