Attitudes to Accents Poll November 2004

                       
Aims
The aim of this study was to primarily find out how people felt about accents and languages across the british isles.

Methodology

Participants were asked to rank celebrities in order of how their pleasant their voices sounded.

Findings and Analysis

• Throughout the UK, The Edinburgh accent (Sean Connery) was deemed the most pleasant.
• Pierce Brosnan - who was born in the Republic of Ireland, raised in England and has lived in the USA for over 20 years  was high up the list.
• Trinidad-born Trevor McDonald’s appealingly authoritative voice put him in second place overall.
• Respondents indicated a preference for accents relatively local to them: Scots said they loved Ewan McGregor's Perthshire accent, the English found Hugh Grant's voice attractive, people in Wales preferred listening to Welsh actor Richard Burton and newsreader Huw Edwards, while those in Northern Ireland found Terry Wogan's Limerick accent irresistible.
• Northern Irish participants were the only group who found Ian Paisley's voice acceptable - his was voted 'least pleasant' by all other areas of the UK. In Northern Ireland, Janet Street-Porter's Estuary tongue was declared least attractive, and she fared little better among Scottish and Welsh voters.
• David Beckham, Billy Connolly, Cilla Black and Paul O'Grady were also given the thumbs down.
• 59% of people polled wish at least occasionally that they had a different accent. This rises to a massive two thirds in Northern Ireland. The most wished-for accent is a Standard English accent, but 7% said they would rather have a Southern Irish accent (12% in Northern Ireland).
• Throughout the country, people voted "an accent identical to your own" as one of their favourite accents, and in most places, voters considered their own accent to be prestigious or helpful for getting a job.
• 95% of people in Northern Ireland, 79% in Wales and 87% in Scotland think of themselves as having at least a moderately strong accent. Only 63% in the east of England and 64% in the south think their accent is moderately strong. Generally people in the north and west of the UK identify with "having an accent" more than those in the south-east.
• More than 4 in 5 admit to changing their accent on occasions, particularly when meeting people for the first time or when talking to more senior work colleagues. Intoxication was also implicated: "I have a Yorkshire accent which becomes more obvious when I drink alcohol (I'm afraid to say)," commented one unnamed respondent.
• there was a close link between pleasantness and prestige: an Edinburgh accent was valued highly on both counts, while Asian, Liverpool and Birmingham accents were all deemed both unpleasant to listen to and lacking in social status.
• There were two major exceptions to the pattern. Whilst a London accent was thought to be very helpful career-wise, people did not find it nice to listen to. Conversely, respondents liked the sound of Newcastle accents but did not think they were very prestigious or useful when job-hunting.
• Although the Queen's English beat other accents hands down in the prestige stakes, it was thought that a Standard English accent would be more beneficial when applying for jobs. The majority of those questioned liked the Queen's voice, but preferred Southern Irish, Scottish and New Zealand accents.
• Scottish and Northern Irish respondents liked Scottish accents best of all, but English and Welsh voters put the Standard English accent out on top.
• Over two-thirds of respondents claimed that they hear more languages nowadays than they used to, but 22% said that they dislike hearing languages other than English. A fifth believe that in general we have become less tolerant of hearing a variety of languages.
• In Wales, where English and Welsh are legally equal, bilingualism was seen as even more of a benefit than in the rest of the UK. Two-thirds of those who took part in the poll in Wales believe that a second language is helpful when it comes to getting a good job. Just 16% of Welsh respondents said they did not like hearing languages other than English.
• Throughout the UK, the vast majority of multilingual respondents (84%) are glad they can speak languages other than English.

Conclusion and Evaluation

The Edinburgh and RP are still on top in terms of desirability, however, there are now accents found more desirable than before, for example international accents, this may be because the UK has grown in culture since the last league table was made. However, as a generous amount of people chose their own accent as most desirable, some could argue it's validity. There was however an additional poll thus suggesting that the poll was reliabilty.