Northern, midlands and cockney accents are still looked down on, study shows

Northern Irish

‘I want to go into academic research and I am scared even with a more “posh” regional accent I would be hindered.’

Scottish

‘Medicine feels very elitist, and my working-class Scottish accent will not fit that narrative.’

Derbyshire

‘I am at medical school and very few doctors I have met have regional accents.’

Liverpool

‘I don’t hear my accent when I watch videos of scientists giving talks and I don’t hear my accent from lecturers in the field. I feel as though my work won’t be taken seriously if I don’t change my accent.’

Cockney

‘It is not something I feel insecure about, however, I know that others with similar accents to myself do. I also believe that it is a disgrace that people should be ashamed to speak in the native accent.’

Black Country

‘For a couple of weeks, I did have a group of other students mimic an extreme version of a Black Country accent every time I spoke (about anything).’

Newcastle

‘A lot of times people mock my accent, but that doesn’t particularly bother me. At interviews, I remember one boy from London asking a large group of people if they could “actually understand [my] accent”, which was pretty awful and not a nice first impression of university.’

Liverpudlian

‘In a work context I was told “Ha, you’re not a typical civil servant, are you?”‘

Nigerian

‘I am glad you are raising awareness of this issue. Because a major problem we have is that, if we experience accent bias and raise the concern with our managers, we are seen as trouble-makers.’

Received Pronunciation

‘I hate to admit it, but I’m sure that almost every week my assessment of people I have only just met is affected by their accent. I will assume that someone with a posh accent is better educated, more intelligent and more reliable than someone with a less smart accent. I should emphasise that I don’t think it’s right to do this, it’s just one of a series of snap judgments I make about people I meet.’

South Asian

‘The accent I most see criticised by students is South Asian, and I see students in London giving those teachers a hard time. I have seen students make fun of teachers with West African accents, and bully teachers with Eastern European accents. And I have seen my colleagues be incredibly disparaging towards women with working-class Essex accents.’

South London

‘I felt as though in school people would be able to tell I was poor from the way I spoke so I changed the way that I spoke to try and sound less common.’

West Midlands

‘My accent became a lot milder once I left home and the area I grew up in. It is not considered a socially acceptable accent. As a result, my accent has been neutralised.’

Stoke-on-Trent

‘My accent and its depiction in national media is very heavily related to social class and social deprivation. It is an accent that makes people sound “thick” and “poor” and these are enormous barriers, reinforced by the mainstream media and its depiction of places like Stoke-on-Trent and the people who live here.’

Estuary English

‘My accent comes from my family and my community. To ask me to modify it is to ask me to deny my heritage. I can demonstrate other accents – and have taught in standard English for the sake of pronunciation in ESOL (English to Speakers of Other Languages) classes, but I will not code switch for some classist outdated concept of elitism. It’s my least favourite thing about living in England.’