Patter

[vimothy]

But also related in an interesting way. Of course, no one here puts on an accent in order to sound cool--we are all reassuringly authentic. It's other people who have the problem, naturally.

 

[baboon2004]

i think there is nothing wrong with this in and of itself, what so ever.

Aren't modes of speech to some extent cultural capital?

To take an obvious example, upper class boys who speak as though they were working class, are trying to assume some of the supposed 'coolness' of being street, without acknowledging any of the negative factors of poverty of income and opportunity.

If you're doing it to avoid being beaten up in a particular situation, that's one thing. If you're doing it outside of such a situation, it's patronising and stupid.

 

[baboon2004]

But also related in an interesting way. Of course, no one here puts on an accent in order to sound cool--we are all reassuringly authentic. It's other people who have the problem, naturally.

We're all far too real to need to do that.

 

[vimothy]

To take an obvious example, upper class boys who speak as though they were working class, are trying to assume some of the supposed 'coolness' of being street, without acknowledging any of the negative factors of poverty of income and opportunity.

If you're doing it to avoid being beaten up in a particular situation, that's one thing. If you're doing it outside of such a situation, it's patronising and stupid.

Is the reverse true?

 

[Mr. Tea]

To take an obvious example, upper class boys who speak as though they were working class, are trying to assume some of the supposed 'coolness' of being street, without acknowledging any of the negative factors of poverty of income and opportunity.

I don't think I know any actual upper-class people, but I've certainly heard middle-class kids talk like this and it bugs the hell out of me. It's the most irritating accent there is and the people who do it are invariably twats of the highest order.

 

[baboon2004]

Is the reverse true?

the reverse is much less common, I'll say that. It wouldn't be taking advantage of a power relation, so it's different.

@ Mr Tea - yeah, upper middle class is perhaps what I meant. Shoreditch c*nts is what we're talking. Or are they in Dalston/Bethnal Green now. And they all deserve to die.... London would be so much more fun to go out in.

 

[vimothy]

the reverse is much less common, I'll say that. It wouldn't be taking advantage of a power relation, so it's different.

I'm not sure what you mean here--what does its frequency have to do with it? And what do you mean "taking advantage of a power relation"?

 

[massrock]

I think Dan's right that age has a big influence in how a 'borrowed' speech idiom comes across. Perhaps there's been a lot more cross-cultural influence even in the last generation or so, as a lot of white kids who've grown up in very mixed inner-city areas (and are either still at school or have left school quite recently) talk in a way that borrows from Jamaican slang and inflection not because they're consciously trying to sound like ragga deejays any more than the black kids are, but just because that's how kids from that demographic talk these days. But above a certain age, I can't help but think you run the risk of coming across a bit Westwood/Ali G.

What about when those kids (of today) grow up a bit, do you think they will change the way they speak?

It's not just growing up in a mixed area. I did but I don't have much of a London Jamaican or London Asian thing going on in my accent I don't think, maybe once in a while by accident or for fun. But I don't think that accent existed in the same way then. (mid 70s - mid 80s).

I did work with a (white) chap in the late 80s who had the thickest 'Jamaican' accent. Really exaggerated and he only listened to the most hardcore and impenetrable ragga. He always kept it up though so I think it had become quite natural for him. Don't know what his black mates must have thought, I think with persistence and commitment anything becomes accepted.

 

[baboon2004]

I'm not sure what you mean here--what does its frequency have to do with it? And what do you mean "taking advantage of a power relation"?

Frequency has nothing to do with it per se, just an observation.

If you're an upper middle class kid pretnding to be street, then you can just switch and go back to your normal voice and go and get a job in a bank or whatever. You're not 'faking it' because you have to to get somewhere in life.

In terms of the reverse, working class kids pretending to be middle class are first of all usually doing so to avoid the 'negative' connotations heaped onto being working class, in order to avoid the prejudice in certain areas of employment etc towards people who speak with working class accents.

The reasons behind the accent change are, respectively, utterly spurious and stupid; and sadly sometimes necessary to avoid prejudice.

 

[vimothy]

There is always somebody more authentic...

 

[vimothy]

You two examples are really interesting, though. You claim that the two groups are distinct, but I wonder: do working class kids never put on an accent to sound street? Do middle class kids never pretend to be posher than they are in order to impress a prospective employer?

 

[DannyL]

If you're an upper middle class kid pretnding to be street, then you can just switch and go back to your normal voice and go and get a job in a bank or whatever. You're not 'faking it' because you have to to get somewhere in life.

This was the case with the Oxford grad guy I mentioned above. Didn't talk like that on the phone at work, for instance. But happy to the rest of the time.

 

[baboon2004]

Yeah, but there's a difference between harmless inauthenticity, and inauthenticity that is usurping characterisitcs of a group of people less powerful than you.

 

[massrock]

That's one interesting thing about living in a different country or even city, many people won't be able to decode the 'class' origin of an accent so readily.

 

[vimothy]

Yeah, but there's a difference between harmless inauthenticity, and inauthenticity that is usurping characterisitcs of a group of people less powerful than you.

But what happens when working class kids sound more working class to impress their friends? And what happens when middle class kids sound more middle class to impress their friends?

 

[baboon2004]

You two examples are really interesting, though. You claim that the two groups are distinct, but I wonder: do working class kids never put on an accent to sound street? Do middle class kids never pretend to be posher than they are in order to impress a prospective employer?

I agree, the groups aren't distinct, but social groups always bleed into one another.

The latter - yes, but they don't have to do it in as many cases. I certainly do it myself, as a middle-middle class type, but if I didn't, I dion't think I'd suffer particularly.

Working class kids putting on an accent to sound street - sure they do. Depends where you grow up, I guess, and I suppose street is a bit of an inexact term.

 

[baboon2004]

But what happens when working class kids sound more working class to impress their friends? And what happens when middle class kids sound more middle class to impress their friends?

er, blatant cases are worse than marginal cases?

 

[massrock]

LOL, dubstepforum. Innit doe bruv.

 

[vimothy]

They're all inexact: that's the point. You and Danny are engaged in a little power play yourselves here: stating the acceptable limits of identity, validating racial categories, taking as given a monolithic conception of that most mistreated of phrases, "power relations".

I much prefer cultural miscegenation. And incidentally, if Dissensus is anything to go by, so do most people here--including you!

 

[Tentative Andy]

LOL, dubstepforum. Innit doe bruv.

Hehehe.

Random little thought: would people say that addressing people as 'mate' is a marker of either being working-class or approximating towards working-class? In the past it obv would have been one of the two in any situation, but it seems like one of those things that's passed into the general culture and become an almost neutral term.
Myself, I prefer 'buddy' anyway (think that's an Invernesian/North-Eastern thing originally?).