The expression "British accent"

[skullturf]

I've noticed, in various internet discussions about language and accents, that some people seem to dislike the expression "British accent", and will sometimes say things like "There's no such thing as a British accent". For example, see some of the entries here.

I can see some of the reasons that British folks might not like hearing people (e.g. Americans) say the words "British accent". But the fact remains: if something is an accent, and it's British, then it's a British accent.

There are, of course, many different accents in Britain. There are English, Scottish, and Welsh accents, and each of those categories can be further subdivided into different accents. If somebody said all British people sound the same, that would be false. If somebody spoke of "THE British accent", that would be incorrect -- there is not just one British accent, but a large number of them.

But I think people are overstating their case and being silly when they object to the expression "British accent". Yes, it is possible to be more specific than "British accent", but nevertheless, "British accent" is correct. An Oxford accent and a Newcastle accent and a Glasgow accent are all examples of British accents, just as a malamute and a chihuahua and a mastiff are all examples of dogs.

[eSOANEM]

There is nothing inherently wrong with the expression "a British accent". What people object to is the way that "British accent" is almost always used to refer to RP whilst Scottish, Northern Irish and Welsh accents will generally be referred to as such. This grates on people in the UK because it seems wrong that what is an English accent (and one which is not even that widely spoken in many parts of the country) is described with a term implying it is also Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish.

This is the problem. It's the way the term assumes greater unity than exists and how it demotes regional accents to a lower standing than the accent of the home counties and the middle and upper classes.

[skullturf]

Fair point, thank you for your feedback.

If an accent (or any other type of entity whatsoever, call it "X") is English, then it's not incorrect to say that it's also British. (England is a subset of Britain.)

So it's not incorrect to refer to an RP accent as British.

However, if people have a habit or pattern of referring to English X's (or a particular subset of English X's) as "British", but don't have the habit or pattern of referring to, say, Scottish X's as "British" (Scotland is a subset of Britain too), then I can see how that habit or pattern could be annoying. (Even though, of course, no single reference to an English entity as being British is factually incorrect.)

[eSOANEM]

However, if people have a habit or pattern of referring to English X's (or a particular subset of English X's) as "British", but don't have the habit or pattern of referring to, say, Scottish X's as "British" (Scotland is a subset of Britain too), then I can see how that habit or pattern could be annoying. (Even though, of course, no single reference to an English entity as being British is factually incorrect.)

This is exactly the problem. It's as if English people referred to a New York accent as an "American accent" but every other American accent by a more specific description (e.g. "a Californian accent", "a Texan accent", "a Delaware accent" etc.)

[Iulus Cofield]

Don't they? Not with New York accents of course, but isn't General American the "American accent" with other regional accents being referred to more specifically?

[eSOANEM]

In my experience a Southern accent will often be referred to as such but any other accent (with the possible exceptions of a stereotypical New York taxi driver accent) will almost always be referred to as an American accent (and, unless it's Southern-ness is important, I think it'd probably be more common to refer to a Southern accent as American if only to avoid confusion with an accent from the South of the UK).

When people try to do "an American accent", they almost always try GA though but I don't think there's anything wrong with this. It is the "standard" American accent so it makes sense that when going from name->speech it goes just to GA (because otherwise you end up with a bastardised form of god knows how many accents) but generally, going from speech->name I think almost any American accent will come out simply as "American".

I think the main reason for this is that, most British people cannot easily distinguish between most American accents, they all sort of merge into some vague mush in our mind with only a few accents remaining distinct (such as strong Southern accents, New York taxi driver and possibly valley girl). If we can't distinguish between those accents let alone locate them on a map, what hope do we have for distinguishing them in how we describe them?

[skullturf]

I suppose it's understandable, on some level, that if you either ask an American "Do a British accent" or ask a Brit "Do an American accent", without any more specific instructions, then their "default" might be to do a sort of "broadcast" accent -- something close to RP or GA, as appropriate.

However, even if an American thinks of something RP-ish as a "British accent", I'd expect him or her to be aware that it's also something more specific than British -- it's not Scottish or Welsh or Northern Irish, and it's similar to an educated speaker from Southeastern England.

Here's a complicating factor, and one possible reason why people might say "British accent". I've known some individuals from Wales who, to my untrained North American ears, don't seem to have very strong accents, and who sound English to me. I can also imagine somebody who doesn't know UK accents in detail, who hears, say, a Newcastle accent, and isn't quite sure whether it's English or Scottish. I can therefore see how people might sometimes err on the side of using the more general term, and say "British" if they can't decide between English, Welsh, Scottish, etc. (Sort of like a Brit or an Aussie saying "North American accent" if they're not sure whether the speaker is American or Canadian, or me saying "Caribbean accent" if I think the speaker is probably Jamaican but maybe from someplace else.)

