Tag: northern

Taz

I’m from the North East and I went to Newcastle University. I thought I would be making friends with fellow northerners, but it was clear straight away that the majority of people at the uni were of a completely different social class from me, and I stood out as one of the few people in my classes who had a regional accent. To be honest, the gaping divides between social classes were more the issue, but I think accentism is a part of that. I felt so self conscious about it that I didn’t dare talk to anyone and so I had a pretty miserable time at uni – until I spent my last semester abroad. Being among other international students, such as those from the US and Canada, Australia and other places in Europe, I finally felt like one of the gang. I was just ‘English’ to everyone else, and not ‘northern’ or of a different class.

After university I moved abroad again to teach English as a foreign language. It was incredibly hard to get out of the habit of slipping into a more southern-sounding accent when teaching, because I’d obviously been conditioned to think that the only acceptable accent to teach was a southern English one. Little by little I managed to stop doing this, and now use my natural accent when teaching. My students literally don’t care, and don’t even know I have a regional accent until I tell them. I can easily model a word in a different accent if they want to hear how someone from X, Y or Z place would say it, and this always makes for really interesting conversations.

Because of all of this, I’ve always felt far more at home abroad than in the south of England. I tried living down south for a while and got really sick of people at work answering my important work-related questions with ‘I love your accent’! Thanks Sharon, but the classroom is on fire and a kid’s just jumped out of the window, can we evaluate accents later?

Alan

I always wanted to study at Oxford and/or Cambridge, but I was born and raised in the North East region of England. I always suspected I would have little chance of passing the entrance interviews if I spoke like my classmates. Even from a young age, the prejudice from ‘down south’ was palpable.

Therefore, I changed my speech to sound southern (and became the linguistic black sheep of the family). In my home town, I was regarded a ‘foreigner’ for my whole childhood. ‘Are you from London?’, someone from school asked me. Yet I was only a couple of miles from my birthplace, where I had loved my whole life.

Changing my accent seemed to work, though: I got my Oxbridge degree and managed to fit in (unlike other with stronger regional accents who, sadly, reported that it was a struggle).

I heard only one example of a North East accent while I was down there: a construction worker.

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.

Joanna

I am a senior academic who has worked in a variety of North West UK Higher Education institutions. A nurse by background, I also studied Linguistics and got a lovely understanding of my rhotic Lancashire accent, of which I am proud. I have avoided changing my accent over the years and this has never seemed to be an issue. I will speak more slowly if being interpreted, or speaking to someone not used to a Lancashire accent, and I’m always happy to chat about accents and dialects.

In the past a small number of people have commented negatively on my accent but this subsided as I became more senior. However recently, two colleagues I respect and work closely with, began to do a Northern accent mimicry of others, or of a tough ‘ee-by-gum’ type situation (neither are Northern). Last week it was directed at me, suggesting in said mock Northern accent, that I was intransigent and feared flexibility. Both individuals taking a turn and finding it hilarious.

I am quite saddened and surprised at the ease of the linguistic prejudice, and the associated intellectual limitations on Northerners that was also suggested in the mimicking process. It makes me wonder about our students and the subliminal prejudice they too face. Would make for a great academic outcomes study.

Jess

I am from North Wales and my accent is reflective of this. Its not what people would identify as a ‘typical Welsh accent.’ Due to the location of where I grew up, North East Wales, my accent sounds similar to that of Chester. I have lived in London for the past five years. The university where I work is not very diverse in terms of regional accents and I am always surprised and happy when I hear one.

This week, I went out for dinner with my sister (who has the same accent as me) and my partner (who is from Chester however was privately educated and has a ‘posh’ accent). When leaving the restaurant, the gentleman sat on the table next to ours stopped my partner and said: ‘Those girls are from the North’ to which he replied: ‘We all are.’  The man said ‘You don’t sound like your from the North’ to my partner, before briefly discussing the area he was from, after which we left.

