Accents at work

2/7/2018

‘Britons’ top three favourite accents are Irish, Welsh and Geordie. The least favourite are Brummie, Scouse and Cockney. People with a Yorkshire and Welsh twang sound the happiest followed by Scouse. The Southeast sound the most intelligent and Glaswegians sound the angriest.’ (Howarth, Dec 2017)

Isn’t it interesting that accents carry such connotations and evoke such feelings? I arrived some years ago at London School of Theology in the South of England as a new student. It was a daunting experience: that first-day-at-school feeling. At the first evening meal, I heard another student speak with a Northern accent and instantly connected with him. We became great friends. It was as if our common accent gave us a deep point of contact – a ‘secure base’ (Bowlby) in an alien environment.

Accents, like other cultural distinctives, create and sustain a sense of unique identity and belonging. They distinguish 'us' from 'them', creating a socio-psychological boundary, an existential and emotional safety barrier, a metaphorical extended family, in the midst of a larger and potentially overwhelming complexity. I remember moving to a new area to engage in community development work. I had to learn the local accent convincingly in order to be accepted by local people. Accent influenced trust.

Accents can serve as a useful metaphor for cultural issues in organisations too. Here are some useful questions for leaders, OD practitioners and coaches: What functions as a secure base for people in this team/organisation? What brings hope and fulfilment here - or provokes anxiety or resistance if threatened? Where, when and how have helpful boundaries in this organisation become unhelpful barriers? Where may I need to learn a new ‘accent’ in order to build credibility and relationship?

42 Comments

Stella Goddard BA (Hons) Registered MBACP (Accred)

2/7/2018 04:38:19 pm

'Where may I need to learn a new ‘accent’ in order to build credibility and relationship?' Nick these words just jumped off the page at me. It seems to me to be really important either to learn a new 'accent' or if we can't do that to be willing to 'tune in' rather than 'tune out' an accent that we are not familiar with. Do we sometimes dismiss accents different from our own or generalise about 'people with a different accent.....' I sometimes think when I hear a name that is not familiar to me I think 'gosh how do I say that, how do I spell that, it seems hard' My nephew and his wife had baby recently and gave her a name which I was not familiar with. Felt stuck for a while - then thought of the obvious - ask them how they pronounce their baby's name and what does it mean. Needless to say I now have no difficulty spelling or saying my great nieces name. Context and interest can make all the difference both personally and professionally. I had a client recently who shorted his name 'because it was easier.' When he spelt his name for me I felt it important to call him by his full name. All it takes sometimes is a little effort. Thank you for asking thought provoking questions again.

Nick Wright

2/7/2018 04:41:53 pm

Thanks Stella. I think that's true about literal accents and names. I'm thinking too about other ways in which we need to adapt or, as you say, 'tune' in, to others' personal, professional, cultural patterns, language, norms, values etc. in order to build bridges of empathy, understanding, relationship and trust.

3/7/2018 10:14:31 am

I agree with you Nick. When we tune in we stand a much better chance of building relationships with people as individuals rather than making assumptions. When we stay curious we learn a lot. I remember a while ago a Mentor asking me to do something which I didn't understand. I remember feeling anxious about not completing the piece of work When he returned and asked me if I had done it I told him I didn't understand the task. He then said 'How about if I explain it like this.....does that help' I felt that he tuned in and heard me without shaming me. After that when I didn't understand something I was able to say 'I don't know how to do that but am willing to learn.' We all have different learning styles and if we are calm we learn better.

3/7/2018 10:25:02 am

Thank for sharing an example from experience, Stella. Another mentoring question under those circumstances could be, 'In terms of understanding the task, what would you find most useful?'

Clifford Morgan

3/7/2018 10:25:44 am

Great analogy. Thanks Nick.

3/7/2018 10:26:00 am

Thanks Clifford. You're welcome!

Kathrin

6/7/2018 02:23:32 pm

Wenn accent nicht nur für Dialekt steht, sondern auch für die Sprache der Umgebung, heißt das, dass ich mich ihr immer anpassen muss um dazuzugehören? Muss ich als Lehrer die Sprache der Schüler sprechen um gehört zu werden oder mache ich mich dabei lächerlich, weil sie nicht meinem Alter entspricht? Finden die Schüler es peinlich oder cool, wenn ein Lehrer so spricht wie sie? Wo muss sich der Lehrer selbst Grenzen setzen um seine Autorität zu behalten?

6/7/2018 03:04:19 pm

Hi Kathrin. I love your expression, 'die Sprache der Umgebung' ('the language of the environment') because it broadens the question of language beyond the domain of the individual to wider contexts, cultures and relationships within which language is used.

