Vocal pride

“God, when I go down to London I’m literally a walking Gallagher brother. I emphasise my accent so much more.”

Any Mancunian who’s strayed away from their hometown will know that they’re often just one word (or ill-advised parka) away from being compared to a member of Oasis, but that doesn’t stop them proudly speaking with their unique twang.

Our fascination with each other’s accents and dialects is a feature of British life – how we pronounce ‘scone’, whether it’s a ‘breadbun, a ‘cob’ or a ‘barm’ and if Geordies sound friendlier than Brummies.

But the myriad ways in which we speak can be more than just a conversation starter. A Manchester Met research project aims to show that our voices are not just a way of communicating with one another, but that they tell a story about where we’re from, our job, education, age and status.

Quite simply, the way we speak tells others who we are.

“Any time I meet a Southerner, or another Manc on holiday, it becomes a bit of a contest to see who’s got the most Manc accent,” said the ‘walking Gallagher brother’, speaking to researchers from the University’s Manchester Voices project.

“I’d say it’s quite strong, but I make it stronger, cos I’m proud to be from here.”

That strong sense of civic pride interests the team behind Manchester Voices, the biggest ever research project of its type, studying the accents and dialects of Greater Manchester and how they are perceived.

Any time I meet a Southerner, or another Manc on holiday, it becomes a bit of a contest to see who’s got the most Manc accent

University sociolinguist Dr Rob Drummond, lead researcher on Manchester Voices, is an expert and public advocate for linguistic variation and language change. When he’s not teaching or researching, he can often be found on TV, radio and on Twitter, fiercely rebutting claims that language is being ‘dumbed down’, and defending public figures facing social media fire for speaking in accents that rile others.

Speaking to Met Magazine about Manchester Voices and the role of language in everyday life, Dr Drummond said we should celebrate our rich tapestry of accents and dialects.

“It is really important for people to take a bit of local pride in the way they speak, but also to start to challenge some of the prejudices and preconceptions. The more that people recognise the important role speech plays in who we are, you’d like to think that people would be a bit more hesitant to criticise the way people speak, because criticism about speech is always about more than just speech. It’s criticising the very essence of who somebody is. In some cases, you are attacking their social class, their background, their ethnicity, their gender, where they grew up.

“The more we can do to encourage people to take pride in the way they speak and to not feel the need to adapt it for particular situations, I think the better.”

Manchester Voices Dr Drummond and Research Associates Dr Holly Dann and Dr Sadie Ryan spent last year investigating how people speak across Greater Manchester’s ten boroughs.

The research involved a range of activities, asking participants to draw virtual ‘dialect maps’, record their own voices, and they even took to the road in their specially kitted out Accent Van to interview members of the public about how they speak.

National media came along for the ride to report on their adventures. Manchester Voices will provide a rich treasure trove of language variation, social history and heritage of the region, available for future generations to understand how people’s hugely diverse accents, dialects and perceptions of language helped to shape who we are.

Emerging findings from the research are fascinating. While the debate as to whether people from Greater Manchester are Mancunians or Lancastrians has rumbled on for decades – findings suggest that locals think there are actually four main distinct regional dialects – ‘Manc’, ‘Lancashire’, ‘Wigan’ and ‘posh’.

It seems that people think the ‘Manc’ accent synonymous with the Gallagher Brothers is situated mostly in the city of Manchester itself, while residents of South Manchester, Trafford and Stockport are more likely to sound ‘posh’ and not have ‘local’ accents.

Residents of the northern boroughs of Bury, Bolton, Rochdale and Oldham are characterised as speaking ‘Lancashire’, while Wigan natives are thought to have a distinctive dialect all of their own – and more likely to catch the ‘buz’ (bus) or read a ‘bewk’ (book) than their Greater Manchester neighbours.

They have found how some dialect terms are distinct to certain boroughs, and how language can vary hugely by age and other social factors. For instance, their analysis suggested that ‘burr’ and ‘bewk’ may be lessening over time, with younger people – and especially young women – being more likely to say ‘bear’ and ‘book’.

It is really important for people to take a bit of local pride in the way they speak, but also to start to challenge some of the prejudices and preconceptions. The more that people recognise the important role speech plays in who we are, you’d like to think that people would be a bit more hesitant to criticise the way people speak, because criticism about speech is always about more than just speech.

