For many university students, accent-based anxiety is a real issue, according to a report on accents and social mobility for the Sutton Trust. Over a third of the students surveyed felt self-conscious about their accent and 47% said their accent had been mocked or criticised in a social setting. This, in turn, affected the students’ willingness to speak up in seminars and workshops – as they were worried their accents would be perceived as a sign of low intelligence, leading to them being taken less seriously.
“Urban accents across the UK are associated with a lack of education… which isn’t true,” says Dr Esther Asprey, who specializes in West Midlands dialects at the University of Wolverhampton. Such stereotypes have their roots in the industrial revolution, when people moved to cities for jobs in factories. These prejudices mean that accent changes are a common experience for many people, with some linguists dubbing the UK as having a “hierarchy of accents.”
This hierarchy is divided according to socioeconomic class, with accents from industrialized urban areas being unfairly viewed as low status. Sociolinguistics expert Dr Amanda Cole believes that accent prejudice reflects societal prejudice. For instance, Germany has a distinct regional accent hierarchy; this country like the UK also associates specific accents with lower socio-economic status.
Though some signs of improvement are present and several initiatives such as Accent Bias Britain, Speak For Yerself, and Accentism Project have been set up to raise awareness of accent bias, this prejudice is deeply entrenched. Awareness-raising about accent bias has been found to decrease the impact of this prejudice in settings like hiring. More long-term investment is needed alongside such initiatives to curb accent bias attitudes
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