In modern Britain, all other prejudices are rightly shunned, but accentism is allowed to rear its ugly head far too often; it is ingrained in our institutions and an accepted part of life here, but why should it be? From a young age, many are taught that there is a right way of speaking and that if they do not adhere to these standards, their prospects in life will be severely limited. Honestly, this is not entirely untrue; potential employers are allowed to discriminate against you based on your accent, and many do.
Accents are an essential part of identity, being a marker of where you’re from first and foremost, so for an employer to extract negative stereotypes from your accent is flat-out discrimination and an unjust way to assess someone’s character and credibility. So why are we so accepting of accentism? Negative attitudes towards accents that deviate from the standard (Generic Southern English) are instilled in children from an early age in education, when they are corrected on their accents and internalise that there is a correct way of speaking, and that they cannot attain this.
Many of these children can be understood perfectly; it is not an issue of intelligibility but rather preparation for the real world, where ‘non-standard accents’, a dog whistle usually meaning traditionally working class accents, will be mocked, ridiculed, and dismissed. A study this year from the University of Cambridge found that “Brits still associate working-class accents with criminal behaviour”, those accents mainly being Scouse and Brummie, which are particular favourites for ridicule in Britain. I’m sure many would have heard the jokey stat that people would prefer to have chlamydia rather than a Brummie accent.
A 2022 study by the Sutton Trust found that 35% of university students were self-conscious about their accents, that 41% of Northern students were worried their accent might affect their future success, and 29% of senior managers from working-class families have been mocked for their accent at work. The data backs it up. Accentism is more than playful banter; it’s creating a lot of self-doubt in some very talented people and also actively preventing those talented people from realising their potential in some cases.
I’m in no way arguing that people should not be able to playfully joke about their friends’ accents, but instead that more needs to be done to fight the attitudes that underpin accentism in our institutions. Children should not be told that the way they speak is wrong, as it has been shown to alienate them from the classroom. Employers should not be using accent as a justification to discard applicants who are qualified and a good fit for a role, and students should not be made to feel unwelcome or stupid in university by their peers or teachers based on the stereotypes of where they’re from.
As a nation, we need to stop buying into the tribalism that sets us against one another because in another town they say ‘bath’ instead of ‘bath’.