1333: Covert Prestige Aug 5, 2018

Accents are relatively easy to impersonate, but they also change subconsciously. As people move around in different groups, be it by age, gender, socioeconomic, geography, etc., the way they would speak changes to become more accommodating. The variable here is "covert prestige": when way of using language is seen as more useful in a certain group. Politicians are often criticised for modifying their accents or lexicons depending upon where they are, but most of the time this goes on unnoticed by the speaker. Another key factor for triggering this switch is formality, and this will be talked about tomorrow.
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