A Preliminary Investigation of the Impact of Regional Accents on Life Outcomes

Accent is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as a "distinctive way of pronouncing a language, especially one associated with a particular country, area, or social class" (2013).Accents can be differentiated by the pronunciation of vowel sounds, the quality of voice, the intonation (especially rising or falling terminals) and through distinct features of prosody.It is believed that accents are formed in the so-called 'critical period' of a child's development (the maturational stage) of early infancy.This is when sounds are first encountered and neural pathways, which link these sounds with meaning, formed.Accents appear to remain flexible until a person's early twenties, after which they become more embedded.Change thereafter is likely to be minimal.Accents have long been regarded as indicators of locality, social class, and even of intelligence.However, in an increasingly interconnected and mobile world, strong regional accents may be being gradually eroded.In addition, as we are exposed to an ever-wider range of voices from around the world, our perception of differences of accents may be becoming weaker.Are accents becoming less important?The purpose of this small scale research project is investigate whether accents are still a significant factor informing people's perceptions of one another, and therefore in determining life outcomes.While previous studies such as Riener and Hablich (2015) have focused on specific aspects of discrimination against regional accents, none have concentrated on a general assessment of the impact on life outcomes as a result of stereotyping or the subtler forms of language-based discrimination highlighted by Sik Hung Ng (2007). Description of participantsEight people were ultimately selected for this research project.These were