LL-L "Language perception" 2004.01.11 (03) [E]

Mon Jan 12 01:29:51 UTC 2004

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A=Afrikaans Ap=Appalachian B=Brabantish D=Dutch E=English F=Frisian
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S=Scots Sh=Shetlandic V=(West)Flemish Z=Zeelandic (Zeêuws)
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From: Thomas <t.mcrae at uq.net.au>
Subject: LL-L "Language perception" 2004.01.11 (02) [E]

on 12/1/04 4:53, Sandy Fleming [sandy at scotstext.org] wrote:

> I've lived in England and Wales for years and I would consider
> it most unusual for an English or Welsh person to criticise a
> Scottish accent - rather, it's much admired in those countries.
I'll go with you on that one Sandy, when doing my military service we had
Englishmen who were desperate to become Scots. I initiated one such by
taking him home and having him experience as much of a Hogmanay as he could
remember.
Only place I have had real problems has been here in Brisbane where I have
had to cope with some insulting behaviour. Much meant in jest some downright
malevolent. I never had any problem working at University but older less
educated people who had never left Australia except for brief package tours
showed downright ignorance. With the Commonwealth Games in the late 70's,
and EXPO 88 both bringing an insular group into close contact with people
from other nations things improved somewhat. At schools now there's a
similar influx of kids from many nations and the problem is not apparent in
our younger citizens.
When people mocked my accent I'd ask them if they had visited
Scotland....'Yeah Mite it woz luvvley'. I'd ask them then just how many
Scots had mocked the way they spoke....embarassed silence.
I never encountered such problems in rural Queensland where I did some
research work on farms nor in New South Wales which has had a cosmopolitan
population for many years.
Regards
Tom
Tom Mc Rae PSOC
Brisbane Australia
"The masonnis suld mak housis stark and rude,
To keep the pepill frome the stormes strang,
And he that fals, the craft it gois all wrang."
>>From 15th century Scots Poem 'The Buke of the Chess'

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From: Críostóir Ó Ciardha <paada_please at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Language perception" 2004.01.11 (02) [E]

Sandy wrote:
"I question this. Who speaks BBC-accented English? If this
minority is tiny, how do they find the time and travel
opportunities to humiliate the everyone in the remaining
vast majority every day? Or are people who don't "speak
properly" just humiliating each other every day?"

The latter. While my original invocation of 'every day' was pigeon-chested
hyperbole, I stand by my point. The RP class has a non-RP speaking society
trained well in self-denigration. I think you've been astonishingly (and, if
I may be so bold, unbelievably) lucky to avoid any censure whatsoever over
not using standard English. School in particular was a hotbed of linguistic
vilification for me. But it is only opinion... what would I know? Perhaps I
should just "take my oil" the next time someone slags my accent or variant,
and pretend the incident never happened, eh?

At the end of the day, life experiences are like arseholes: everyone's got
one, but some are smellier than others.

I suppose. <shrugs>

Criostóir.

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From: Glenn Simpson <westwylam at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: perceptions (E/N)

Dear all,

I agree with most of the points made. However it has
to be said that it is self evident, judging by the
comments made recently & the numerous others in the
past, that there is clear and blatant discrimination
(I use this word without any reserve) against certain
accents or dialects in the UK. Indeed English regional
accents have the lowest status!

How many UK-wide news readers speak with accents other
than a BBC accent, or neutral accent or perhaps on
occasion a 'refined national accent' (Scots, Welsh or
Northern Ireland)? Don't hear many Northumbrian,
Brummie, Scouse or Somerset accents! The Deputy PM
John Prescott is ridiculed by the metropolitan media
not just because he is perhaps not the most articulate
person in the world but also because of his strong
accent. The same could be said of George Bush, whose
'folksy speech' is seen as poor English by many in the
UK.

Most discrimination is subtle or implicit but
insidious, in the sense that people realise they won't
'get-on' in life or will be seen as less well educated
if they don't drop their accent or modify it
significantly. This is not just a question of moving
up the social scale in life, getting a good job or
earning more money (vitally important as these are)
but also there is a real impact on the personal lives
of individuals from 'less favoured' regions, in terms
of their confidence and self-esteem. People are often
made to feel inferior because of where they are born
and how they speak.

