Episode 13 - Accent Special

[Music] This is Lexus, the podcast all about linguistics. Hi, I'm Matthew Butler. I'm Jackie Glancy. I'm Dan Clayton. And I'm Ysikei. On this episode of Lexus, we've got a kind of accent attitude special. Later on we're going to be talking to Lauren White, who is a student at Durham University. She's done some interesting work on attitudes to local accents, which we'll hear about later on. So the work that she did in a report, which she'll tell us about in the interview in a bit, led to a story in the Guardian under the headline, "Students from Northern England facing a toxic attitude at Durham University." And it was a really interesting piece because as a student now, what she'd done is talk to other students and picked up on various things that happened to her while she was there, about accent discrimination linked to region and class. So the story in the Guardian is a good one to have a look at because of the way it covers this. And it's one of those kind of things where, despite the fact Durham is in the northeast of England, it's got very few local students there. And many of the students at Durham University come from the south of England. So in a kind of, as a little kind of island of southerners in the northeast, that sort of discrimination against a local accent is maybe quite sort of ironic. The crossover with class is really interesting, not least because, and I'm quoting directly here from the Guardian article where she said, "First they mocked and mimicked my accent, I went along with it and even laughed, but then when I persistently became the butt of jokes about coal mining and started to get called feral because I was local, it started to feel malicious. And this is something that we've picked up on quite a lot, which is ideas about language kind of crossing over with class or ideas about language become an proxy for something else entirely. And that seems to be what Lawrence tapped into here as well." Yes, I think what's really interesting about Durham University is that there's only 7.8% of graduates over the last five years that have actually come from the northeast of England. And so as you say, down a lot of the students are not from the region and a lot of the attitudes towards those people like Lauren who are from the northeast are from people who are from very different places to Lauren. It's interesting to hear what Lauren has to say about it and the way she went about exploring that and getting the views of different students. And as you will have heard, she listened to various people going back 15, 20 years as well as current students. And it's an interesting story as well because it's been picked up and developed in other places. So a couple of weeks ago, the Guardian led with a story, a UK's top universities are urged to act on classism and accent prejudice. And they also had a really good piece linked to that, which was a series of case studies and interviews with students from all over the UK who had experienced classism and accent prejudice as they put it. And I think there's some pretty unpleasant accounts of discrimination and bullying which really chime with what Lauren talked about in her piece, including one here from Nina White, 26 from Stockton on Tees, studied English and theatre at the University of Warwick. And she says, it sounds ridiculous, but I only realised I had what people regarded as a strong regional accent. When I first began my undergraduate studies, mocking of my accent was immediate and I was shocked at the perceptions of people from the northeast. The perception of me was that if I had a drink, I would become aggressive and scrappy. And if this is all because I was from the north, I'm neither of those things. And one flatmate once asked me in genuine amazement, "You have the BBC up where you're from." I had to laugh, but looking back this moment neatly encapsulated the social position that many people imagined northern towns to be in. I can vouch for this as well as a Welsh person as well. The jokes that I had that I have had are about having electricity in Wales. When I was a younger person to be fair, which is quite a long time ago. But there was a genuine thread of jokes about regression. This imagined regression back to troglodistic cave people in the Wales, in the north, in the wilds, anywhere that seems to be outside of large industrialised town. I remember in my first week at university, a metagirl from the south, and I was commenting on the size of Morrison's being huge in Leeds. And I don't know whether this was genuinely a question or not, but she said, "Do you not have supermarkets where you come from?" No, we've got an allotment. At the time you brush it off, but it's when you see this. And what's sad actually, you can laugh about it, but what's sad about it, is that it seems to have not gone away. That's saying, over 20 years ago, and it's the same jokes, and it's the same attitudes that there are some places that are just a bit backwards and a bit kind of feral. That is ultimately damaging to young people. It is, and it would be fine to brush off as a joke if there weren't tangible social implications for it. And of course, part of the work on the axonism project and others like it, are to highlight the genuine kind of social implications of damaging narratives around accents that people don't get jobs, if you're less likely to get jobs with particular accents or that they're less likely to be considered intelligent or trustworthy or worthwhile, and that's a lot more serious than being able to brush off as a joke about whether or not people have electricity or not. Yeah, and it's about confidence as well, isn't it? If people feel that every time they open