BBC Voices Poll - November 2004

Aims and methodology:

• To discover how people felt about accents in the UK.
• A survey through the internet was done question 5000 people on how they ranked different accents from the UK
• Celebrities of the certain accents were used as representatives.
• Nationally 49:51 Male : Female, mainly middle aged (24-64's)
• Social Class was not collected as data.
• Most people (97%) said that English was their first Language.
• 26% spoke at least one other language aswell as English.

Findings and analysis: From the data,  A rating from 1-9 can be created

1 - Standard English
2 - Scottish - (very close between Scottish and Irish)
3 - Irish
4 - Newcastle (not favoured because of "Geordie Shore" as the programme didn't start until many years after the survey)
5 - New Zealand
6 - London
7 - Asian
8 - Birmigham
9 - Liverpool


Sean Connery (Edinburgh Accent) and Trevor McDonald (Trinidadian Accent) was found to be one of the most popular accents however the least popular included Paul O'Grady, David Beckham and Billy Connolly. It was seen that people prefer accents local to their own. "an accent identical to your own"

Conclusion

• People like accents that are local to their own.
• Stereotypes have an impact on peoples opinion on accents 
• Scottish accents are favoured as they are consistently voted as most pleasurable by the general public 

Evaluation

• Celebrity accents can bring bias, and therefore judgement is made depending on what is thought of the celebrity rather than the accent