I’m from Stoke on Trent. In one of my first seminars at university, I answered a question for the lecturer and a girl sat behind me said ‘that girl’s accent makes me feel sick’ (she didn’t even try to whisper). I’ve received a lot of prejudice at University mainly for my accent and dialect. Even certain lecturers have mocked the way I pronounce words, such as ‘book’ with a rather fronted GOOSE vowel, as opposed to the more standard STRUT/FOOT vowel for this word.
Tag: education
Enrique
My best friend is from Menorca. Her native language is Catalan. We both went to uni in Barcelona. The Catalan variety of Menorca is quite different from Barcelona’s, which is considered “the standard”. She had to give a presentation for a pragmatics course. After she gave the presentation, one of the FOUNDERS of the linguistics department (first linguistics department in Spain) told her: “you probably did very good, but I didn’t understand much”. I (and the rest of the students) understood her perfectly fine.
Edith
I was once marked down by a lecturer in Austria for speaking with a Yorkshire accent instead of RP in an EFL class. English is not my native language. Now I have a Welsh accent from when I did my PhD in dialectology at Swansea University. I’m proud of it.
Sally
I remember being so happy I’d made a friend on my first day at uni. Later that day I heard her mocking the way I said ‘cake’ (in my Yorkshire accent) to another student.