Is there a standard accent for the BBC News separate from all other British accents? As I am in America, I get to watch BBC World News on PBS or BBC America and it seems as if the anchors and the reportes shift their accent to a certain "English" accent. If so which accent is it? I mean Orla Guerin , a correspondent in Israel, is Irish born and bred but when she is on BBC, she does not have a sharp Dublin accent , it is more like a blending ..sounds more like the Queen's English. Adrian Finighan (isn't he a doll?) is Welsh but doesn't sound Welsh to me.
Do you have to have a certain English accent to be on BBC World?I have yet to hear a Scottish, Welsh, or Northern Irish voice on BBC World.
Ps: I absolutely loved Daljit Dhaliwal. What happened to her? Mishal Husain is nice too.
BBC accent isn't a natural accent, neither is Queen's English.
The BBC accent is basically the "Standard English". Or in the USA's case, "Standard British-English".
You picked up on something, and that is the the amount of accents on British television that are no used. Their irish, Scottish, Welsh, Scouse, Geordie, Mancunian, Brummie, Yorkshire etc but they don't get on British television.
This is because English media is very centralised around "London". Where they have the sh1ttest two accents in the whole of England which includes Cockney and the rich upperclass who like to be snobs and talk in Queens English. .
Just imagine a Scouser reading the national news "lol".
"er.....da news today lar, is err.....Saddam is goin to bomb your mar and and dar, well dats wot tony thinks. Brown nose Tony."...
.
I cringe when I hear the Queen speak.
Isn't the Queen's accent natural to her?..
I've watched BBC World and I've noticed that there are a varity of different accents. Maybe they are not true pure regional accents but not all of the people I see on the BBC sound the same.
Jim,
Yes, the Queen's accent is perfectly natural to her but her accent has slightly modulated over time. The BBC no longer has any speech protocol. After the reshuffle of the organization several years ago, they completely abolished it. Some of their announcers sound just like immigrants, in fact. M.J.P.S.
M.J.P.S.
YOu mean, some of there announcers look like immigrants :)
Dan,
They not only look like immigrants but also sound like immigrants. That is to say, they have accents that are fairly tyipcal of somebody who has recently immigrated from outside the British isles, whose native tongue is obviously not English.
Those announcers speak really bad English.
"You picked up on something, and that is the the amount of accents on British television that are no used. Their irish, Scottish, Welsh, Scouse, Geordie, Mancunian, Brummie, Yorkshire etc but they don't get on British television."
Most of the population of the United Kingdom is concentrated in the south east of England. More and more accents are being.
As for Ireland, the Republic in spite of not actually being a part of the United Kingdom (i.e. a completely independent country) has a few gardening and travel presenters, not to mention a few Terry Wogans. Otherwise for the north (which for the time being is, according to international law, a part of the United Kingdom) you have Caron Keating and Eamon Holmes among a few others probably. There are lots of Scots and there's a Welsh man who reads the evenining news on the BBC.
The accents they have may be dominated by the South East but it's a class/education thing - they don't have any working class/street accents from the south east either. Billy Bragg reading the news, or Gus from Eastenders?
Do you actually watch TV, Michael?
Simon,
I noticed some accents on the BBC that can be considered working class/street accents. The reason for that is the educated with any accents tend not to frequently use glottal stoppings and not to neglect consonants. However, there is, at least, one female announcer who persistently does this on the BBC, though her speech has gradually been corrected, it seems. No doubt many viewers have been complaining about her accent. I don't remember her name. It's a foreign name. She reads news from the SE, if I'm not mistaken. Her accent gives me an impression she is originally from west Asia and was brought up somewhere in the Hounslow area, i.e., west London, since her accent remarkably resembles one of my secretaries' accent who has that sort of ethnic backgound doing her best to sound like someone else. In addition, the way she stresses some words are the genuine indicative of some London working class accent. M.J.P.S.
I really dislike that Asian woman. She's the worst news reader of all. She sounds awful, not much different from Ali G reading news.
On Yorkshire though you get a lot of regional programmes which have the Yorkshire accent for instance if you live in that area. If you live in Tyne Tees area you have other programmes on. Richard Whitley has a distinct Yorkshire accent on c4. There are many more regional accents on ITV (Especially Yorkshire in the Yorkshire region) than on the BBC.
All regional accents are acceptable. But working class/street accents are not. The announcers are supposed to represent the educated in each region of Britain.
I used to get annoyed about the British media always concentrating on London and its people and happenings, but whe nyou realize that one in ten people live in London, it is perfectly acceptable. The same goes for England in comparison to Wales and Scotland, you can decry the English bias, but try to remember that five out of six people in the United Kingdom live in England.
Am I alone in thinking that non-standard accents should be largely kept away from the media? I enjoy hearing accents similar to my own, but know that other people may not understand it fully. I do not think my full accent should have any place in the media. Can you imagine: "If yer gaan put yer booits theer then yer'd berrer do it yersen" or "Ee's gone brokken 'is promise". People would think they were picking up Dutch television if they heard somebody speaking like that. I think it would be quite awful.