Nevertheless, I'm aware that there are people who conflate the terms "English" and "British", and I can see how this would be annoying to people.

Because this tendency to conflate "English" and "British" is out there, I guess it means you're never 100% sure how to interpret a single speaker on a single occasion who refers to something English as British. On the one hand, he/she is technically correct, since English things are also British. On the other hand, it's possible that the speaker incorrectly thinks of "English" and "British" as being synonyms. And even if you believe in giving people the benefit of the doubt, I can see how the habit of conflating "English" and "British" would be annoying.

[eSOANEM]

Here's a complicating factor, and one possible reason why people might say "British accent". I've known some individuals from Wales who, to my untrained North American ears, don't seem to have very strong accents, and who sound English to me.

This is absolutely not your fault.

In almost all the country, the aristocracy was historically English and this leads to the upper and upper-middle classes in most of the country all speaking with very similar accents (some form of RP). For instance, I didn't realise this youtuber was from Cardiff until she mentioned accidentally walking into a doctor who shoot (different video, might be on a different channel, but it's definitely her) and how it's a constant danger in Cardiff. Now I know, I can occasionally hear the odd thing which is a tiny bit Welsh, but generally, she sounds like she could be my neighbour (in Bucinghamshire, SE England). Likewise, when I was being interviewed for a place at uni, I was chatting to some of the other people and I only realised one girl was Welsh when she mentioned having to get a train to Swansea.

So that isn't what irritates me about when Americans refer to RP as a British accent. What irritates me is that it gets referred to as "British" far more than any other British accent. In my experience, Scottish accents will generally be described as "Scottish", Irish accents (both from the North and Eire) will generally be referred to as such, Welsh accents, I don't know, but I'd expect they'd either get confused with Scottish or Irish accents or described as "Welsh". No idea what happens to Northern accents, I suspect those who know where they're from (even if it's just because of the 9th Doctor's line about lots of planets having a north) describe them as "Northern" and other people get confused. West country accents won't come up much like Brummy accents and cockney is well known enough in its own right to often be described as cockney.

That doesn't leave many other accents to describe as "British". The main one is RP (which admittedly does have a much wider spread geographically) but it being the seemingly sole accent described as "British" by Americans gets irritating because it is an English accent, just one which happens to be relatively common in other parts of Britain.

[gmalivuk]

I don't know whether I disproportionately refer to RP as a British accent, but I definitely do refer to both phonological and non-phonological elements of RP English as "British English". I do this both because RP is by far the most common non-American variety of English taught as a foreign language (so the one my students are most likely to have been exposed to previously, if they describe learning something different from what I'm teaching them here in Boston), and also because saying "English English" seems silly. It's the same reason I refer generally to the characteristics that distinguish Spanish in Spain from Spanish in Latin America as "Castilian Spanish" rather than "Spanish Spanish". (Though now that I think of it "Iberian Spanish" would be a much better analogue to "British English", since Castile is a specific region.)

[eSOANEM]

I think that's entirely reasonable. When talking about dialect (which would encompass accent) in the context of teaching English as a second language (I think you said it was second language somewhere), it makes sense to try to limit yourself to standard dialects.

What irritates me is when (for example), Hugh Laurie is on a TV show and people say how they love his British accent, but when David Tennant appears they complement his Scottish accent instead.

[Iulus Cofield]

I use British and English pretty interchangeably as demonyms. If I want to mean British as in inhabitant of the British Isles, I tend to use Briton. I blame Great Britain.

[ahammel]

Here's a complicating factor, and one possible reason why people might say "British accent". I've known some individuals from Wales who, to my untrained North American ears, don't seem to have very strong accents, and who sound English to me.

[explains]

Thanks for clearing that up. I was actually quite confused by skullturf's post, as what I think of as a Welsh accent is distincitve to the point of incomprehensible. This may be because my first encounter with it occured in a bar:

Welshman: D'y'have a xzrgh?
My friend: What?
Welshman: D'y'have a xzrgh?
My friend: Sorry??
Welshman: Y'know: a xzrgh. Like for grjght.
My fried: What?!

When describing an accent, I'll generally specify country if I can pick it out (as in "Hugh Laurie has an English accent, David Tennant has a Scottish accent") and revert to "British" if I can't.

[Adacore]

I use British and English pretty interchangeably as demonyms. If I want to mean British as in inhabitant of the British Isles, I tend to use Briton. I blame Great Britain.

Yeah, 'British' and 'English' are used pretty interchangeably in most places. The majority of people outside the UK don't actually know the distinction (and almost all have absolutely no idea on the British Isles/Great Britain/UK differences). It's fairly common in my experience for people to ask, or just state, that Wales is part of England, for example.

