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CLASS AND ACCENT

 

Social class

Market researchers in the 1950s applied six classes to Britain, and they have tended to be used ever since. The terms still apply today. The kind of work done not only indicates education and how much is earned, but also the kind of social contact that is usual. Most people generally mix socially with the same kind of people as their work colleagues, and usually live in streets or neighbourhoods which reflect that social grouping. Manual workers tend to mix with each other, as do professionals (doctors, lawyers and senior civil servants) and managers.

 

A Upper middle class

(senior civil servants, professionals, senior management and finance)

B Middle class

(middle managerial)

C1 Lower middle class

(junior managerial/clerical, non-manual workers)

C2 Skilled working class

D Semi-skilled /Unskilled working class

E Residual

(dependent on state benefit, unemployed, occasional part-time)

 

Historians say that the class system has survived in Britain because of its flexibility. It has always been possible to buy, marry or work your up, so that your children will belong to a higher social class than you do. But people in Britain regard it as difficult to become friends with somebody from a different ‘background’. It results from the fact that the different classes have different sets of attitudes and daily habits. Typically, they eat different food at different times of day and call the meals by different names, they talk about different topics using different styles and accents of English, they enjoy different pastimes and sports, they have different values about what things in life are most important, and different ideas about the correct way to behave.

However, there is major movement between classes. Many people move from one category to another during their working lives. The working class is rapidly declining. Since the 1950s there has been a massive growth of the middle class. But there has also been the emergence of a sizable ‘underclass’, as Category E is commonly known.

Despite the fluidity, the élite of society, itself a segment of the professional class, takes great care to protect itself. This includes the ‘gentry’ class made up mainly of landowners, and other who move in the most exclusive English social circles. It sends its children to be educated privately at a public school, where its children obtain a better academic education than normally possible in state-funded schools. More importantly they obtain a sense of social superiority through the public schools’ elitist culture.

It is also true that the ‘top’ 1 per cent has enormous influence and control. A handful of outsiders obtain access to this élite. It is sometimes known as ‘The Establishment’ and sometimes as ‘The Great and the Good’.

Traditionally, the young men of this élite went into the profession: the Civil Service, the law, medicine, the armed forces or the Church. That was partly the result of the original public school ethic of ‘service’. In the 1980s - 90s this characteristic changed. Increasingly this élite, but also many members of the upper middle class as a whole, has moved from public sector: merchant banks, accountancy, management and financial consultancy. The reason is quite simple. From 1979 private sector salaries soared in the new free market ethos.



 

 

How things have changed at the top of the Britain’s professional ladder

Ten years ago, The Economist looked at how the educational background of the people in 100 top jobs in Britain had changed over 20 years. It was found that almost the same number of people had been to public school (code for the smart private establishments which made up 450 of Britain’s 4,300 secondary schools) and Oxford or Cambridge as in the 1970s. Now the results are rather different.

The drop in the number of public school and Oxbridge alumni is most noticeable in business. Ten years ago, every company chairman on our list (18 most valuable FTSE companies, plus those of the stock exchange and Lloyds) had been to public school and 12 had been to Oxbridge. Of the current list, eight out of 20 went to public school and four to Oxbridge. This is partly because of the arrival of foreigners, but it is also because there are more state-school educated Britons at the top.

Among the political jobs in the survey, a few are held by public-school alumni. Eighteen people didn’t go to university at all – some because they went to military colleges, some because they came up through sports and the arts, and some (such as Michael Martin, speaker of the House of Commons and a former sheet-metal-worker) because they were poor boys made good. Among the things that haven’t changed is the average age of the top people: 57 now, the same as it was in 1992.

(The Economist)

Accent

An interesting feature of the class structure in Britain is that it is not just, or even mainly, relative wealth or the appearance of it, which determines someone’s class. Of course, wealth is part of it. But it is not possible to guess a person’s class just by looking at his or her clothes, car or bank balance. The most obvious sign comes when a person opens his or her mouth, giving the listener clues to the speaker’s attitudes and interests.

But more indicative than what the speaker says if the way that he or she says it. The English grammar and vocabulary used in public speaking, radio and television news broadcasts, books, and newspapers is known as ‘standard British English’. Most working-class people, however, use lots of words and grammatical forms in their everyday speech which are regarded as ‘non-standard’.

