Earlier this year a Middlesbrough teacher
sent letters home to parents giving them
a list of speech features they should urge
their children to avoid. The list was made
up of accent features (pronunciation) such
as ‘tomorra’ and dialect features (words
and grammar) such as ‘nowt’ and ‘I done
that’. Media coverage of the letter resulted
in the resurgence of an old argument
about whether schools should ensure that
working-class pupils are able to adopt a
prestige speech style and avoid the use of
local speech features like these.
Is it unfair that employers should discriminate against potential employees because of their dialect
What do you personally think of prescriptive attitudes in schools and in the workplace? What is the trend in terms of acceptance of language variety e.g. In call centres and news reading?
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