'Linguistic Prejudice' By Lindsay Hanley

In this article written by Lindsay Hanley she discusses what she considers to be something to worry about: trainee teachers, particularly from Northern England, are being asked to talk with a more neutral accent putting aside or modifying their regional accents so students can understand them better and becoming “role models” for the children. She bases her argument mainly in a research done by Dr Alexander Baratta on which he states that this “linguistic prejudice” is unhealthy for our culture (2016).
Throughout the article, Hanley (2016) says that “there is, increasingly, one acceptable way to be in society, and that is to be middle class and from the south-east of England”. This is clearly an assumption and it is interesting how she strongly …show more content…
She believes that by doing this it could implicitly mean that the acceptable way to fit in society is to behave like the middle class. In contrast with this, Hugh Moir writes in his article, that changing your accent because is convenient is alright but this is one’s decision and it should not be an obligation. The idea of social mobility is important here because, Hanley basically thinks that the way you were educated can stablish if you’re able to get a good job and certain life status and this is related to her ideas of how being within a certain social class is taking importance these …show more content…
Before moving to Edinburgh, the only thing that I assumed about accents in Britain is that people may have different accents according to the region where they live in, just like we do in Ecuador. Now, after six months living here and having one particular class about the subject of accents made me realized why it has such importance: your accent not only gives people a clue of where are you from but also what your social background is. The reason why I find it surprising is because I never thought of this before. Back home we do have accents but, in my opinion, we only use them to identify from what region people might be. This could be another assumption because I certainly do not know other’s opinions about this but from my experience with the educational system in Ecuador, I could say that I have never felt like accents could be a problem in society. I also believe that accents are not an indicator of class, but I am sure that many with disagree with me. This might be because I generally do care about accents and this is because I do not have characteristic accent back home. Growing up in different cities and haiving parents with different accents made me acquire a rather neutral accent, I believe, and that is of no importance to me because at the end, I think that the ideas that people transmit are more important than with what accent do you have. If the