Language investigation

The first 200 words of this essay...

Language investigation

Introduction

In this investigation I shall be discovering if people feel differently about Received Pronunciation accents and Estuary accents, and whether it makes a difference if the speaker is male or female. I intend to gather opinions on perceived appearance, intelligence levels and personality traits from recorded voices.

Accent: a particular way of pronouncing a language, associated with a country, area, or social class.

OED 1999

The English have no respect for their language, and will not teach their children to speak it...It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth, without making some other Englishman despise him.

George Bernard Shaw, Pygmalion, 1912, Preface

Attitudes to accents have always been strong and vastly different. In times gone by it was the upper classes that could afford good education who ran the country. Most land owners, politicians, doctors and 'Gentlemen' spoke English with a received pronunciation acquired, if not at home, in public schooling. For hundreds of years people have tried to sound like those in a higher social class than them - the Cornish language died out due to acceptance of RP English as 'better'.

To a certain extent