their mouths, they're going to be ridiculed. You just don't open your mouth. And so lots of people's voices are just kind of carved out of the discussion about any about all of this. And some of the metaphors that the people in these case studies use are quite powerful as well. For Bird News 24, it's from the Black Country, studied modern foreign languages at Birmingham University. My experience of university was a constant barrage of abuse from students and staff who are verbally disapproving of my mild but noticeable Black Country accent. Constant barrage of abuse, that's not laughable a joke here and there. I mean, it's interesting as well to see how which kinds of accents get the sort of abuse and comments. And it does seem to be pretty much anything that isn't a sort of southern or RP accent. So we've even got, I mean, there's an interesting story on the conversation.com about prejudice against the Essex accent. And it's, it's, this really good bits in that one that is written by linguists who pointed out some of the reasons why there are sort of social attitudes against the sort of Essex accent, which are linked to the idea that people in Essex are wide boys and on the make. And sort of social climbers is one of the terms I think that's referred to is this sort of idea that. So it's quite interesting to see which accents are discriminated against and it's not just northern accents or ones from Birmingham and a Black Country. There's a piece on the conversation.com, which is produced by researchers in linguistics at the University of Essex. And it looks at some of the social attitudes towards the Essex accent. And it's an interesting case study really because in many ways the Essex accent traditionally was quite a rural accent. And certainly in the bit of Essex where I live, you know, the older people have still got an accent. You might think you might now associate with someone like Suffolk or East Anglia, you know, the Norfolk. It does sound quite rural, but a more recent kind of development in the Essex accent is estuary English and the spreading out of some of the what might be seen as a lot more London feature, the Cockney features into that sort of area. So that's the associations that that brings for some people which are often around sort of social climbing around working class people moving out of their kind of the positioning society that they should be in quote marks into sort of middle class and sort of jobs and pay grades and this sort of idea that as well. It's people putting something on so it's often seen as a bit of a fake accent or people sort of trying to hard to be something that are not. What I liked what I liked about that conversation piece that's that's quite nice. A obviously it's written by linguists so they got a really clear understanding of the way that this works. But also they state really explicitly and again, I'm quoting directly here such judgments have nothing to do with linguistic characteristics. No English dialect is inherently better and more beautiful or more correct, but represent a form of classism. They call it camouflaged prejudices that we're not judging on their own merit but making assumptions about class education and ethnicity because of how people speak and that's really the crux of it for us isn't it is that these are underpinned by much broader prejudices. And we've said it lots of times before that the language or your dialect or your accent or the way that you pronounce certain things become a proxy for broader social categorizations that are really nothing to do with the way that you speak. And instead are judges of other things. And I think what ties kind of both of the things that we've been talking about whether it's northern accents or southern accents. It's when people comment on your accent as a way to exclude you either from places of prestigious places of education or from fancier places to live or whatever it is. And I think that's the idea that actually you don't belong here and will will make that clear to you. So she's talking about people being excluded from certain neighborhood. or encouraged not to apply for leases or properties in certain neighborhoods because there was an assumption that they wouldn't belong and that was just done from phone conversations. Yeah, and not even be offered the opportunity to rent a house in a certain area based on their accent, wasn't it? Yeah, and I suppose as well that brings in sort of ethnic dimension to it as well, doesn't it? And I think what's interesting about some of the stuff that's been done on accent recently is like the accent bias in Britain project at Q and UL. They brought in things like multicultural London English and I suppose non-white varieties of English. And when you bring in sort of aspect of class ethnicity, regional prejudice, there's a real kind of hot patch of kind of unpleasant sort of xenophobic racist kind of classist ideas floating around on them which just make it even more toxic. And it's interesting. We're talking here about of course how accents are diales or judgment about them are used to exclude people. But there has been some stuff floating around about how it's been used, how people have wielded their non-RP accents for creative usage or even humorously. Yes, Jess Phillips, Labour MP who represents constituency in Birmingham was criticized on Twitter for spelling mum M-I-M and somebody saying who in God's name is writing this rubbish for you. I suggest you sack your advisor on the spot whoever they are, they do not know people. And it was just a very strange reaction to using M-I-M. I suppose it's this is making that assumption if she spells it like that she's trying to do it in an American way but of course that's