I think we could also broaden the idea of 'language' beyond its literal form to include any cultural-contextual norms and patterns, e.g. dress code, professional behaviour etc.

I think the issues and examples you raise point to the challenge of mediating and working between different cultures where they intersect in the same environment, especially where an institution or professional may dictate norms (including language) that are radically different to those of students.

So, I'm curious - how do you navigate between cultures at the school?

(Hallo Kathrin. Ich liebe deinen Ausdruck "die Sprache der Umgebung", weil er die Frage der Sprache über den Bereich des Individuums hinaus auf weitere Kontexte, Kulturen und Beziehungen erweitert, in denen Sprache verwendet wird.

Ich denke, wir könnten auch die Idee der "Sprache" über ihre wörtliche Form hinaus erweitern, um alle kulturkontextuellen Normen und Muster, z. Dresscode, professionelles Verhalten usw.

Ich denke, die von Ihnen aufgeworfenen Probleme und Beispiele weisen auf die Herausforderung hin, zwischen verschiedenen Kulturen zu vermitteln und zu arbeiten, wo sie sich in derselben Umgebung kreuzen, vor allem dort, wo eine Institution oder ein Profi Normen (einschließlich Sprache) diktiert, die sich grundlegend von denen der Studenten unterscheiden.

Ich bin neugierig - wie navigierst du zwischen den Kulturen in der Schule?)

Aaron Bradley - Assoc CIPD

7/7/2018 12:59:54 am

Great post!

7/7/2018 01:00:52 am

Thanks Aaron. :)

Morwenna モルウェナ Mitchell ミッチェル

9/7/2018 11:24:26 am

Very thought provoking.

9/7/2018 11:24:52 am

Hi Morwenna. Thank you!

Christoph Elaut

9/7/2018 11:26:51 am

Inspiring approach. Thanks.

9/7/2018 11:27:24 am

Thanks Christoph. You're welcome.

Julia Rooney

11/7/2018 11:17:24 am

Interesting article. Working in South Wales I can travel north, east or west and experience different 'accents'. I can see and have experienced how accents can play their part in working with communities. Understanding the colloquialisms, knowing the symbology, relating to others through the distinctive ways individuals and groups communicate messages; gaining trust through shared histories, told through different tones, inflections and pronunciations.

11/7/2018 11:21:33 am

Thanks Julia. Yes, working in Wales is a great example of a context in which different languages are used...and in which use of different languages carries significant social and political implications. I was once invited to work with a Welsh-speaking team in North Wales who opened by explaining to me how frustrated they were at having to use English to communicate with me. It wasn't only about communication, it was also about what use of different languages symbolised culturally and historically in that context. Fascinating!

Jayne Hayward

11/7/2018 11:24:21 am

It's great to get a reminder now and then for things that we aren't conscious of, but are such important aspects for communication and rapport.

11/7/2018 11:25:44 am

Hi Jayne. Yes, 'accents' (whether literal or metaphorical) as cultural indicators can play a significant role in relation to establishing rapport.

Howard Ellison

11/7/2018 11:26:21 am

Than you Nick. Your topic is of course of daily concern to those of us who narrate e-learning! We do our best to interpret audition notes such as Guy next door, Voice of God, Authentic but not posh, Corporate yet conversational, Emotional, Cool, Northern, Essex, mid Atlantic, and... Non-accented. Other than recording total silence, any idea how we should approach that one?

11/7/2018 11:29:56 am

Thanks Howard. What a great question! Yes, I have encountered similar communication challenges when working in global organisations across different languages different cultures. In my experience, it's not an easy question to answer. What have you tried and discovered..?

Tyler Ittai Anthony

11/7/2018 11:30:40 am

Between accents and code-switching, I have created a number of training modules using different accents, idioms, slang...etc. as needed per the audience as well as material. If done well, it can be a great addition to the training, done poorly, it can come off hackney or offensive. You are spot on with this and it brings up a good point, but are you planning on an article on how to address it; or just bringing it up for conversation?

11/7/2018 11:32:33 am

Hi Tyler. It sounds like you have some valuable experiences in this area. The blog is my 'article', my contribution to the conversation. I'm interested to hear what others think, feel and do in this area too!

Laura Randell

11/7/2018 11:33:10 am

So true! Accents can be great conversation starters and add humor. Unfortunately, they can also form stereotypes, as they are usually linked to geography.

11/7/2018 11:35:05 am

Thanks Laura. Yes, we tend to associate accents with geography and culture. This means that, when we hear a person speak with a particular accent, we may subsconsiously attribute whatever we believe and feel about the associated culture to that person.

