Theories - Accent Studies

Question 1

Lance Workman: Accents, Intelligence and Attractiveness.

Answer 1

Studied RP, Yorkshire and Birminham accents and asked people to rank them based on how intelligent and how attractive they sounded. Yorkshire was the most attractive and the most intelligent, RP was 2nd, and Birmingham came last. Silence was considered to be more intelligent than a Birmingham accent.

Question 2

AO3 of Workman’s Study - Accents, Intelligence and Attractiveness.

Answer 2

Only looked at 3 different accents, and was vague - ‘Yorkshire’ could mean many different accents.

Question 3

Giles: Status, Personality and Persuasiveness.

Answer 3

He used matched guise technique and studied status, personality and persuasiveness between accents. He found that RP was the most prestigious, whilst urban accents (Scouse, Brummie etc) were the least. Northern accents were friendliest.

Question 4

AO3 of Giles’ Study: Status, Personality and Persuasiveness.

Answer 4

Not completely accurate as people voted for their own accents as the highest. Persuasiveness can’t be studied as there are multiple factors that can make someone persuasive. Matched guise technique, the person putting on the accents may have been very inaccurate.

Question 5

What is Estuary English?

Answer 5

A ‘class-less’ accent avoiding RP pronunciations and regional connotations. It is growing, but some places (Liverpool) refuse to do it.