E-Matura | LiC | Wortbildung | B2 | The power of accents

On 14 November 1922 the BBC broadcast its first radio report to the nation. We can’t listen to it because it was not recorded, but we know this: the broadcast was read in flawless received pronunciation (RP), (0) (common) known as the Queen’s English.

It is considered to be the language of elites, power and (1) (royal).

For many years, the BBC would only allow RP accents to appear on its airwaves. That this accent became synonymous with the voice of a nation had clear connotations. RP was trusted, authoritarian and sincere. Fortunately, the BBC now allows all sorts of regional accents on its broadcasts – and even (2) (courage) it, aiming to both represent the diverse audience the BBC has and to draw new people in.

While the BBC no longer broadcasts only in RP, it turns out that the bias that once existed for it is still ripe in (3) (social) today.

Our accents can provide a window into our social backgrounds – and our biases. Our partiality can be so strong that they even affect our (4) (perceive)

of who is, or is not, (5) (trust).

Humans are very quick to judge a person based on accents, and are often (6) (aware) we do so.

“Accent can trigger social categorization in a prompt, automatic, and (7) (occasion) unconscious manner,” says Ze Wang of the University of Central Florida. We often can identify a person’s accent as soon as they say hello.

Our trust for certain accents starts extremely young. There is (8) (evident) to show

that affinity for language even (9) (start) before birth.

We know for instance that babies prefer the language they heard most while in the womb. In one study, researchers (10) (repeat) played a made-up word while women were pregnant. When the babies were born, brain scans showed that only babies who had heard this word responded to it.