That wasn’t the first time I’d heard that my accent was inherently “wrong”, and it wouldn’t be the last. I’m from Teesside and have a pointedly Northern accent, though the strength of it was only really pointed out to me when I moved to university. Having studied linguistics, I could go on about the qualities that make my accent distinct from others but, put simply: I drop almost all my T’s, add syllables wherever I can, and say things like geggs and maftin.
My time at Newcastle University has, luckily, come with only mild teasing about my accent. For a university in the North East, you’d be surprised how many people still find it fascinating to hear voices like mine. A fun fact about me, though, is that I spent a semester at Edinburgh University prior to coming here. My eventual dropping-out was the result of several reasons, but I’d be lying if I said accent discrimination wasn’t one of them.
Studying linguistics at a top university, you’d expect students and staff to be aware of and accepting towards a variety of accents. That wasn’t my reality. In one seminar, we were tasked with ‘translating’ the Newcastle dialect. Tyneside English was treated as some sort of linguistic anomaly and mocked by students and staff alike. The cherry on top came when a Southern classmate of mine refused to believe me when I told him that bairn meant child, until another student pointed out the similarities between bairn and the Swedish barn, also meaning child.
Tyneside English was treated as some sort of linguistic anomaly and mocked by students and staff alike.
The seminar incident was one of many, but it sticks in my mind the most. I can’t help but wonder if it was my accent – my own use of the word bairn, inherited from my Geordie nana – that led the other student to be so willing to discredit my answers.
Accent discrimination is a problem faced by many across the UK, especially within higher education. Students from areas with a strong working-class history often face the most vitriol. Take Brummies and Scousers for example, who are mocked relentlessly compared to those with a more “acceptable” Southern accent. It goes without saying that this discrimination is even more prominent for those who speak English as a second language, where linguistic prejudice combines with prejudice based on nationality of ethnicity.
Accent bias has real world consequences that need to be addressed. It’s harmless fun to compare the word for bread rolls (or baps, buns, cobs – you get the idea), but it should never be the case that interviewers care more about the way my voice sounds than the words I’m saying.