THE GUARDIAN: Gerraway with accentism – I’m proud to speak Yorkshire

Description

Is the teacher wrong? Unfortunately there’s evidence to suggest not. Alex Baratta, a linguist at the University of Manchester, researches accentism and has found that some employers in sectors such as law and the media do discriminate against speakers of regional dialects. Viewing these as “slang” compared to standard English is plain wrong. All dialects and accents are linguistically valid. Standard English, which is basically the dialect of middle- and upper-class southerners, is only considered to be the “correct” form because it carries the highest social prestige. Should we tolerate what amounts to linguistic profiling in recruitment? Nay, gerraway wi’ thi. There’s no way to justify this biased behaviour.