Dr Dann and Dr Ryan, who analysed the data, found that perceptions of accent in Greater Manchester followed a similar pattern to elsewhere in the country – but in some instances stood out because of its changing geographic boundaries.

Dr Dann said: “You get this process where urban accents tend to be downgraded. People don’t respond to them very well and tend to like more rural sounding accents. And that’s something that we also found in an incredibly local scale happening in Greater Manchester. People in Greater Manchester… tend to really like the sound of a Bolton accent – potentially because it’s associated more with Lancashire, more rural, traditional accents. And they really don’t like the sound of a Salford accent, potentially because it has more urban connotations.”

Dr Ryan, who has since joined the University of Glasgow, said: “One thing that may be a little bit special about Greater Manchester is its particular history over the past few decades where Greater Manchester has come into existence. That’s really interesting because you speak to people who say, ‘Oh yeah, I’m from Greater Manchester’ and other people who say, ‘I am not from Greater Manchester, I’m from Bolton or I’m from Stockport.’ And they’ll identify much more with Lancashire and Cheshire and really resist the idea of Greater Manchester.”

All these findings would no doubt spark a lively debate in the pub. But again, for the researchers, such findings are only as interesting in terms of how they explain broader trends.

Dr Drummond said: “It’s interesting to see how people’s speech varies across boroughs and their role in enacting those particular regional identities.

“So why does somebody from Bolton sound so different to somebody from Stockport? Is there a particular Bolton identity and a Stockport identity, and is that identity created or reinforced through the way we speak?

“We’re much more interested in asking people explicitly about the way they speak and using that information to learn more about how language behaves in everyday society.”

Accentism

Dr Drummond also runs The Accentism Project, an online platform for people to anonymously submit stories of when accent prejudice occurs. A recent contributor recounts how they were advised to pronounce words ‘correctly’ before a job interview. “Am I any less worthy of opportunities just because I pronounce words differently?” they wrote.

Dr Drummond isn’t afraid to raise his head above the parapet on this. He’s defended public figures ranging from Labour Party Deputy Leader Angela Rayner to TV Presenter Alex Scott when they were criticised for the way they speak.

He was recently dubbed a ‘Professor of Woke’ by a tabloid newspaper for arguing on national television that mimicking accents in comedy could be offensive and reinforce negative stereotypes about people.

He said: “People seem to have very fixed ideas about what makes good and bad language…that people in particular positions should be speaking in a certain way. And when that expectation is challenged or disrupted, people get quite cross about it.

So why does somebody from Bolton sound so different to somebody from Stockport? Is there a particular Bolton identity and a Stockport identity, and is that identity created or reinforced through the way we speak? We’re much more interested in asking people explicitly about the way they speak and using that information to learn more about how language behaves in everyday society.

“To me, it all comes down to prejudice and stereotypes. When there are comments about particular TV presenters or politicians, it’s because there’s an expectation historically that they will speak in a particular way that’s associated with a more prestigious social status. It might be they should be speaking what’s known as received pronunciation, which historically has been associated with the elite, the ruling classes in England. Traditionally, that’s how people spoke on the BBC and in Parliament. So when you have somebody coming along who doesn’t speak in that way, people see them not fitting in or not being worthy to be in that position.

“There’s nothing wrong with, for example, the way Angela Rayner MP speaks. She happens to come from Stockport and represents Ashton. She has a very typical working-class Stockport accent, but that doesn’t fit in Westminster. [Some] people pick on her accent, not because there’s anything wrong with it, but because it’s a way of punching down, of saying that you don’t belong here.”

While we all may admit to liking certain accents or ways of speaking more than others, it is clear to Dr Drummond and fellow linguists that these language preferences are worthy of some introspection.

“There’s a duty on all of us to at least reflect on those preferences…and see if it’s affecting the way we treat people,” Dr Drummond said.

People will be able to do so with the accents and dialects of Greater Manchester at least from later this year, when a permanent Manchester Central Library Manchester Voices installation and archive celebrating the area’s rich tapestry of voices will be installed, and a free online version too.

The installation and resource will feature audio and video interviews with people from across Greater Manchester, an interactive dialect map, and archive recordings from across the ten boroughs. There will even be some poetry that features many of the area’s diverse dialects.

Underlining the importance of such an archive is best left to a Manchester Voices interviewee. “I like the way I speak and I would never want to change it. In fact, the very opposite. I think we should embrace local accents, no matter where they’re from. Losing them makes us all the poorer."