Poverty and accent

Richard   Tuesday, November 26, 2002, 19:56 GMT
Don't you think poor people have strong accents? The richer you are, the more clearly you speak English.
um wtf   Tuesday, November 26, 2002, 20:23 GMT
the richer you are, the worse you've treated society
Simon   Wednesday, November 27, 2002, 08:16 GMT
That's rich, coming from you, Rich.
J   Wednesday, November 27, 2002, 13:30 GMT
Richard

I think you should type 'sociolinguistics' into a search engine.
Dave   Wednesday, November 27, 2002, 16:50 GMT
It's true in the UK the rich tends to speak more clearly than the poor, no matter what regional accents they have.
J   Wednesday, November 27, 2002, 16:58 GMT
I am the only person with two accents? I speak near-RP in public, but I wouldn't dare use that tongue to my mother or sister.
HI_KLMN   Wednesday, November 27, 2002, 17:14 GMT
Hey K what is RP? Just curious
HI_KLMN   Wednesday, November 27, 2002, 17:15 GMT
I mean J, what is rp?
J   Wednesday, November 27, 2002, 17:18 GMT
RP stands for Received Pronunciation and it popularly used to describe the standard British accent.
George TX USA   Wednesday, November 27, 2002, 17:41 GMT
Richard, that's absolutely correct. Take two native Londoners, say, one from Chelsea and the other from Hackney. Even though they were born and brought up in the same city, they sound completely different. Money buys a good British accent. 42% of the Londoners are in poverty according to ISO statistics. No wonder Americans don't understand their poor accent in London.
Rupert   Wednesday, November 27, 2002, 18:53 GMT
J,

What is your natural accent or your mother's accent? Why do you change your accent? Many British people tend to do, so-called, "code-switching", i.e., change their accent depending on the situation. I do, too.

All my family speaks perfect U-RP. My grandparents even criticise BBC World Service announcers for their improper use of English. Thus, U-RP is my natural accent. However, I rarely speak U-RP in public. I always try to relax my accent as much as I can. So does my sister. This is because U-RP has a sort of negative connotation to some English people which may create unnecessary prejudice (perhaps too often).

I was once told in uni "You are not from Oxford but from MONEY! Because your accent tells me everything about your background!". Since then, I became more aware of effects that my natural accent might possibly have on others. U-RP is not the friendliest accent, if you want to befriend with people from all walks of life. It is also believed to come with certain "ATTITUDE" which can often be observed in politics, armed forces, civil service and the Inns of Court.
J   Wednesday, November 27, 2002, 19:21 GMT
My native accent is somewhere between Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. To say I speak RP is perhaps misleading as you would not recognise it as such. But I do speak a far more standardised version of English to those who are not kith or kin.

If I held my accent fully it might cause one or two problems in understanding, though not many.

A French girl who studied English (she had completed two years at university at the time) once came to our house, and she could hardly understand us when we spoke to one another.
Andrew   Wednesday, November 27, 2002, 19:36 GMT
Its much nicer talking to a poorer person than a toff in a big country mansion it has to be said. Mind you there are no particularly poor people in the UK really. Usually people from the South who use RP think they are superior to those who do not use it (but that is probably a minority). But money has a link to the accent you use certainly.
Rupert   Wednesday, November 27, 2002, 20:47 GMT
Andrew,

That's the sort of typical prejudice people can form against RP. See the following points:

(1) one can find nice people and not so nice people in any stratum of society, irrespective of their accents.

(2) one cannot choose his/her natural accent since it's given in that environment.

(3) wealth does not always influence one's personality. (This remark is a particular case of (1), if you are familiar with logical notions.)

(4) how many people in the south do you know sufficiently in order to crudely generalise RP speakers in the south? It sounds like you know in depth so many toffs with RP in the south that you actually abhor at heart.

If you agree with (1) and (2) (therefore, automatically (3)), then your assertion of RP speakers' superior attitude is logically incorrect. (Simply put, nonsense in which case.) In your defence, you might say you were talking about a minority of RP speakers, and then it also completely contradicts with the adverb used in the beginning of the sentence "Usually". There are a number of minorities with different anomalies from which you cannot draw a systematic pattern or a conclusion. You cannot get a pass mark in logic by stating such a weak and naive overgeneralisation on RP speakers in the south. It just tells others you have some prejudice against RP speakers in the south and try to intill it in foreigners who don't know the situation. QED.

As said, my family speaks textbook U-RP in the south but they do not have any superior complex to anyone but U-RP happened to be their naturally given accent. I know many other RP speakers, though they tend to come from older generations, who are genuinely pleasant and friendly to anybody. Furthermore, as J mentioned, many people attempt to speak RP simply because of higher intelligibility over their strong regional accents. I don’t think J’s choice of RP has to do with any form of snobbery whatsoever but with his/her paying more attention to the receiver of his/her English.
Rupert   Thursday, November 28, 2002, 09:59 GMT
Andrew,

UK has the 2nd largest income gap between the poor and the rich after USA. Many UK people earn several million pounds a year whilst others have to rely on social benefits to live on.

Can you really say there are no particular poor people in the UK? Why are so many beggars on the street of London then whereas many Sloanes pay 5 grand a week each for their flats and send their kids to boarding schools that cost 15-20 grand per annum per capita?

Look at the Gini coefficient which shows how wealth is distributed across the entire UK population. It is impossible to say that UK has no particular poor people, unless you are lying or simply ignorant. It's more sensible to say median/average income households do not exist but the mode income is well below the average income, which means the absense of middle class households.

I'm devastatingly amazed by your embarrassingly superior knowledge and insightful view about the UK society, not to mention, your knowledge of Jordan in another thread. Are you also known as George TX USA, by the way? I sincerely hope you are. lol.