[eSOANEM]

Wales is part of England, for example.

This isn't too out of date actually. Under Henry VIII IIRC, Wales was brought into the Kingdom of England and it was not until a while later with the act of union when we merged with Scotland that the UK appeared and, until devolution and the Welsh assembly, I believe this still stood.

[Iulus Cofield]

It goes back even earlier for de facto integration with England, when Edward I killed Llwelyn the Last and established the custom of making the heir apparent of England the Prince of Wales. With seven and a half centuries of English rule and less than a decade and a half of a devolved assembly, it's not a surprising mixup.

[gaurwraith]

In England they speak PFE





























































"proper fucking English"

[KestrelLowing]

I think that it's more of an ignorance with specific accents. I know what a Scottish accent sounds like. I know what an Irish accent sounds like. I know what an Australian accent sounds like. Everything else I'm just frankly not sure. I couldn't tell the difference between Rose's and the 9th doctor's accents or RP. I just don't have enough experience with those different accents to know anything more than that they're 'British'. If I were to hear them spoken next to each other, I could probably point out the differences, but I wouldn't know them on their own.

I think it would be very similar to categorizing American accents. Most people can probably easily recognize a strong Southern accent or the Boston accent. But, I wouldn't expect them to know the difference in Minnesotan, California, 'Hillbilly', general American, etc. so all of those would just be American accents.

(Hmmm, evidently I should have an "inland north" american accent but have gone through the "Northern Cities Vowel Shift". Amazing what information wikipedia has)

[Apparently Anonymous]

I just don't have enough experience with those different accents to know anything more than that they're 'British'.

This. When I'm unsure about something, I'll pick the general instead of the more specific term.

Moreover, I tend to say "British" when asked what kind of accent I'm going for when speaking English - the reason being that I go for something in between a Scottish and an English accent (I would love to have a Scottish accent, but hear it being spoken too seldomly to know it well enough).

[Daimon]

When I refer to "British" accents, I generally have two things I say. Either, "That guy has a British accent. Cool." or, "That guy is from Liverpool. Let's shun him." When I was in sixth grade, everyone always said I had a British accent, (The fact that I've lived in Texas all my life notwithstanding), and now I only occasionally get it. I have NEVER heard it.

[Derek]

When I was in sixth grade, everyone always said I had a British accent, (The fact that I've lived in Texas all my life notwithstanding), and now I only occasionally get it. I have NEVER heard it.

I used to get that a lot too, not completely sure why.

"proper fucking English"

>Doesn't pronounce r's.

[Adacore]

Wales is part of England, for example.

This isn't too out of date actually. Under Henry VIII IIRC, Wales was brought into the Kingdom of England and it was not until a while later with the act of union when we merged with Scotland that the UK appeared and, until devolution and the Welsh assembly, I believe this still stood.

Oh, I didn't actually know that. I picked Wales for my example rather than Scotland fairly arbitrarily. I've heard both being referred to as part of England.

[ElWanderer]

Wales is part of England, for example.

This isn't too out of date actually. Under Henry VIII IIRC, Wales was brought into the Kingdom of England and it was not until a while later with the act of union when we merged with Scotland that the UK appeared and, until devolution and the Welsh assembly, I believe this still stood.

Oh, I didn't actually know that. I picked Wales for my example rather than Scotland fairly arbitrarily. I've heard both being referred to as part of England.

Be careful though. Most Welsh people will be most insulted if you call Wales a part of England (and probably a fair few English people). Politically and legally, Wales was absorbed into the Kingdom of England quite a while back, which is why they've never had any representation in the flags of Great Britain/The United Kingdom; the current one combines the flags of the Kingdom of England, the Kingdom of Scotland and the Kingdom of Ireland. There's also a common legal system across England & Wales whereas Scottish law is separate and different. Despite this, Wales has retained its own identity, has its own national football and rugby teams (but not cricket... *shrug*), there's still a border on the map with big "Welcome To England" / "Croeso Y Cymru" (Welcome to Wales) signs on the roadside - same as between England and Scotland, and the Welsh language has not only survived but has been having a revival in recent years. Signs in Wales are dual-language - if you see a Top Gear (or similar) clip and they drive over a bit of road with the word ARAF (slow) written on it, you can tell they're in Wales. With the recent devolution, the political side is a lot murkier - there are some things that are dealt with by the Welsh Parliament, others by the UK Parliament.

TLDR - Wales is part of England in a legal sense, but in terms of pretty much everything else, Wales and England are separate nations that are part of the UK. In terms of everyday speech, someone saying Wales is part of England is making a mistake.

Conversely, Scotland has never been a part of England, though some of the border regions may have changed hands a few times over the years. Saying Scotland is part of England is definitely a mistake