Dialects and Accents

[Shakey]

Yeah OK, I know, two posts in one session, egomaniac etc etc.

Anyway, have you found that a regional accent or dialect has helped or hindered you in any way?

It seems that the bigger service companies like to site their call centres in Yorkshire or Scotland because those accents are perceived as 'honest'. (Until they move the entire operation to India /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif)

Cockney / Estuary English is generally perceived by the typical UK listener that the speaker is 'dishonest' or 'wide'.

English spoken by native Welsh speakers is perceived as honest but a bit thick, English spoken by those in Northern Ireland sounds 'aggressive' but English spoken by those in Eire sounds 'friendly'.

People from the SW of England sound like 'thick yokels', and those with a Birmingham based accent are just perceived to be thick as two short planks full stop.

Please note the above is based on research not personal opinion!

The more extreme forms of Geordie / Yorkshire / Scottish dialects are unintelligble to typical English speakers in general .

As for Welsh and Gaelic...they're incomprehensible to English speakers full stop end of. The schools teach us French, German and Spanish not Welsh and Gaelic. I think this is a shame. I have been to Wales many times but don't understand the signs but it's part of the UK!

How has your accent or dialect affected you? Have you been on the receiving end of accent bias or have you used an accent to your advantage?

I'm from Yorkshire and have used dialect to my advantage when abroad but have also dipped out because of my accent in the UK.

I hope various dialect speakers contribute to this post ( but without using dialect - I can't be arsed translating GeordieScotWelshJannerism into West Riding Yorkshire)!!!

 

[Peppermint]

Re: Mine\'s all over the place

I was born in Lancs. lived in Yorkshire, Shropshire, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Bedfordshire, Libya, Malta, Cyprus, Devon & Buckinghamshire. My Dad had an Southern Irish accent. I tend to use the accent of whom ever I'm talking to at the time.

 

[Magic_Sailor]

PC BBC

I'm dead sure that having a Southern English accent would dis-bar anyone from getting a job at the BBC.

Magic

 

[claymore]

"I'm from Yorkshire and have used dialect to my advantage when abroad but have also dipped out because of my accent in the UK."

So Shakey - was it the accent or the words that dipped it for you?

 

[Colin_S]

Sheeit dude, Ah've neva' found de way Ah rap t' be some hinderence.......

 

[halcyon]

There is true Black Country dialect, the wife had an Autie that lived 3 mile up the road at Moxely, could not understand a word.
With the grouth of TV and the media, anything near a Birmingham accent, give and go home. I have accent from a town next door, but that's close enough for most people, you get hell.

Brian

 

[webcraft]

Having lived North of the border since the age of 14 but having failed to pick up a decent Scots accent I have found that an English accent puts you at an immediate social disadvantage in many social situations in Scotland . . . sorry my fellow Scots, but it's true and after nearly forty years it gets a bit wearing.

Not so bad over here in the rural West where tolerance and laissez faire are part of the local character, but rural Aberdeenshire, where I lived for thirty years, could be hard going. It's OK once they know you, but going through the same vaguely threatening 'you're not from round here are you' routine most times you encountered a new social situation could get tiresome.

- Nick

 

[boatmike]

Ah dinna ken ye' meaning. Isn'a Reginald Accent fra'e Essex?

 

[Bejasus]

don't have to go that far. Try being a Scot living in rural Norfolk.

 

[Graham_Wright]

Living next to a previous generation nouveau-riche who used to mock my North of England, accent I posed the following after being pushed too far;-

How do you say path ………………paath
How do you say bath…………………baath
How do you say fat……………………………………………………………………………………………

 

[spannerman]

Born and bred in Derbyshire, moved to Surrey in '81 and got serious teasing about my (lack of) flat cap and clogs, so quickly learned to talk proper liake they doo around Ascot. Then moved to Devon and had a sales job in Devon, Dorset and Somerset, and immediately encountered a suspicious reception from the outlying folks in rural areas, and was once mistaken for the VAT man and once for the CID, because I dressed in a suit and spoke with a south east accent, so quickly dropped that in favour of a good wess' coun'ry aaaaccent, and corderoys and tweed, and lo and behold sales were never better! Yet when I worked for a year in Wales where I anticipated real prejudice up in the the valleys and North Wales I got a terrific reception and think the Welsh are great people.
Now live in Norway where after 8 yrs have mastered the language albeit with an English accent, so when I talk to the locals in their own tongue they usually reply in English!!! You can't win, so now have fun talking Norwegian to my girlfriend with Midlands, sowf' east and wess coun'ry and Welsh dialects. But as for accents and dialects I think they are fascinating and never judge some one because they don't speak like wot you do...

 

[Sammo]

Having trouble with accents

Try the Nesbit School of elocution

Understand him and you’ll understand everybody.

 

[spanners]

Cé hé Nesbitt /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

 

[Cornishman]

It is hard to find genuine local accents anymore. You refer to a SW accent of which there is no such thing. At one time it is said that it was possible to tell in which street a Brixham fisherman lived by the way he spoke. The Penzance Cornish is entirely different from, say, Saltash, Bodmin or Liskeard and none of these have any similarity to the Dorset accent. Dartmoor Devonshire is not understood in the South Hams or in North Devon but gradually they are all becoming merged into what can only be referred to as Estuary (sometimes referred to as "glottal" I believe)English, mainly by TV programmes.
Thank goodness for people like Jethro, Jasper Carrot et al who strive to maintain their dialects.

 

[Bejasus]

don't you mean 'unnerstaun'?

 

[graham]

A scotsman I know was telling a story about a trip to Cheddar ,

he was disgusted that they were slaughtering goats in the street with flies buzzing around the carcasses pools of blood to step over etc etc.I was a bit sceptical that this was going on in Somerset in this day and age but no punchline was forthecoming.

Turned out it was Jeddah he was going on about.

 

[Bejasus]

went to Cheddar summer before last, and perhaps he wasn't wrong after all. It was bloody hot enough. lol