Is your regional accent hurting you at work?

Some British professors are modifying their speech patterns to sound more "posh", according to a study by PhD students Victoria Mountford and Michelle Addison. The professors feel that having a higher-class speech pattern will help them when staff cut-backs are being considered. The research, entitled "Talking the Talk and Fitting In: Troubling the Practices of Speaking "what you are worth" in Igher Ed in the UK" will be presented this week at the British Sociological Association's annual conference being held this week. The effect of strong regional accents in the workplace has been studied here in the USA as well. In a study done by Patricia Cukor-Avila and Dianne Markley of the University of Northern Texas published in 2000, 56 people in a position to hire were asked to rate the 45-second recordings made by 10 white males from different parts of the country, each with a regional accent. Each read the same passage. Those with the least identifiable accent were rated most highly, and were given hypothetical jobs involving the most public contact. An exception was made by people in Texas, who preferred their own regional accent. This correlates with a study done at Texas A & M University. In business today, the impact of a strong regional accent may be even stronger. People giving speeches, participating in teleconferences or even calling clients in different parts of the country report listeners judge them first on how different they sound, and in some cases may not even consider the message they are sharing. In at least one business in the USA, where employees are on the telephone constantly with many clients for brief periods of time, employees are required to use a standard American speech pattern at work. Those who need it receive training on how to change their speech patterns. Business Speech Improvement provides both intensive speech coaching in regional accent modification. Those who prefer to try to change by themselves may be interested in our e-book on "Diction Makes a Difference!" and the mp3 file on "Pronounce American English More Clearly"