In the UK, accent and speech is one of the last areas
of public life where active discrimination takes
place. This is self-evident, else why do we have
Lowlands-L or Scots and Northumbrian or whatever,
language activists? It should be remembered that it
was only with the introduction of the public schools
in the 19th century that a neutral or RP accent became
the vogue. After all it is an 'accent' like any other,
just that it has become to be one that is favoured.

Glenn Simpson
Northumbrian Language Society
North'd

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Language perception

Hi!

I'm glad you boys decided to play nice again (Críostóir's lovely little
philosophical outburst above aside).

Please allow me to throw in my two farthings' worth of comments about the
situation in the U.K. as an outside observer with experience since the late
1960s.

I am not really qualified to fully analyze the U.K. situation, and my
observations may be a bit dated and skewed.  However, my general impression
is that in England there tends to be a difference between having a Scottish
"accent" and having a "grossly" non-"standard" England English "accent."  In
Britain and among British people elsewhere I have *never* heard any negative
comments about anyone's Scottish "accent," but I have heard negative
comments from English people about other English people's "accents."  I have
observed this being a two-way street, speakers of "posh accents" and
"common" ones making behind-the-back remarks about each other and allowing
their prejudices against each other to influence the tone of their
interactions.

So, if this is anything to go by, perhaps both of you are right, Sandy and
Críostóir.  The only "negative" comment I remember hearing about Scottish
English was that someone was hard to understand, and that was because the
listener truly had a hard time understanding (as did I).  Otherwise there
was the odd remark about loving the sound of a Scottish "accent."

I am tempted to say that Scottish English (and of course Scots), and also
Manx, Welsh and Irish English, are measured by different yardsticks from
those that used for England English dialects, or they tend to be somehow
exempt from judgment, outside the "juristiction."  What I am trying to
suggest for consideration and discussion is that English "accents" other
than those of England, or other than those perceived as England-derived
(e.g., Australian, New Zealand, South African, U.S. and Canadian English
included), are somehow considered foreign ("different creatures").  It could
also be that the role of language varieties as labels of social class and
educational level are more important than their roles as geographic
indicators, and that the average English person is unable to tell social
class and educational level among non-England speakers, unless they
themselves live outside England.

I have heard plenty of negative remarks about Australian English in England,
and this includes "educated accents" of Australian.  (In fact, I knew one
London woman who refused to stay in the same room or ride on the same bus
where Australian "accents" could be heard ...)  My theory is that Australian
English falls into the "home jurisdiction," due to reminding folks of
Cockney and other Southern English working-class "accents."  In other words,
I am suggesting that again geography is less important than social class
(and education).

In my youth it was similar, though I did not figure this out until I was
older.  I used to speak German with a Lowlands Saxon / Missingsch "accent,"
and as soon as I would leave my own residential area I would often be
treated less than kindly, or I would be made to feel less than welcome and
would have people talk down to me, direct me to less demanding reading, etc.
My "accent" signaled "country" and "working class."  I felt this sort of
thing less the farther away from my home turf I traveled.  Far away, I just
had a Hamburg "accent" or a Northern "accent," and people were not qualified
to draw conclusions about my social class, even found my way of talking
charming.  Things changed for the better at home after I taught myself to
speak almost "properly."  Someone with a Swiss German accent would have been
judged differently, by geography rather than by class.  I believe this sort
of thing is fading somewhat in the meantime, perhaps in part because of
increased enlightenment and because such "strong" accents are fading away
due to educational and media influences.

Prejudices can be positive as well as negative, as we all know.  Many poorly
informed Europhile Americans perceive *any* England English "accent"
"sophisticated," no matter how "common" it is considered in England.
(Perhaps you remember Frazier's co-worker saying that about the "accent" of
English Daphne's permanently "soused" brother [played by an Australian] in
the American sitcom "Frazier.")

Did any of this make any sense at all?

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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