Stephen Pridgeon

12/7/2018 10:55:43 pm

Fantastic post Nick. I'm reminded of the idea that our first sense to develop is hearing, so accents are the first thing we become aware of. And that I've colleagues who have a strong Liverpudlian accent which they sometimes worry has caused people to have negative stereotypes about them.

To spread it a bit wider - vocabulary serves as a "secure base" - people who talk like us and use the same words. That's why it's important for me to listen and try and work out what people want to say, not what they are actually saying. As one of life's "grammar nazis" I often feel the need to correct someone, but have learned that it's not helpful when I do so.

When I worked in the public sector our "secure base" was that we were civil servants, or local authority employees. We did not follow the ways of business, because that put profit before people, and wherever I worked there was a strong ethos of putting people first, and money second.

Many managers and consultants brought in to "improve" things floundered on this misunderstanding, and failed in their aims. To some a secure base is a foundation - to others it's the rocks on which they are destroyed (if I might push the metaphor a bit ?)

12/7/2018 10:59:59 pm

Thanks Stephen - and thank you for sharing such great insights from personal experience. I thought your comment about 'secure base' in the public sector was very pertinent. I have found the same in charities and NGOs too.

I liked your profound reflection too: 'To some a secure base is a foundation - to others it's the rocks on which they are destroyed.' Interestingly, the metaphor has resonances with reflections on Jesus in the New Testament!

Richard Lawrance

13/7/2018 10:20:02 am

I love this stuff. Howard's response reminds me of the 'lects' in linguistics when I was studying education back in the 70s - as well as dialects, there were sociolects, idiolects, and probably that old 70s advertising favourite Many More! And then there was register, the application of assumptions of role and status to language, which Howard alludes to. Growing up around London, I found I couldn't help myself; just osmotically absorbed the accents around me. To this day, in Australia, I have a radar for them and regularly get "Glasgow" and "Belfast" accents overlaid. But always ask. Yes, it's the inveterate "Pom" (as Australians stereotype people of my geocultural origin) in me, seeking identification with a long lost (and sadly disdained by me in my country of adoption) identity. But clever of Nick also to raise the metaphor to Roland Barthes level of mythological signification, invoking the logocentric construction of 'accent' in written text. We don't just speak it, we fix it!

13/7/2018 10:29:15 am

Thanks Richard. What you wrote sounds both intriguing and mystifying to me - a great example of how language and culture can create both barriers and bridges. Can you say a bit more about what you mean by, 'Roland Barthes level of mythological signification, invoking the logocentric construction of 'accent' in written text. We don't just speak it, we fix it!' I'm intrigued.

21/7/2018 11:17:33 am

Roland Barthes wrote a book called Mythologies in the 1960s which transformed the way we think of 'myths' such that we apply the term to contemporary social culture. He did this by analysing traditional mythology from a semiotic perspective, and theorised (apologies to current readers of Barthes, it's over 25 years since I read him) that mythological figures have human characteristics, but are constructed such that they exist in a realm abstracted from our 'real world' of day-to-day signification, a realm designed to provide transcendent explanations for our existence (such as creation, life after death, catastrophic physical phenomena like plagues and earthquakes). Barthes argued that the already signified, through the 'humanness' ascribed to their forms of being, are signified again through the ascription of this transcendent, explanatory level of meaning. He applied this theory to what, in the era of mass media, we were doing with sportspeople, film stars, global leaders/anti-leaders. We signify the already signified (as sportsperson, screen actor, political or spiritual leader) with a level of meaning that raises them beyond the level of mere human to something higher, transcendent, to which we all as one "look up". So the spoken accent for me signifies something beyond its simple physical existence, pointing to something to which I ascribe a 'deeper' meaning in the individual, their cultural origin, which to me offer's an even deeper meaningful ascription, personal cultural identification with them. Part of my own sense of being and belonging. It's not actually Barthes who makes the next conceptual jump to logocentrism. That hails from a peer of his, and fellow Frenchman (and here I go again), Jacques Derrida, who railed in a book called Of Grammatology against out obsession with the word as the signifier of meaning, as if it was meaning itself. He pointed out that as soon as the world fixed meaning in spoken or printed text, time had moved on, the meaning was in the past and the word was just it's trace; the mere trace of meaning. So aware are we of the meaningful power of accents that we try to fix them in our depiction of language as spoken, in the graph and acute accents above the 'a' and other vowels in French text, in the addition of similar graphic augmentations in cyrillic alphabets. We try to 'fix' accent in the act of 'fixing' meaning in words. I guess I'm arguing, after Derrida, that the very act of "fixing" meaning in words is mythological in intent: it attempts to make transcendent through commitment to 'perpetuity' the narrative mortality of the passage of meaning. Sorry it that's all a bit dense, but perhaps you understand better what I mean when I say "I love this stuff". It sets my mind on fire:-)

21/7/2018 11:18:19 am

Hi Richard. Wow! Inspiring and though-provoking. :)

Lester Hirst

24/7/2018 02:38:58 pm

Great metaphor! I remember how we had to lose our Argentine Spanish accent wen we went to Venezuela. I think few people are even aware of "cultural accents", let alone accommodating for them when moving into new situation.

