September 12, 2014 - Written by: Becky Solomon

Keeping Yer Accent: It’s All a Manner of Speaking

It’s quite possible I come from the proudest county in England, where you can go abroad and still find people chanting ‘YORKSHIRE’ if you identify that there’s more than 3 of you in the vicinity.

I don’t know where this comes from, only that most of us our proud of where we are from (maybe because we know there’s some pretty amazing level headed people there).

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When you are younger, you don’t really notice that you have an accent.

For me, the realisation came when I went on holidays and would meet people who would giggle at the words I said. I became extremely aware of it when I went to university down South.

The difference was SO big, that some people genuinely couldn’t understand the sentence I had just said; apparently “I’m off t’ shop, d’ye want out?” isnt widely understood in the rest of the country. People would giggle at words I said such as ‘bus’ and ‘bath’.

I remember reading out a piece of work I did and the question that directly followed it was: Where are you from? Most of the time tickles me, I love the differences in the way we speak, I love hearing different accents, whether it’s from someone who’s first language isn’t English, or someone from the other end of the country to me. I can enjoy endless amusement over different pronunciations of words. Some accents can even be incredibly sexy (native French speakers speaking English anyone?)

However over time, in a bid to speak more clearly, my accent softened whilst I was in the South. As soon as I returned home though it was back with a vengeance.

I remember speaking to a friend after being home for all of about half an hour before he said, ‘You sound more Northern already’. Yup – I just came back to my origins.

There was however one view I didn’t take to much.

That was when someone I considered an educated friend said to me, ‘you will have to change your accent though, if you want a job in a good organisation’. I was a little taken aback by it. I was worried he might actually be right.

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Would people not take me seriously because of the way I speak?

The more I thought about it though, the more it annoyed me. What difference would my accent make to the job I do? And why would I be taken less seriously?

They only thing someone could gain from my accent is an unfair stereotypical assumption pieced together to determine what sort of person I am. It hardly seems fair and yet we do it all the time, I would struggle to say I don’t make an assumption on someone who has a non regional dialect and is incredibly well spoken. It is wrong but it certainly happens, and a little fear was in my head that it my hinder my chances of getting a job outside of my beloved county.

Whilst I am yet to test that theory, something rather nice happened. I recently changed jobs and my colleagues let me in to a little secret. Whilst they told me I the best person for the job, there was another candidate ate who they were a little concerned wouldn’t fit in the team as well… yep, you guessed, down to their accent. So it works both ways, it can be a curse and in this case, my accent was a blessing!

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So my advice: stay true to your accent and your roots!

When it comes to being sized up for a job, keep it, because then you’re more than likely to end up with people who are a little more open minded and who are confident you’ll fit within the team.

Sure, there will always be times that speaking clearly and slowly will benefit you. But you shouldn’t ever have to mask who you are or where you come from.

Ta ra!

If you enjoyed this article, why not check out ‘So, where are you from?’?