To worry about DCs picking up very strong regional accent?

[honourinoneeye]

DH has been looking for a job near his elderly father for a while, and secured one last month. The in-laws live in an area that is pretty much synonymous with deprivation and poverty - their home and immediate area (street, estate) is lovely but the area as a whole is pretty dire.

I have been concerned about the effects living somewhere like this may have on children but one thing in particular I'm a bit worried about is the accent. It's very, very thick - even "well spoken" people have what I and most others would consider to be a broad accent.

At any rate, this week we have been in a premier inn to buy a house and find schools and get things sorted for September. My twins will be going into year 2 and their teacher 'mocked' my dd's accent - not nastily, but nonetheless it was there. I also noticed the TA spoke with a strong accent with numerous grammatical errors - "you was staying in a hotel?" complete with dropped 'h's'

I was a teacher pre DC and have worked in some very deprived schools but such an accent would undoubtedly hold people back, I really can't explain how strong it is! I don't mean I'm judging people for it (I do for the bad grammar) but just the same, I can't pretend I'd be happy about my children picking up such a thick accent and I do feel it would be detrimental to their future.

So - any ways around this?

I wasn't making an unconscious connection between lower class and poverty. I consciously made it said many people do the same. I have never ever come across any one very successful or seen anyone become successful on tv etc having the local dialect of where I am from. It's Black Country if no one can be arsed to look back. And please no one say Lenny Henry. I've never met anyone that sounds like him.

It is linked to poverty and lower class in a lot of case sadly.

When I say that I mean strong local dialect not just a twang !

I don't think they're likely to pick up a strong 'local' accent if you don't have one.

I have a mild accent as does DP, the area we live in has a strong local accent and I've been asked "why do you talk so proper?" by a local.

DS doesn't seem to be picking up the strong accent, he definitely has an accent, but not strong.

And it is still possible for children of a low income family to become a lawyer or any other professional, even with a non RP accent.

I'm aware of that (both first hand and regarding DH, mentioned upthread), Ilkley - I don't exactly live in a "prime" location, myself. I just seems to be an incredibly narrow-minded focus, as if nothing else would be good enough. There are many, many things, particularly attitudes, that my boys could pick up from other children that would concern me far more than their accent in terms of how it would affect their life chances.

pigs DS1's teacher has the loveliest most sinG sonGy black country accent :)

I have come across a few academics with broad, east end glasgow accents (and associated colloquialisms) working at English universities. It doesn't seem to have prevented them from being taken seriously in their work.

I don't think you sound like a snob, OP. I think it's all part of general (and understandable) anxiety about your move. The way you have commented on the treatment of your children by the school suggests to me that you are worried that they will be seen as different and might even be bullied. Perhaps you're concerned that the school won't be as supportive as you'd like in tackling any such issues.

I agree with the pp who asked if a move to this exact location is strictly necessary or whether there is a compromise location which would still allow your DH to see his dad as much as he wants. Sorry if this has previously been mentioned, but have you discussed your worries with DH?

OP I totally understand your concerns however I don't think it will be a big issue. We are Mancunian. My sis lives in the SW. Think strong local accent. She and my bil were worried their sons would pick it up. As it turns out they both sound like little lord Fauntleroy. So, their Northern parents and local state schools have produced a non-specific 'Middle Class' accent. Biggest influence seems to have been a result of mix of children with local accents and middle class incomers to the city.

I think it's a load of old crap that accents hold you back.

If you are good at your job you get on.

As I said up thread dh works come real London at a very prestigious lawyers office and there are all sorts if regional accents as well as international staff.

Very old fashioned attitude. Dead and gone now.

Op I would be far more concerned with the teachers attitude to be honest.

I wouldn't say my accent had actually held me back but a few people do like to take the piss.
I grew up round the corner from Peter Kay and if I was about to give a lecture on something like "morality in postmodern Britain" or" a bio-psycho-social model of mental health" the initial impression would be that I'm about to start telling jokes! People would tend to look puzzled for a bit before they start listening.
I was teased as a teenager for being "posh" and nicknamed "Yorkshire" at uni ( wrong county!) would have preferred people to actually listen to the content (which is clear).
Only place I fitted in was at a Grammar school where everyone spoke Bolton-lite.
Doesn't really bother me -I just get on with life in my natural voice -but don't try to tell me it isn't an issue.
PS my friends who have deliberately changed their accents sound a bit affected to my ears and it soon breaks down when they are excited or nervous.
Wigan people ARE friendly but you will get people like the teacher, and Wigan, Bolton etc are not universally areas of social deprivation-they are mixed like most large towns.

Fair enough if others know people who are successful with my local dialect. Although it's not my dialect anymore. I've just honestly never met anyone with a strong version of it that's very successful.

