You’re joking but when living in Britain I did know a couple of people who weren’t middle-class English and whose natural accent wasn’t the so-called English RP accent (basically middle-class English / BBC presenter accent) and who made quite the effort to speak with the latter accent.
In Britain (most notably England) one’s accent is a huge part of presenting the “right” image, to the point that the upper class has their own accent (known as the “posh accent”) independent of region, something which is at very least highly unusual in other countries.
Americans code switch too. Southern people will definitely lean on their diphthongs harder when they want, New Yorkers will get more nasal pending context etc
I code switch all the time. I was a military kid, so knowing when to have an English accent, a Kentucky accent, a broken konglish accent, and a GenAm accent can really open people up and make them receptive to what your asking or trying to talk about.
I once met a Londoner who scolded me for having the worst English accent ever (“learnt” from comics, video games, movies, and public school). He was more concerned about my accent than my actual English, but otherwise he was an interesting man. We figured out each other, more or less.
In the other countries whose language I speak well enough to be able to spot it (granted, only 4), the upper class simply don’t have their own accent (though they do signal their status, just in other ways), but I can’t really know for sure if there are other countries out there in the World with an “upper class accent”.
You’re joking but when living in Britain I did know a couple of people who weren’t middle-class English and whose natural accent wasn’t the so-called English RP accent (basically middle-class English / BBC presenter accent) and who made quite the effort to speak with the latter accent.
In Britain (most notably England) one’s accent is a huge part of presenting the “right” image, to the point that the upper class has their own accent (known as the “posh accent”) independent of region, something which is at very least highly unusual in other countries.
Americans code switch too. Southern people will definitely lean on their diphthongs harder when they want, New Yorkers will get more nasal pending context etc
I code switch all the time. I was a military kid, so knowing when to have an English accent, a Kentucky accent, a broken konglish accent, and a GenAm accent can really open people up and make them receptive to what your asking or trying to talk about.
I once met a Londoner who scolded me for having the worst English accent ever (“learnt” from comics, video games, movies, and public school). He was more concerned about my accent than my actual English, but otherwise he was an interesting man. We figured out each other, more or less.
It’s very unusual in most of England too.
In the other countries whose language I speak well enough to be able to spot it (granted, only 4), the upper class simply don’t have their own accent (though they do signal their status, just in other ways), but I can’t really know for sure if there are other countries out there in the World with an “upper class accent”.