Posted by Peter Hyland on October 22, 2003 at 19:57:38 from 81.135.36.237 user Peter_H.
In Reply to: Re: Social Obstacles, RP & 'accurate' Surveys posted by Robert Dilley on October 22, 2003 at 19:21:21:
A pretty good summing up, I'd say, by Robert. However, whilst there certainly are people who attach social status to accent in the UK, most people don't get too hung up about it. In the commercial world, it doesn't matter very much what accent you have got as long as you can be clearly understood. The result is that most people in business use RP but often regionally accented, say with a Welsh or Northern or Kent twang. Sometimes you know there's a slight accent but you can't quite place it. I soon learnt to use a version of RP with my own accent not quite hidden underneath. That is why I think that RP is no big deal - it's available to everybody with a little bit of effort. Nancy managed it OK. Joan Bakewell (a British journalist and broadcaster) says that when she became a student at Oxford (I think) she went into the 'Ladies' one evening with a Stockport accent and came out using RP!