Milder versions yes. I do think it holds people back. Doesn't mean I think it should. Personally I feel a lot better with my neutral accent. No one can guess where I'm from so no assumptions are made.

What's wrong with a regional accent? I think Northern accents, Wigan included, sound much more friendly.

All the school children talking "street" down South sound pretty damn stupid. Would prefer dd to sound Wigan born and bread, innit.

Ifpigs: I can think of a couple of academics with strong Black Country accents too. They're doing fine regardless of what they do with their vowels.

Fair enough. I'm not just talking about vowels though, I'm talking about people who say things like

"Ow am ya ah wench - Where av yow bin tdaay I ay sed ya all day ?

And

You cor do that you ay alowed, ay ya ?

I was watching something showing a very deprived area of the Black Country last night and remember thinking when I heard the accents that I'd not heard anyone with that accent who is well off/successful etc etc.

But if there are then good because it's a shame if it holds people back. I just think that it does still hold people back that's all.

What a load of bollocks.

It's always the truly impressive vowels in Black Country accents that jump out at me. But the academics I know do have proper Black Country accents. They've probably moderated them a bit to be understood elsewhere (as most people do) but they aren't suffering in their careers because their voices firmly advertise where they come from.

I think that's what I was getting at ... They ve modified their accents a little. Doesn't have to be a lot but making your accent a bit more neutral helps people understand you. I ofcourse know people with softer Black Country accents that are what I'd call successful -my family members being some of them !

I didn't get that across at all did I ? I did say strong version - I meant you know, un modified because honestly the true accent/dialect is bloody hard to understand.

But most people modify their accent depending on the situation/who they're talking to.

My mum grew up in a peripheral Glasgow housing estate and became a teacher. She has her teacher accent (which is the same as pretty much every other Glaswegian teacher's), her 'schemie' accent (for want of a better word) and the hilarious kelvinside accent she pulls out to impress people she thinks are posh. She brings this out for DH (who isn't posh, just Southern English). The brilliant thing is it's totally lost on him who can't differentiate between the different varieties of Glasgow accent like I can.

OP, I hope you come back to the thread - it's been a very interesting discussion. You are frazzled and in the "cold feet" stage before a big move.

I think the thing you're really worried about is feeling alienated and sticking out because your accent is different, more than your kids picking up the accent.

I'm Northern, and there is a lot of inverted snobbery about the South and disdain of people who are perceived as "posh". It isn't nice if your kids are mocked, but I think they will adapt. Be open and friendly and be part of the solution; helping people to be more broad-minded.

I believe that there should be no value judgements assigned to accents, but I will admit that the children of my friend, who grew up with me in Cheshire, and now lives in a village not far from Wigan, have very strong accents which are rather startling to my ears. I am sure they will be just as successful as can be, but they do seem very different on first hearing. However, my children (Northern mother, American father, growing up in London) play happily with them and none of the children batted an eyelid about the others' accents.

On a technical note, and as a linguist, I must take issue with some of the comments on this thread about grammar. Accents are about pronunciation; the sounds people use when speaking. Dialects are regional varieties of language which will have different grammatical rules than the standard. Different, not wrong. Conforming to rules, just like standard English, but just different rules.

There is no "wrong" grammar, just non-standard English. Standard English is useful in formal settings, in professional situations, in education, and in written English, but there is nothing wrong with using non-standard English as your usual mode of speech. Lecture over.

Oh OP, you are being absolutely ridiculous! I am also a teacher, a Geordie one, who has worked both in the North East and in my current home of Oxfordshire. Believe it or not, I managed to get myself a very good degree from a very good university despite my regional accent. An accent is no indicator of anything: it's what you say rather than how you say it. Bloody ridiculous!!!!!!!

DH was born in Preston and grew up in Wigan til he was 6. Now we live in the Home Counties - he has a very very slight northern twang.

My mother grew up in the West Country but had elocution lessons in her 20's (was nursing in London and sometimes struggled to be understood). She now has no accent at all - unless she wants to, then she can still put it out of the bag - an accent is not a fluid thing.

I can pretty much mimic any accent - which is fine except I do it unconsciously and suspect people on the phone sometimes think I am taking the piss.

We're moving down to Gloucestershire soon - I really want DD to pick up the accent. I adore accents, I don't natuarally have one really at all

*is a fluid thing ffs

calamity

I wasn't really a ware that most people did that. Do they really ? Kind of re enforces the idea that those people think a strong regional accent isn't a good thing in those situations if it's is the case.

Which is kind of what I was getting at. Or failing to get at possibly...

I don't modify since I have a neutral accent. All I know is I am more easily understood and people make less assumptions now then when I had my Black Country one. Also I don't know what a schemie accent is