When analysing my questionnaires I decided to group various responses to my questions based on gender because I found this particularly more interesting. The first response I found quite surprising with to the following 'Do you think it is right for someone with an Essex or cockney accent to be in a position of power, like a member of parliament?'. To my surprise, 100% of males and females both said yes. One female went on to say that as long as they speak using correct grammar it doesn't matter about their accent, similarly one of the males that completed my questionnaire said as long as they do the job correctly the way in which they speak is irrelevant. I think this shows a big shift in attitudes today about language and accents because many years ago it would of been unheard of that someone with an accent such as cockney would of been in such a well respected occupation. This is because unfortunately the respect would of been absent for the individual due to their accent, it would commonly be assumed that they are not intelligent enough for the role because of how they talk.
My next question was ' Do you think you
make an assumption about a person’s intellect based on the way they speak? For
example if someone speaks using Received Pronunciation (the way a news
presenter speaks) would you assume that they are more intelligent than someone
who speaks with non-standard English (the way
someone on The Only Way is Essex speaks)?' I wasn't expecting the results I got, 75% of women said no whilst 75% of men said yes which I found particularly intriguing. One women went onto say that ' the content and correct use of grammar and vocabulary is what is most important' to support her point. Whereas on the other hand one of the males aid the following to support his answer ' Non standard English seems less intelligent as they have a smaller vocabulary'. In addition to 75% of women saying no, 12.5% said yes and no, justifying their answer through the following words ' I wouldn't assume a person was less intelligent for not speaking using Received Pronunciation, but I might assume greater intelligence if someone did speak using RP.' Through these results it is clear to see that women appear more relaxed in a sense, to how other people speak and refrain from creating an opinion about that person, whereas men on the other hand think that depending on the way you speak, it determines how intelligent you are.
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Although on the other hand I found that women were more conscientious when it came to the way they spoke themselves, as opposed to how others speak stated n my results above. I asked the following question, ' Do you change the way you speak depending on who
you are speaking to? For example does how you speak to your friends differ from
how you will speak to your parents or teachers, if so please give an example of
the different words/language you will use?'. Surprisingly 100% of the women I asked said yes, however 75% of men said no. This thereby suggests that men are more likely to just speak in the way they always have regardless of if they will be accepted by a social group or person at the time. Whereas women will adapt their voices significantly more to be accepted by their social groups of interaction at the time. Some may even argue these results are an example of whereby language is written for men about men and by men because they do not feel the need to alter their accents and language used to be able to socialise comfortably with others regardless of if they are in a higher position of power or the same social class/group.
Another question where I found my results particularly interesting was my final question, ' Do you think there is an accent that should be
considered the correct way to speak?(if so, please identify which accent you
think this is)'. In my results i found that the answer across the board, One answered followed with ' all accents should be acceptable' another with ' having a variety of accents makes things more interesting'. Linking to my first paragraph i think my results show a trend in the respect that attitudes towards accents and dialect have changed over time as people are becoming more open to and accepting of how other people talk.
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