not the only people who spell it or say it like that. As she points out and as as a linguist points out in the same thread people in Birmingham say that it's that's the way you would spell it if you're going to spell it in the way that it sounds. So it's as the linguist Dr R Jackson says on that thread we say mom it's a legitimate regional use and she says good on your back. And the good on your back is the is the is the wielding of a regional word then to show support and solidarity for Jess Phillips is that. Yeah, it's followed by multiple redeplications of a thumbs up to generate cohesive support across the time and space that Twitter allows. There was another really nice example of somebody kind of wielding their local dialect words for comic effect recently which was Angela Rainer in response to the government voting down free school meals over half terms. She tweeted it's their new policy for vulnerable and needy kids Kia eat now to help out. So she sub tweets Kia Starmer's previous tweet where he uses the hashtag free school meals so he's drawing attention to the fact that the Tories have voted down free school meals and they kind of emerge this national sort of discourse about Tories not not feeding needy children and things like that. And he uses in the original tweet they did and so it is is definitely presenting this opposition isn't it is them and us. And his is also a dietic reference to they being the Tory party. Which is a bit of pragmatic contextual context that you need to be able to understand the tweets in the first place. It's clever isn't it it's it's that kind of put on eat out to help out but the the now to be in a regional term. I think it's effective isn't it because she's she's communicating to people who use a local dialect and I think showing solidarity probably with those people who who use a regional dialect. And it's also maybe you know significant it's Angela Rainer who's been criticized a lot by people for having the temerity to be a working class Manchester MP with a working class Manchester accent lots of southern MPs have have poked fun at her for it. And she's been attacked on Twitter for having a region Lakson and dialect. Yeah, she's wielding this word isn't she as a sort of a witty come back and that use of dialect dialect terms Lexus particularly for creativity and for humor is something we see all over Twitter probably we don't talk about it very much because we like the serious stuff. But there's loads of really wonderful things floating around and there was something else that we spotted. Yeah, that's right. There was something that appeared as Doric coronavirus advice. So this was like written in a kind of Scots dialect and it's I don't know if it's spelled as it might sound. And I mean I wasn't you know given that we talking about accent attitudes and not going to attempt to do a Scottish accent but it reads you know it reads very well if you've got a Scottish accent or can imagine one. And there's something quite interesting about the way it's being presented because it does seem to be you know we see a lot of this advice around and it's very kind of formulaic and it's rather distant in its style and the register is all quite serious. When you see advice being given in a language that you might feel feel relates to you and sort of speaks to you in your own voice maybe it's more effective so rather than stay at home it's by the name. Dinner be clarity wash your hands so don't be dirty wash your hands for 20 seconds dinner touch your fizzog in meb or move avoid touching your face eyes knows or mouth and there's something witty about it it's playful it's fun it may not be linguistically 100% accurate but it's certainly got that sense in which it's been playful and trying to strike up a rapport with the reader. And as well there's things like this the kind of an error as well as being funny they do feed into this stereotype which are untocked about of people with these different sounding accents to others being the book the joke isn't it it's double a shot on. I think it depends on who's creating the document doesn't it yeah. It's just interesting how it when it's done I think it's acceptable isn't it yeah yeah definitely and I think that goes right back to the beginning of what we were saying about the whole kind of thing about making jokes about accents. In an ideal world would all be able to take take the making out of each other for various characteristics but it's not a level playing field is it and it's that sort of idea about punching down all the time is that if you're in a position of power and you're mocking people's actions it's belittling it's going to diminish them it's it's going to hold people back and it's going to have more impact isn't it. But if we were all treated equally we'd be able to to mock each other's voices and characteristics I listen to a lead united podcast called the square ball and they do a really good. Review of matches and they always poke fun at the opponents accents and they play little clips of them. So for their own podcast and YouTube channels and I'm sure the same goes for those other channels they're going to mock the Yorkshire accent as well and that all seems to be doing good good spirit and fun because it's people sort of firing at each other on a sort of level footing. One thing which is emerged from this but I guess it's always been a bit of an issue is the term regional accent and how it is problematic. Maybe something Rob Drummond talked about wasn't it so another angle on all of this is something that comes up quite often in certain news reports about accents and you see this three or four times a year is a company does a sort of marketing survey where accents