24/7/2018 02:40:23 pm

Thanks Lester. I'm curious. What do you think would have happened if you had retained an Argentine cultural accent in Venezuela?

Ann Clancy

26/7/2018 10:33:03 am

Great questions, Nick.

26/7/2018 10:33:18 am

Thanks Ann.

Tim Soden

26/7/2018 10:33:59 am

Hi Nick Shame you were compelled to comply with perceived social issues regarding accents. I was born in Oxford my local dialect is a broad country. Working in the colleges of Oxford I noticed that "freshmen" immediately changed their accents for a form off stilted pronunciation I call BBC English. My accent defines who I am and where I come from. At workshop held for BBC heads of departments someone remarked on my accent so I asked them to guess where I was born they agreed on west country with some guessing at Bristol. They were shocked when I said I have an Oxford accent. I have never considered my accent to be a barrier to my success it makes me unique. Perhaps the underlying tone of this question is how indoctrination undermines us from being who we want to be. My question. Is does this mindset to "fit in"affect our ability to be trend setting ground breaking operators because we fear being judged and is why bigotry exists? Of course I could be wrong?

26/7/2018 10:43:26 am

Hi Tim and thanks for sharing such interesting reflections from personal experience. I love the question you pose at the end, 'Does this mindset to "fit in"affect our ability to be trend setting ground breaking operators because we fear being judged?' I think a similar tension exists when coaches and OD practitioners are invited or expected to become embedded in their client's world. Perhaps there's a difference between fitting in to feel accepted per se and fitting in sufficiently to have the possibility of exerting influence from that place? I'm reminded of the NLP notion of 'pacing and leading'. Are you familiar with it? Of course, there is always a risk that we fit in so far that we become inauthentic to ourselves and our role/calling or lose any sense of distinctive contribution or radical challenge to the status quo.

29/7/2018 09:47:38 am

Hi Nick I am no academic only someone enjoying a long career as an entrepreneur that has blessed me with a direct viewpoint on business communication.
I understand why individuals change dialect to conform with group cultures however this can create superior hierarchy "We are not like them and they are not like us".
Observe any industrial confrontation and notice how dialogues are used to separate management and workers.
Why anyone would compromise independence and opportunity for empathy to embed in a clients world is beyond my comprehension.
On NLP pacing and leading a subtle form of indoctrination this strategy if revealed to a client will destroy trust.
Perhaps changing accent is not about becoming superficial but staying authentic a big difference.
"People are very ready to criticize other people's accents. There's no correlation between accents and intelligence or accents and criminality, but people do make judgments." ~ David Crystal

29/7/2018 09:49:14 am

Hi Tim. Again - more thoughtful reflections to ponder. Thank you!

Jeff Lycett

29/7/2018 09:49:57 am

Ok folks to talk about socio-psychological as being key factors in accents and encouraging people to modify or change their accents but often there is a more fundamental reason, viz, to be understood.

29/7/2018 09:51:14 am

Hi Jeff. Can you say more..?

30/7/2018 10:15:57 am

Will need to change my accent first to be sure I am understood! I originate from the north country in the UK and have lived in Birmingham, London, Germany, Luxembourg, many lengthy sojourns in the USA and Australia, and now living in New Zealand and in each place I have consciously modified my accent to be sure I am understood. I remember some years ago being on a leadership programme where there were 2 predominant contributors, one from Aberdeen and the other from Balham London. Need I say any more. As the two became more enthusiastic about their point of views, the accents became more dominant and comprehension less available to both each other and the rest of us. An exaggeration of reality perhaps but makes the point.

30/7/2018 10:23:02 am

Hi Jeff. Yes, I can certainly relate to that. I too come from the North of England and wasn't really aware of having a strong accent until I moved to the South of England and found that people there sometimes couldn't understand me when I was speaking, especially on the phone or if I got nervous or excited - at which times I tended to talk a lot faster too. I had to change my way of speaking so that others could understand me.

Having now worked in lots of countries around the world, I have learned a simple and clear form of spoken English that I use when speaking with people who don't use English as their first language. I have also learned to tune into others' accents so that I can better understand them too. I've noticed it's not only about accent but also about so many other linguisitic and cultural factors that enable understanding and also build rapport, contact, relationship and trust.

Accents at work

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