What Do Our Accents Say About Us?
CrowdScience
BBC
4.8 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 28 July 2017
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
How do we end up speaking the way we do? What's happening in our brains and mouths to make us sound so different from each other - even when we’re speaking the same language? This week on CrowdScience we return to our listener Amanda’s question of why there are so many accents, and discover more about what our accents say about us.
We visit Glasgow in Scotland, home to one of the most distinctive dialects of English, to see how social status and age affect the way we speak; and investigate another of our listeners’ questions: is there really such a thing as a ‘political accent’?
But how do babies pick up accents in the first place – and is it impossible to learn new sounds later in life? Presenter Nastaran Tavakoli-Far discovers something unexpected about her own accent, visits a voice coach to try and sound Texan, and uses ultrasound to try and get her tongue round new sounds.
And you can find out how much of an accent expert you are, by taking part in our online quiz.
Do you have a question we can turn into a programme? Email us at crowdscience@bbc.co.uk Presenter: Nastaran Tavakoli-Far Producer: Cathy Edwards
(Image: Woman holds hand near ear and listens carefully alphabet letters flying in. Credit: Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're about to listen to a BBC podcast and maybe it's when I had a hand in. |
| 0:04.0 | I'm Tammy Walker and I produce podcasts for the BBC. |
| 0:08.0 | My role is to give new and diverse creators a voice with the opportunity to build a career. |
| 0:12.0 | That's the thing I love about podcasts. |
| 0:14.4 | You start with just a good idea, but then you have the space to see where it goes. |
| 0:18.4 | And doing that at the BBC means we can really run with the best stories |
| 0:21.9 | while developing the most unique audio talent. |
| 0:24.8 | So if you like what you hear, why not check out the huge range of podcast we've got on BBC Sounds? |
| 0:30.9 | Hello Crowd Science. |
| 0:32.2 | Hi Crowd Science. Hello Crowd Science. Hi Crowd Science. |
| 0:33.0 | Hello Crowd Science. |
| 0:34.0 | We are listening to Crowd Science from the BBC. |
| 0:37.0 | Hello and welcome to Crowd Science. |
| 0:39.0 | I'm Nastrand Havocoulfar, |
| 0:41.0 | and this week we're revisiting a subject we delved into earlier this year. |
| 0:45.8 | Accents. Here's a reminder from our listener Amanda. I'm Amanda Miller from Inlet New New York, and my question is, why do we have so many different accents? |
| 0:58.0 | I'm here in the studio with Kathy, my producer. So Kathy, don't tell me we didn't say all there is to say about |
| 1:04.4 | accents. No, of course we didn't. There's loads to say about accents. |
| 1:07.6 | Depending how you look at it, everybody in the whole world has their own unique |
| 1:11.0 | accent so you can imagine there's a huge amount to say on the subject. |
| 1:14.8 | And after the first program, lots of people wrote into us with their own stories about accents, |
| 1:19.5 | and that's what I love about this topic is that literally everybody seems to have an accent |
... |
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