“We make an instant and unconscious judgement about a stranger’s class affiliation on the basis of accent”
Most linguists today would favour a descriptive approach and would see language change as in inevitable response to the changing needs of society rather than a change for the better or the worse. As accent only depends on the phonology of language, descriptivists would argue that as long as the other aspects of the dialect are comprehendible the accent could differ in any way at all and would not be an inconvenience to society, as prescriptivists would argue. In the Guardian newspaper in 1999 John Keegan wrote of Jamie Shea…
“It has been a terrible mistake to allow NATO’s case to be presented by Jamie Shea who sounds like the manager of a lower division football club”
In this situation social prejudices are revealed as the journalist outlines his opinion of the Estuary English spoken by Shea, suggesting that his accent restricts his ability to be, or even sound, intelligent. In reality Jamie Shea has an Oxford PhD and speaks fluently in four languages. Despite the most high status and “properly” spoken powerful prescriptivists intended to maintain Standard English it appears that they are fighting a losing battle against a majority whose dialects, including accents, are naturally and inevitably changing with little social prejudice against the wider range of accents heard through the media. Despite there being more acceptance of change on behalf of the descriptivists, unconscious opinions are still made about people regarding their accent and social class, education, occupation and personality. With stereotyping, assumptions are made upon accents and this does not just apply to prejudice against regional or non-standard accents, people speaking with Received Pronunciation are not held in so much prestige covertly as they are within their own sociolinguistic group, just as changing, ‘non standard’ and regional accents are stigmatised by the prescriptivists who maintain their ‘proper’ accents.
Obviously, accent does matter to many people. This is why everyday we hear examples of convergence and divergence, whether it be upwardly or downward, people do change the way they speak to accommodate the person being addressed; to be accepted or to create an apparent difference by accentuating speech. Females more commonly upwardly converge; this shows their greater awareness of social status and the effect that accent has on portraying this class. We are not versatile enough to be able to speak our idiolect and then just as naturally shift to another, descriptivists would argue that we need to accept that our language will reflect this.
The age of a speaker may also have an effect on their value of accent, a member of the older generation may think it be important to keep traditions. The subordinate role of women in a male dominated society in the past my also have an effect on the correct way of speaking perceived by the people in society brought up while the language of court and BBC English were held in such high regard over other accents. It could be considered politically correct to accept all types of accents, regional or standard, but despite this being intended, it is as difficult to prevent people from forming their own opinions as it would be to attempt to conform all to speak in a certain accent. Officially we should not think that any accent is ‘better’ than another, John Honey said…
“the subject is virtually taboo in our schools”
Accent is a matter of fashion, changing with the times. A standardised spoken language cannot possibly denote a truly egalitarian and democratic age. With role models and respected others speaking in particular accents and providing an inspiration to impressionable others, accent may suddenly become the all important image-affecting factor that it never was before. The media is greatly responsible for the acceptance and disagreement with accent; it is a means of voicing opinions about accents openly and subtly as well introducing different dialects in a familiar, but not personal, process to increase awareness and therefore reception. Geographical mobility has encouraged the change of accent, if it is fashionable to live in the city people often consciously or sub consciously speak as the vernacular city-dwellers do, or the opposite movement from the city by the habitants. These fashion affecting factors are perhaps how estuary English spread from being spoken in London and the south-east and established its up-to-the-minute image as a classless accents that appeals to so many for that reason exactly, the inability of our status to be calculated from the way we speak rather than the actual words we say. Apparently even the queen speaks estuary English showing that accent is clearly something that matters (as this has not always been the case) and is an issue concerned with relating to the people of her very own country, in an article written in the Observer Nigella Lawson wrote…
“Language is nothing but a social tool; as society changes so much speech change within it”
In reality what constitutes Received Pronunciation is very different from what used to be, and this is how the differences in opinion of this change have arisen.
We do not always initially accept an accent, and not every person will accept the same accents or adopt the same accents but they will always change and as Benjamin Wharf said…
“Language leaks”.
We cannot do anything to control it, halt the changes or stop it, individually it is possible to maintain, but not necessarily prolong the way we speak to the generations after us. Whether in the frame of mind of a prescriptivist, believing language is decaying or with the opinion of a descriptivist that it is progressing and becoming more precise, there is no denying that language is changing. Accent is simply one factor that identifies this change that matters in different amounts to different people. Judging a person by the way they look or their religion is incorrect so why is I any different to judge them by their accent?