Although I did find this encounter funny at the time, on reflection there were several elements of the interaction which bothered me. Firstly, as I wouldn’t necessarily think of myself as having a ‘northern’ accent I was surprised that his person picked up on it so much he felt the need to comment on it. Secondly, I wondered what his person hoped to achieve by pointing out our accent. From my perspective, it only made me very conscious about how others noticed and perceived my accent. Possibly he was only interested in learning where we were ‘from.’ However my final thought, and prevailing sense of discomfort about the interaction, was how this person directed the questions to my partner and did not acknowledge my own or my sisters presence. Thus excluding us from a conversation about our own accents. As this was my first direct experience of ‘accentism’ I searched online for others who experienced may have experienced stigma related to ‘northern’ accents and came across this project. Thank you for the opportunity to share my story.

Georgia

I’m from the North East of England (born and raised) and despite my family (who are also all from the North East) and peers having strong northern accents, I don’t; and instead I have an accent that most people sight as being American. This leads to a lot of jokes between me and my friends. I’ve also grown used to people asking me about my accent and where me and my family are from. However, because of my accent being strange it quite frequently made me the target of bullying in primary and secondary school which made me extremely self conscious about the way I talk.

 

Liverpool Lady

Having a scouse (or any regional) accent is seen as being linked to having a working-class background. That’s not the case for me. I speak with a scouse accent and was lucky enough to have a privileged upbringing in an affluent area of Liverpool. I have very middle-class background. But I have still experienced classist comments based on my accent. I’m so proud of being from Liverpool (even if I’m not a ‘proper’ scouser, being from a village further out!). The assumptions and snobbery around accents make me rage.

It wasn’t until I left home to go to uni in the mid-00s that I started to experience people treating me differently because of my accent. This was a uni up north, but RP-speaking students from down south didn’t seem to mind being on ‘our’ turf. My most memorable story of accentism is from when I dated someone from the south east. I went to visit him during the summer holidays and had to meet his group of friends, who were insufferable. One of them didn’t even introduce himself before asking ‘What’s it like living in Liverpool then? I can’t even imagine being in a council house, it must be disgusting?’. I think my jaw hit the floor. Speechless… The guy I was seeing then told his friends that I was ‘actually posher’ than them, which left me in a weird state, wanting to prove to them that accent doesn’t = money/class and what kind of idiot judges people on that anyway? But also wanting play down being ‘posh’ because I didn’t want his group of friends to think I was one of them, a snob who seemed to have a problem with anyone who was different from them. But if I went on a rant about classism then was I a fraud because I wasn’t really working class, just spoke like it in their eyes? I think I made some lame comment about him needing to leave home and get into the real world. I look back now and kick myself for not starting a full-on fight with the whole group of them. One of them is now a Tory MP, just to top it off!

Millie

I grew up in the north so i have a northern accent but my dad and my auntie were brought up to speak ‘proper English’. My auntie would constantly be telling me how to say certain words like ‘baf’ instead of ‘bath’ or ‘half parst’ instead of ‘half past’. She would say the way i spoke sounded ‘common’ and ‘unprofessional’ which really annoyed me cause i couldn’t help it. Luckily people around me had the same accent as me so it didn’t bother me too much.

Shelley

I am an undergraduate at the University of Oxford. I have a strong accent, as I come from Bradford. Since arriving at university, where the vast majority of people’s voices ring with the supposedly dulcet tones of RP, I have constantly experienced problems due to my accent. I have been asked to ‘speak properly’ by tutors when speaking in tutorials. I have been mocked by other students due to my pronunciation of certain words. I have been told that I will never get a job if I do not allow my accent to ‘mellow’- i.e. conform. In a progress meeting with tutors, I was told that my presenting skills needed work. I am a confident and skilled presenter: they just couldn’t understand or wouldn’t try to understand my accent.

Maggie

My husband is from the south east and I am from a northern coastal town. He HATES my accent. At first, I think he thought it was novel and interesting, but now he corrects at least one word from every sentence I utter. My pronunciation of grass/bath is often the target, but recently the way I (have always) not emphasised a ‘t’ at the end of a word absolutely disgusts him. It’s a big issue.

I haven’t experienced this sort of accent annoyance before – I attended a ‘middle class’ university (according to the dean in our welcome speech) and other students found me difficult to understand, or would laugh at everything I said, assuming northerners were all comedians… but no one was ever insulting or derogatory about it to my face. In fact, some of my tutors would make an effort to encourage me to speak and one in particular, who also had a northern accent, would compliment me on the ‘correct’  pronunciation of words!