Why the accent is still put on intelligence

Willy Maley contends that academics remain quick to judge people by their voices Accent is one of those things you don't know you've got until a close enemy tells you. Only then do you start worrying about your verbal hygiene - sniffing your linguistic oxters, as it were.

Ten years ago I appeared on a programme in Newcastle to mark the publication of Professor John Honey's book Does Accent Matter? Honey combed through all the evidence and concluded that Belfast and Glasgow were bottom of the heap in terms of accents of intellect. I was wheeled on as Exhibit G. After hearing me speak, Honey laughed and Honey cried, and then he said I would not be understood outwith a one-mile radius of Glasgow.

At the time I was unemployed and living on income support in Possilpark, so I wondered if Professor Honey had put his finger on something. I'd struggled as a student with a proletarian accent. Was it possible that my inability to secure an academic job, even with a PhD from Cambridge under my belt, had something to do with the way I rolled my Rs?

Was mine an accent waiting to happen? Did I have to axe the accent? Did the glottal stop here? Or was Honey merely stirring the pot containing the sticky myth of accent and intellect?

Other academics who should know better have done the same. Philosopher Jacques Derrida, a French-speaking Algerian Jew who you would expect to be sensitive to questions of dialect and pronunciation, has said he cannot take seriously anyone intellectualising with a southern French accent. In fact, he says "an accent seems incompatible to me with the intellectual dignity of public speech".

According to Derrida: "One entered French literature only by losing one's accent". He falls into that common category of strangers to the dominant accent who acquire the preferred academic mode and regard authenticity of intellect as inseparable from speaking in that mode, so they govern their tongue and betray their origins.

The idea that accent determines intellect is totally bogus, and mistakes intelligibility for intelligence. Real intelligence rests in the ability to understand accents. Being attuned to differences trains the mind. There's no art without accent, no literature without dialect. Accent is the key to music - and to writing. The word "accent" has its origin in the idea of the "chant" or "accompanied song".

Despite Honey's one-mile exclusion zone, I managed to sweet-talk my way into a job at London University, and I've never looked back (the result of a skiing accident that leaves me with only 30% movement in my neck). A few years ago I had a call at work from someone on business unconnected with the university. I answered the phone with: "Dr Maley." After a short preamble, the voice said suspiciously: "You're no a doactur. Ah talk tae doacturs aw the time at the Royal an they don't talk lik you." I explained that I was one of a new breed of doctors genetically engineered to mimic the voices of the poor, thus putting patients at ease. He hung up.

I heard recently of a student in a seminar making a telling point to which his tutor remarked: "I'm surprised to hear an intelligent comment coming from someone with an accent like yours." The student in question was English, proving that you do not have to be Scottish, or working-class for that matter, to be made to feel your accent doesn't fit in a Scottish university.

But things are changing, and for the better. I certainly wouldn't feel at home in academia if I didn't believe this sort of social snobbery is on the way out. And it is social rather than intellectual snobbery.

It is common at universities for the accents - and addresses - of the catering, maintenance, security and secretarial staff to differ from those of the academic staff. Students come from all walks and talks of lives, and one of the pleasures of working in higher education is the range and richness of the voices on offer. Still, it would be nice to see variety represented at other levels.

As a student, I suffered for my accent at Cambridge, which is unsurprising, but I suffered at Strathclyde too, and that is unforgivable. Thankfully, the days when a posh accent implied intelligence are fading fast, partly under the pressure of modern media. BBC accents once considered authoritative are now, thanks to Harry Enfield and The Fast Show, seen for what they are - comical and inept. Increasing Americanisation and globalisation has helped too. A phenomenon like Ali G suggests things are moving in the other direction, and that the modish fashion for roughing up the tongue in the lower regions is now sufficiently established to call for satirical comment. Keep it real.

Another key to a broader understanding and appreciation of accents is the impact of new Scottish writing. The work of writers like James Kelman and Irvine Welsh has put Scottish working-class accents on the map. You certainly don't need to lose your accent to enter Scottish literature. A strong literary tradition of writing in Scots means the attitude to accent is advanced and inclusive. Liz Lochhead has said: "I don't write in standard English. I write in Scots English and sometimes actually in Scots but there's also that prose voice one feels one's got to master, that English-male-posh-grown-up-dead speech." That English-male-posh-grown-up-dead speech is the strongest accent of all. It aids restful sleep.

Our writers have been ahead of academics in their championing of the vernacular, but the verbal confidence and demotic energy of Scottish literature has to spill over into other areas of public life. It goes without saying that an open and progressive attitude to accent is an essential prerequisite for extending access to university. We are constantly told that variety is the spice of life, but the experience of working-class students may suggest that the most popular spice is, predictably enough, Posh Spice.

Willy Maley is professor of English Literature at Glasgow University

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