Nevertheless, nearly everybody in the country is capable of using Standard English or something close to it when the situation demands it. They are taught to do so at school. Therefore, the clearest indication of a person’s class is often his or her accent, which most people do not change to suit the situation. The most prestigious accent in Britain is known by linguist as ‘Received Pronunciation’ (RP). It is the combination of Standard English spoken with an RP accent that is usually meant when people talk about ‘BBC English’ or ‘the Queen’s English’. RP is not associated with any particular part of the country. The vast majority of people, however, speak with an accent which is geographically limited.

During the last quarter of the twentieth century, the way that people identify themselves with regard to class changed. The English upper-class accent, as spoken by the Queen or announcers on the BBC World Service, was accepted until twenty years ago as the guide to correct pronunciation for Britain as a whole. A study of British accents during the 1980s found that a posh voice, sounding like a BBC news-reader, usually spoken by a person from the south-east of England, was viewed as the most attractive voice. Most respondents said this accent sounded ‘educated’ and ‘soft’. Now the BBC goes out of its way to use regional accents; in Hollywood, a posh British accent is a cliché for Brutality, arrogance and stupidity. Consumers no longer see it as a sign of trustworthiness and authority. Some call-centers prefer regional accents to RP because of the negative reactions RP arouses.

· posh – someone who is posh talks or behaves in a way that is typical of people from a high social class. This word often shows that you do not like people like this. It is normally used with negative connotations. To accuse someone of being posh is to accuse them of being distant and/pretentious.

 

Because of greater mass communication and some increased mobility, regional variations are more commonly understood throughout Britain than they were in previously ‘closed’ communities. However, if you want to get ahead in Britain, you would be well advised to lose a regional accent.

 

Why so many British people are taking elocution lessons

Now that Britain’s public-school élite is in retreat, is the way it talks disappearing too? Once the confident accent of the ruling class, it is now, supposedly, the dying dialect of an enfeebled tribe, attracting suspicion and contempt rather than deference and respect.

Although there is little solid research, linguists think that RP speakers may have fallen from 5% of the population to less than 3%. And RP has evolved. Today’s version is closer to accents that once would have been termed as plebeian. The Queen mother spoke differently from the way her daughter talks. Princess Diana’s speech was different again – closer to the generalized southern accent sometimes called “Estuary English”.

Yet there is a large and growing demand for ‘better’ speech. Ann Jones, the general secretary of the Society of Teachers of Speech and Drama, estimates that more than 10,000 people take elocution lessons every year. Most people signing up for lessons are not trying to learn classic RP, but to make their verbal skills match their other business tools – such as the visuals on a slide presentation. A typical aim is to soften or dilute regional accents to the point that they will be readily understood by people from elsewhere.

Ms Mann does not necessarily try to eliminate regional accents, she insists, so long as the speaker learns to eliminate ‘lazy’ speech such as slurring, and annoying verbal tics, such as “know what I mean”, “sort of”, or “like”. “You can get away with even quite a marked accent if you are an interesting enough speaker, with pitch and pace and pause in your delivery,” she says.

A survey of company directors by the Aziz Corporation, which calls itself the country’s leading independent spoken communications consultancy, says that 31% reckon that a strong regional accent is a disadvantage in business.

But why the growth in demand? One reason is globalization. Foreigners typically learn RP, or something like it, and are often mystified by Britain’s stronger regional accents. Dealing with them means speaking some sort of standard English.

A second reason is the growing emphasis on presentation skills in business.

A third reason is the erosion of boundaries within companies. Jayne Comins, a speech coach in London notices a big increase in clients with computing background. “A lot of men in IT didn’t start out wanting a job working with people, but when they become successful they often have to talk at board meetings, give presentations and sell their product,” she says.

(The Economist)

 

QUESTIONS:

 

1. What are the main classes in Britain?

2. Why have classes survived until now?

3. What is the Establishment? How do they try to preserve influence and control?

4. How have things changed at the top of Britain’s professional ladder?

5. What is Received Pronunciation? How many people speak it?

6. What can accent tell about a person’s identity?

7. What accents are considered to be most prestigious?

8. What is the attitude to people who talk posh?

9. Why are so many British people take elocution lessons?

 


Date: 2015-01-12; view: 999


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