questonaire answer

When looking over my results from my questionnaire various questions helped me build a picture on people attitudes towards each other and how they are viewed. My first question “Do you think people judge you on your accent?” 70% of people said no. I found this very interesting as answers were simply “you should judge someone on their personality nothing else” but when tired in with the next question this answer is strange. When asking “Do you make decisions on someone’s accents when speaking to them?” around 60% of the answers where yes, a gentleman answered “ you can learn a lot about them just from listening to the way they speak, how they speak, how they acted, friendship groups and other things” Because of the first question with most people saying you judge someone on their personality and the over half of the participants agree with the second question stating they do judge someone from the accent. I believe that people don’t realise their being judged on the way speak and that your building a mental image on someone’s lifestyle of the way they sound tired in with other aspects such as appearance. I hear great examples when being rude to someone such as “ you sound like a chav” your applying they live like one and have a lifestyle like a “chav” or personal experiences where my friend has a proper “laddish ”Essex accent  but I could tell by the way he speaks he would work and now does work as a builder simply because of the way him and his family sound as they sound like most of their conversations are around similar people to get a similar sound. Most people by the way they sound can guess their social group and how intelligent they are, however they are intelligent but because of the way they sound most people wouldn’t expect it.

Another interesting answer I gathered from this questionnaire is from the two following questions “Would you prefer your child to speak in a regional accent or nonstandard English?” and “Would you respect someone more with a non-standard English accent than a scouse accent?” most people answered that they prefer someone with a posher way of speaking than a regional accent. This tells me that speaking “posher” gets you further as the answers state that people would respected someone because of how well-spoken they a regional accent . Everyone wanted the children to speak non-standard English as one answer stated “it’s easier to succeed with a posher accent” this shows that nationally it’s easier to be successful as everyone in my question believe that speaking more clearly than an accent. This tells me that people think speaking with an accent are judged as if people didn’t judge on accents no one would care if they spoke cockney or non-standard English.

 My last question drew up an interesting point “Does your change when speaking to your family and Friends? What are changes do you notice?” most people said yes “I change to my audience” this tell me that social groups effect accent as everyone stated that they change when speaking to others. This also tells me regional accents effect the area however social groups especially in children between 15 to 18 and how “popular” they accent can be different but everyone’s accent is based around the same basis.