Glimpses: the cost of an accent

I’m not exactly sure why I’m at W given what it is and who I am but it is teaching me much about the world and my stereotypes of it. Things are not as simple as I like to think they are.

The other day in my AS Language class (17 year old Lower Sixes) we were talking about one of my favourite topics: language and power, and specifically, how language is power. And it is not only the words you speak that give or deny you power, it is also the way you speak those words.

In Zimbabwe, as in most places in the world, there are various English accents created by various factors ranging from native language to education to ethnicity to social class. As we seem to do so naturally, it is easy to lock people into rigid groups based purely on the sounds of the words that come out of their mouths.

W is a fairly elite, private girls school (yes, it’s true, I am teaching at an elite, private girls school). The majority of our girls come from middle to upper class families, many of them with connections to various significant, influential people in the country involved in important business, politics, and NGOs. Most are Shona speakers, with the “correct” kind of accent. The accent that marks them as educated. We’ve had discussions before about how accents shape perception and very quickly determine who is acceptable and who is not. They tell stories about the good-looking guy who is suddenly not quite so good-looking after he first opens his mouth. By the time they have left, even if they did not start out with it, our girls have the right kind of accent: one that will give them acceptance and privilege.

And yet, it is not as simple as the well-spoken, privileged versus the poor, unprivileged. I’m discovering very few things are simple at all. This accent of privilege comes at a cost. In the same way that the good-looking guy who does not speak correctly is marked and boxed, these girls are marked and boxed. They have lost the fluidity of their native language and feel out of place and uncomfortable when trying to speak it to relatives. Their visits to rural family are often difficult and it is obvious they cannot fit in the same way their cousins can. They are judged by their junior school friends who do not attend such an accent-defining high school and who ask them who they think they are. Their accent opens many doors, but it also limits where they can fit and who they can be in ways that are surprising and, I think, ultimately, painful.

Language is power. Accents give power.

But power comes at a cost.

No, it is not simple. I’m getting glimpses of why I’m here.