{"id":63,"date":"2007-03-26T10:46:49","date_gmt":"2007-03-26T09:46:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.elementally.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/2007\/03\/26\/accents-and-dialects-the-good-or-bad\/"},"modified":"2007-03-26T10:46:49","modified_gmt":"2007-03-26T09:46:49","slug":"accents-and-dialects-the-good-or-bad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/accents-and-dialects-the-good-or-bad\/","title":{"rendered":"Accents and dialects – the good or bad"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well, for me at least, the good is that they make you sound interesting (all other things being equal of course, which they never are!). I remember reading some research (which I can’t find to reference, sorry!) suggesting that call centres tended to employ people from certain places because they and “generally trusted” accents – mild Scottish, Geordie and northern accents in particular.<\/p>\n

BBC’s Today programme on radio four ran a fascinating section this morning (26th of March 2007) on accents and dialects (the listen again facility<\/a> will be over-written by tomorrow’s programme I expect) prompted by work at the British Library<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As a presenter, of course, accents have a major downside too – and I hinted at it above when I referred to “mild” accents. Strong accents and dialects will tend to make your presentation, no matter how wonderful the content, harder for your audience to access.<\/p>\n

Dialect <\/strong>– regional or class variations in grammar, syntax or vocabulary – is (relatively!) easy to spot in your presentation when you practice. Of course, it’s easier to do that if you’ve got someone listening to you who will pick you up on what you’re saying. Accent <\/strong>is altogether harder to deal with, because it’s sooo instinctive: you literally start learning it at your mother’s breast, so to speak.<\/p>\n

There are dozens of elecution tutors out there who will help you deal with an accent if you want to change it – but I’m inclined to think that’s a bit of a shame. Your accent is a fundamental part of who you are and shouldn’t be abandoned without some serious consideration! Instead, what I suggest to the budding presenter-with-a-noticable-regional-accent is this….<\/p>\n