Evaluate the idea that some accents and dialects are viewed more favourably than others

 Accent, the distinctive way of speaking in a language, and dialect, the actual words in the language that people speak, is influential in certain situations in society with some being viewed as more favourable than others. These differ from different regions across the UK and are influenced by the media, social groups and gender which correlate to create a certain favourability of the way people speak. 

The media plays a vital role in society which can result in certain characteristics in people’s identities and the whole idea of being more favourable can be influenced by the media. The idea of celebrities being celebrated for their accents isn’t a new concept and Susanne Williams says that this celebrity impact has shaped our taste in accents. She says that celebrities like Cheryl Cole, Ant and Dec and Ozzy Osbourne, who all have accents that aren’t viewed as particularly prestigious, have are famous and a lot of it is down to their accent and the way they speak. Both Cheryl Cole and Ant and Dec have Geordie accents which have also been made popular through the reality TV show Geordie Shores in which their accent includes the glottalization of the ‘t’ (“little” to “li-le”) and they don’t use the diphthong /aʊ/. They are shown on popular television such as Cheryl Cole being a judge on X-Factor and Ant and Dec hosting Saturday Night Live, presenting their accents to a wide audience. The fact that they’re on popular shows suggests that their accent is apricated and that many people do like it, especially since Ant and Dec have been on the BBC since the 90s. This is also shown through the dating show The Only Way is Essex (TOWIE) where the Estuary (Essex) accent is shown. This popular TV show however has done the opposite of promoting the accent and instead many people tend to dislike the Essex accent due to the negative stereotypes made through it thanks to TV shows such as TOWIE. The use of glottal stops and elongated vowels are present in lower classed groups and the media continuously presents people with an Essex accent in a negative light. As well as this, comedian Russel Howard felt the need to change his Bristolian accent to an RP based on the response from it and because of people’s attitudes and therefore, making himself more favourable to the public and his audience. 

As well as this, social groups are especially important in a society when considering the favourability of an accent. An experiment was done by theorist Labov called Martha’s Vineyard which found younger residents of the island adopting the stronger accent and dialect that the older generation had. This older generation was made up of fishermen and workers and they used their accents to distance themselves from the tourists that came to their island. Labov focused on diphthongs and found that a group of older fishermen tended to accentuate their accent subconsciously in order to distance themselves away from tourists and to make themselves seem of a superior social group compared to them. The younger generation began to speak the same way as they favoured the regional accent more than the one of the tourists that came to the island, thus suggesting the favourability to their own accent. Jamaican Creole is also often used amongst social groups to identify themselves with younger boys developing the accent and dialect to create a sense of identity which involves omitting verbs e.g “she pretty”. However, an experiment was carried out by Carson and McHenry to find out the employability of people with strong accents. Although they found that accent doesn’t affect employability, they found that it does lower employability rating, simply due to accents. Another experiment was carried out casting similar predictions, however, they found that ethnicity was a bigger factor in employability than accents. 

Gender also plays a role within accents and dialect and their favourability to people as both men and women differ the way they speak depending on their situation and position. A journalist found that a majority of women in academia have felt pressured to neutralise their accents and instead use an RP accent rather than their regional accents simply in order to be taken more seriously. As well as this, Steph McGovern was paid £20 by a viewer to correct her Northern accent, presenting the idea of stigma around accents that aren’t necessarily ‘appealing’ to all. A study found that 1 in 5 Britons change their accents to make themselves sound ‘posher’ and RP as they are afraid of the stigma around their accent however, most people who do change are women. This suggests that there is more of a need for women to change their accent than men perhaps due to the inequalities they face. Michael Rosen suggests that we converge our accents in order to associate ourselves with others and for many Britons to be changing their accent to sound more RP could be suggestive of them trying to be more favourable to those around them.