Accents & Class

[GulPlum]

No: HPFGUIDX 45615

At 06:07 20/10/02 +0000, Catlady wrote about accents in the wizarding word, 
and in particular in reply to my previous comments:

<snip>

>Then *she* messed up by using the Muggle indicators of Muggle social
>class to portray the wizard social class of characters like the
>Malfoys, but that has to be a literary convention, like the movie of
>"Spartacus" with the Brit actors and their lovely accents as Roman
>aristocrats and the Yank actors as rebellious slaves. <snip>

[OT comment: I'd like to point to the second word of Catlady's quoted 
paragraph, which has been emphasised. Confusion about my gender has 
occurred once before and it surprised me then as it does now. :-) I would 
expect that my written style is hardly feminine... Besides, the second and 
third words of my sig were introduced precisely to dispel any possible 
confusion... :-)]

Nowhere did I indicate that accent is an indicator of Class in the WW. On 
the contrary, I deliberately distanced myself from such a conclusion, even 
going as far as to state outright that I view it to be born of reader 
prejudice.

Some argue that accent is an indicator, if not of class, then of education, 
at least in negative terms: a "bad" accent is generally seen to be an 
indicator of not having attended a "good" school. Hence the conclusion that 
in the Potter books, anyone seen not to be speaking Standard English can be 
safely assumed not to have attended Hogwarts.

I consider this to be a very dangerous assumption. Just as dangerous, in 
fact, as the real-world assumption made by employers on a daily basis, that 
anyone with a heavy regional or other accent is badly-educated. It is a 
widely-accepted prejudice in Britain, and as I understand it, in the USA as 
well. Some people *choose* not to divest themselves of a regional accent 
despite being well educated, and in some cases, strong regional accents are 
actively encouraged.

On the subject of accents: the only non-foreigners who spring to my mind as 
having been clearly identified as not speaking Standard English in the 
books are Hagrid, Stan, and the other young men at the QWC.

Over the last couple of days, I've had an ear on this issue when watching 
TV. Every time someone spoke with a strong accent (Irish, Welsh, Geordie, 
Brummie, any variety of American or other accents/dialects), I thought 
about how I'd transcribe it. In every case, I would have transcribed them 
using standard English, and someone reading the words wouldn't have a clue 
that they had been spoken with a strong accent.

As a result, I find it very, very dangerous to assume that just because, 
say, the Weasley parents are written without any accent indicators, that 
they speak the Queen's English. Perhaps I'm influenced by TMTSNBN and Julie 
Walters' strong Midlands accent (which I suspect isn't discernable to most 
non-Brits), and so I imagine her lines in the books in that accent. The 
choice of Mark Williams, with his equally strong Midlands accent, to play 
Arthur, is no accident IMO. Ron's (i.e. Rupert's) accent isn't exactly RP 
either (to witness the difference, if you can, go see him in 
Thunderpants!). :-)

Without his name as a guide, would anyone have known Seamus is Irish before 
the QWC scenes? There is nothing in his dialogue to indicate otherwise. And 
Moody - most people consider him to be Scottish, all because of a single 
word: "laddie". Nothing else about him dispels this notion, and "laddie" 
would be unlikley anywhere else in Britain, but without that word, we'd not 
be any the wiser.

So even if accent were a strong indicator of class origins, considering we 
have only the written word as a guide, judging the books' dramatis personae 
by this standard is frankly impossible.

--
GulPlum AKA Richard, who would like to add that the above is *not* the 
promised "mega-post" (but covers part of what had been planned for it...). :-)