Hiding the Wrong (British) Accents

By Jack Grove for Times Higher Education. Many British academics are hiding their regional accents for fear of being mocked, patronized or sidelined by their departments, a study says. While discrimination on grounds of gender, race or sexuality were no longer acceptable in the workplace, researchers at Newcastle University claim a "tacit prejudice" against those with broad regional accents was still going unchallenged. As a result, many academics played down their local accents and "spoke posh" to avoid being classed as an “outsider” by their peers, the study says. With job losses, budget cuts and departmental restructuring, many staff felt having a regional accent could count against them in the event of redundancies, the paper adds. Read more...