Posted by Peter Ceresole on October 18, 2003 at 15:35:14 from 80.177.22.49 user PeterC.
In Reply to: Re: Racist, forsooth! (was Blackett English) posted by Andrew Craig-Bennett on October 18, 2003 at 12:43:57:
Firstly, the World Service uses 'UK' programme material because it gets it free- and because by and large there are excellent programmes ready to use. But it makes a great deal of its programming itself and you would have to take up your concerns with the World Service.
Why, secondly, is RP, the only form of English that anyone can understand, across the British Isles, "a real obstacle to communication and understanding" a real social obstacle and a malign influence" and why is "the acceptance of regional accents" an "unalloyed improvement"?
Because RP is not simply a tool for understanding- whatever it used to be, it has also become a symbol of the dominance of a certain class and a certain region in Britain (fundamentally the middle and upper classes, and London). Class especially is a pernicious cancer in English society, stunting opportunities for many people and damaging the wider society that is as a result denied their talent. There's no point in arguing about this- it's been endlessly debated and the debate has always come to that conclusion. I don't see how what we say here can affect it.
RP on the BBC undoubtedly reinforced those class divisions. It wasn't deliberate, but it happened. All audience research showed that a considerable proportion of the potential audience were alienated by the use of RP by the BBC. The social distortions that led to the use of RP are ever so gradually being straightened out (they will never go away, and they exist in all societies, not just in Britain, but it's important to make the effort) and the technical reasons to adopt RP (the poor quality of reception) have, within the UK, quite disappeared.
Of course there is a problem with very strong regional accents- for instance when we interviewed shipbuilders on the Clyde their Glasgow accents were so strong that we were often tempted to use subtitles on their English. But the way round that, as a broadcaster, is to make things clear as best you can, not to use RP and effectively to marginalise those people and their accents. Sometimes, on TV, you have to use subtitles...