are the sort of prime focus. So one of the one of these surveys was picked up by the Bradford telegraph and Argus it was also picked up in the sauna think. And very other places and what we often find with these kind of marketing surveys is that they're basically press releases from companies you want to promote their product but they use accent as a way of engaging people in some sort of conversation about it. So thanks for joining us for this accent special you'll be able to find links to all of the tweets articles and research that we've discussed in the show notes. So we joined on this episode of Lexis by Lauren White who's a final year student at Durham University. She studied English language a level when she was at six form and has been writing up a report publishing report into class region accent discrimination at Durham University which has been picked up by several newspapers recently. So he thought it would be interesting to talk to Lauren about the report and their own experience and a bit more about accent prejudice. So thanks for joining us Lauren. Thanks for having me. Can you tell us a bit about what prompted you report? Yeah, I decided I was going to write an article about my own experiences because I like experience what I would consider to be like a tip and point which is when I was asked by a friend's mother at uni. If I wrote my essays the way I spoke and then if I could actually understand books because they're not written in Jordy and I was sitting on the table and I was like am I actually here and you know what they said here and I was like I do speak English. And then I decided when I came home I was like I'm going to write an article I'm going to put that in it because I just think it's so hilarious to people who actually do speak with this accent. Publishy article and then I just got loads of messages from people saying they had the same thing because a lot of my other experiences that I mentioned were about like Durham University. I just constantly got mocked and for my accent and then it turned into like derogatory comments about it so then all of these people sort of come forward and then I was like I have to just put it somewhere and send it to the vice chancellor because it's just unacceptable. Could you maybe just tell us a bit about some of these accounts and I mean what other people's experiences were of this accent prejudice. The other experiences that people had were generally from the beginning like their accent was mocked which everyone's you know happy to like go along with laugh and about but it becomes the butt of the joke and is one I was talking to someone actually contribute to the report yesterday and he was saying that every single time you opened his mouth. The only thing that people remember about him. a'r ddurum yn yna i'r acsyn. Nod yn ymwch chi'n ei'r acsyn. Mae'r acsyn yn yna i'r acsyn. Mae'r acsyn yn yna i'r acsyn yn yna i'r acsyn. ang研af ten ardrumnu. 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Snaf yn dych yn ddyl yrff internefalau actuallyhow gyda'n utwyddu'n denthol yn hyn ei gyda'r also nil eu ήblat ei neud at speciesa عنot a sy'n ardi awarn fech, i fyngy Серdynoedd rynaeth rhag fато i'r 'G命 Jane' Cyfnyt nhw'n genaire a'r rhag un rhoi'r clywn da cod Royalwood Cymru freitrwn sut cyftopsol iawn yn dyfrillenau prosynwythost o ne Office yn y fel i innes yn y fwy, a'r rhag un ardi awarn fech, a'r rhag un ardi awarn fech, a'r rhag un ardi awarn fech, and you got quite a lot of accounts in your report, didn't you, from people who'd been there, not just the same time as you previously, other years, what was the sort of picture that emerged from that? Yeah, I think that it goes back as far as 1996. I think it was the oldest one, and it was just like that became what I found interesting was it was often jokes about the minds and coal and wippets and things, and even I had stuff like that when I went and it was like, if there was like a question to be asked about like me in like a group game or something, they would just respond with coal, and it was just like, that is literally my heritage, and I grew up in a mining village, and for people to come and just use that against me as like a joke, I found that like really offensive. I suppose one of the things that we, you know, we talk about language on this podcast, and it's primarily the sort of language stuff we're interested in, but it's elements of sort of class, region, ethnicity and things around all of this as well, aren't there? What do you reckon can be done to stop this kind of behaviour? Because it's, if sort of accents are being mocked and people are feeling not just upset, but undermined and ridiculed and humiliated by that kind of thing. It's affecting it, it's attacking our identity, isn't it? As, like you say, that you're sort of heritage where you're from, your feelings about your own sort of personal identity. What can we do to stop that kind of behaviour happening? I would say it's generally what would help it is better language education, like the fact that it was until I chose a Level English language that I realised that the way I spoke was not wrong. You know, I think that says a lot, and how many people in the country, you know, given everything that I've found and things that other newsplaces have found, they have no idea that it's perfectly normal and actually perfectly right to speak in a certain way. So I feel like if that was a young age in schools, and just this is how our country is, it's not about how an individual is, it's about the country, it's made up of all different kinds of people, and just feel that would go a long way in stopping these ideas, just surfacing as soon as you get to university, and like a melting pot.