I'm doing a questionaire and need 20 questions on British accents?

Question

I'm doing a language investigation for college which involves writing a questionaire and I need 20 questions. The aim of the questionaire is to find out (in general) people's attitudes towards British accents and (in particular) whether people have a more negative attitude towards northern accents than southern ones.
Can anyone help me think of questions for my questionaire that tie in with the aim? I know it's kinda cheating but I'm really struggling now!

You're all doing great! Don't stop! I've not got my 20 questions yet! lol

Seriously though... thanx to everyone that's given me ideas...you've been a great help :-)

Answer 1

(u'Il give you a wheen of oulde words in my Ulster Scots dialect.

That olde fields aerr there all clarried way muck and mire right noow. All they boyes are eejits awe howl yir whist)

Ulster Scots accent is in its own right. A wee bit broad and country in comparison to other arts and parts of the UK.

Accents can influence ones perception of a person both positive and negative.

An accent can reveal where the person comes from but not their background or ancestral/heritage. Some accents can become stereotyped which might be based on prejudices and it would be wrong to judge a person status or culture or religious beliefs basically on an accent.

Attitudes around accents can be prejudged sometimes when a person speaks in a different accent or is out of town they may be deemed in a more negative way because of bad press or a one fits all flawed perception.

Answer 2

I read an article a few years ago which asked how much you would trust somebody just from their accent. The most untrustworthy were Glaswegian, Liverpudlian and Northern Irish. Anyone with a strong Mancunian accent was considered to be stupid, and anyone with a Birmingham accent was plain annoying, yet people liked a Scottish accent if they rang call centres.
I would ask things like;

What is the most trusted accent in the UK?
Are people with Mancunian accents really more stupid than people with Cornish accents?
When you call British Gas would you rather speak to someone with a Scottish or Yorkshire accent?
Do you understand the Welsh?
What is the most annoying accent in the UK?

Answer 3

The Southern English accent is closest to Received Pronunciation or 'The Queen's English'. It use to be used throughout the BBC and is still associated with a good education.
A few years ago, a market research company determined that people have most trust in the North East England (Geordie) accent so this has attained disproportionate representation in the media. My personal view is that this data was seriously flawed as there is nothing in that part of the country to suggest greater than average honesty.
As part of the great PC movement, the BBC have gone so regional with their accents that the Northern 'a' sound (as in bat) when saying Castle is now standard on Radio 4 whereas the correct pronunciation of the a as 'bar' has almost disappeared.
My objection is not primarily to the regional accents but to the poor grammar and inaccurate vocabulary that is frequently associated with non RP English and that new-speak that is referred to as Estuary English.

Answer 4

Ok hey this be good fun.
(1) Do you think having a regional accent have has held you back in terms of jobs opportunities?
(2) Do you think that Southerners are bias against people from the north because of there accents?
(3) What do you think about the way you speak?
(4) Do you find some dialect/accent better to listen to than other?
(5) Have you had to change your dialect/accent?
(6) What do you think about the way people speak in public life (e.g. television, politicians)?
(7) Do you think people are judge you by your accent?
Hope theses will help you

Answer 5

Think first about how you want to lay out the questionnaire, and the style of questions eg yes/no answers, text answers, scale. I would be tempted in this case to use a scale of 1 to 5 with 1 being strongly agree, 5 being strongly disagree and have statements such as If I hear someone with a southern accent I think they are a good person (that's a bad question, but just an example). But you need to think about how you are going to analyse your answers and what you are going to type up, this will determine how you write the questionnaire.

Answer 6

Northern accents give rise to being misunderstood. They have no conception of the Queen's English.
The Scots speak a dialect comprehensible only to themselves.
Midland accents are from a different planet altogether.
South East accents are reasonable
South West accents border on civilised
Home Counties are the most cultured
London accents are too varied to come under 1 heading
Forget the Welsh,
Nothing good ever came out of Wales. Remember the Tudors!
Incidentally, I'm Irish and we speak the best English.
So there!

Answer 7

Hi, I did something similar in my A-level English coursework. It would be great if you could use an audio/visual support for this. For instance, you could record certain accents saying the same phrase, and ask respondants whether they believed it was;
a) menacing
b) inquisitive
c) intelligent
.....etc etc
(You could videotape accents, or record them from regional radio programes via the internet.)
Other than that, how about asking respondants to select one word they associate with a certain accent (similar to the words above.)
For this type of questionnaire you might have to force people to make quick judgments (by only being allowed to tick one box, for instance) as people are aware these days that such judgments can be seen as prejudiced.

Answer 8

What British accent do you associate with rough people?
What accent in britain do you like best and why?
What accent do you not like in britian and why?
Would you think twice about talking to people who's accent is from South east London than if their accent was a Glaswighen accent?
What accents in b/ritain would you most associate with a troubled area and why?
Do you have a problem with people based on their accent? If so why?
Is that any good?

Answer 9

I LOVE Newcastle accents! A man came into our shop once and was from Newcastle (well he had the accent) and I said "Awe wow, I LOVE your accent!! Sooo cool!!"
Kind of embarrassing that I said it out loud - but it needed to be said!!
So accents that make people drool!!
And also, I live in the Highlands of Scotland and find Caithnessian farmers to be impossible to understand, so maybe you could do something about ones that are hard to comprehend.
xx

Answer 10

i am from the north-east and as you know we have distinctive accents. i live in east durham and we were voted to have the nicest accent in england. here is some questions i would ask.

1) do you find you judge a person by there accent?
2) to you wich accent is more appealing?
3) do you think there should be more northern accents on television?
4) wich accents do you think sound more aggresive?
5) do you think if you have a northen accent it restricts your oppertunities I.E career prospects?
6) as a southerner/northener do you feel resentful to northerners/southeners?

hope these help!

AND AY UP ME DUCK IS SAID IN THE EAST MIDLANDS I WAS BORN THERE :-)