Putting an Accent on British Accents

Let’s begin with a simple question. Taking the word bath as an example, which particular pronunciation – hence, accent – do you think ‘sounds best’? The accent associated with the North of England –ba-th – or the accent associated with the South of England –bar-th. Below are the phonetic transcriptions for each, referring to the ways in which a series of symbols are used to capture the specific sounds (known as ‘phonemes’) which represent the different accents throughout the world (so not merely accents of English):

Northern English pronunciation: [baθ]

Southern English pronunciation: [bα:θ]

This book can’t assume the knowledge that the readers will or will not have regarding British accents. Some of you will already be in the know, certainly if you’re from Britain, England more so. Further, some of you will also be familiar with the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), especially if you’re studying Linguistics. But in order to make this book accessible for the largest readership possible, I use the IPA in places, while also describing the various accents in laypeople’s terms.

Going back to the two accents above, a Northern English accent would render the ‘a’ in bath as a short ‘a’ sound, a sound which most people will be familiar with (as heard in the word hat). Likewise, Southern English pronunciation would render the ‘a’ in bath as what you would hear in TV shows such as Downton Abbey, certainly as spoken by the upper-class aristocrats. Obviously, there is much accent variation from city to city within Britain, whether in the North or South (and for now, we’re focusing on English pronunciation specifically). However, the North and South of England are broadly identifiable based on the pronunciations above.

Many people in Britain might state that, even regardless of personal preference, the Southern pronunciation is more prestigious – hence, ‘better’. By implication, the Northern pronunciation, may or may not be viewed as ‘bad’ in and of itself, but for many it might not carry the same positive connotations. And herein lies a very important point which will be repeated throughout this book: no sound can ever be anything other than what it is – a sound; there is nothing inherent about accents. No accent is inherently ‘good’, ‘bad’, ‘sexy’, ‘ugly’, ‘(un)trustworthy’, ‘(un)friendly’, ‘(un)educated’ and so on. Such labels involve judgements of specific sounds, in specific contexts, as part of specific accents. These judgements of accents are then used to ultimately judge the speakers as a result. This judgement reflects the social reality of accents (and not just in Britain, of course). The social reality regarding accents in Britain, and elsewhere, is that if we hear a certain accent, and judge it negatively based on its phonological make-up, and then apply these judgements to the owner of the accent, this leads to accent prejudice, also known as accentism, or accent bias. So if we judge an accent to be ‘common’ (and related ideas, such as being working class, being uneducated, and so on), then we are judging the speaker to be common, working class, uneducated and so on. Such broad terms have further connotations, such as an individual being regarded as aggressive and untrustworthy, for example. In addition, the accent’s connotations might lead to further ideas of the speaker being employed in a low wage position, or even unemployed, and having certain lifestyle dispositions, such as being prone to swearing in public, drinking lager (and drinking to excess), and eating at fast food restaurants/takeaways on a regular basis. In fact, I ask you to now list your own perceptions of individuals with Northern English accents; I have further subdivided below based on specific regions (and if you’re not from Britain, and regardless of your first language, feel free to consider the connotations of various accents in your home country):

People with Liverpool accents are

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