What is an accent? An accent is a flavoring to your speech that influences the sounds of words and sentences. In Birmingham you might hear "lake" sounding close to "like", and In Ireland you might hear "this" sounding close to "diss".
Accents are related to social groups: Birmingham, say, or upper class. Everyone has an accent, and no one is accent-free. And for every accent there are groups of people who react badly to it. These reactions are the result of prejudice —an unreasoned jumping to conclusions.
Everybody has prejudices about accents. I certainly do. I have held prejudices about other people's accents. But over the decades, my experience of working with people from a wide range of backgrounds has led me to give up these prejudices. However, I still have prejudices that I find difficult to control.
Academics tell us that no accent is superior to any other. But the reality is that the wider world likes the idea of simple rules which tell us what is right and wrong. We like to judge our colleagues on the basis of these rules. If you break these rules, you are somehow to blame.
Jacob, Member of Parliament, remembers when he first stood unsuccessfully for election in Fife, Scotland, "I gradually realized that whatever I happened to be speaking about, the number of voters in my favor dropped as soon as I opened my mouth."
And some people change their accents to sound more refined (文雅的) when talking to people outside their immediate circle of family and friends.
Sky News ran a report recently in which an 18-year-old woman was trying to sound less posh (上等人的), that is speaking non-standard English, because she didn't like random people telling her that she must be rich and from a privileged background.
Lastly, it's worth being reminded that people can have an accent and still be recognized.
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