Regional accent stereotype concern raised by study

Researchers have raised concerns about possible bias in the UK criminal justice system due to negative stereotyping of regional accents.

A study led by the University of Cambridge, in collaboration with Nottingham Trent University, asked people to listen to accents from England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland to try to find out more about perceptions of morality and criminality.

The findings suggested "harmful stereotypes" about certain regional accents may still remain.

"Our findings bring into sharp focus the disadvantage that speakers of some accents may still face in the criminal justice system," said lead author Alice Paver, from the University of Cambridge's phonetics laboratory.

The study, published in Frontiers in Communication, suggested that despite progress in equality and diversity - including "working-class" and regional accents becoming more prominent on television and radio - harmful stereotypes remain, its authors said.

The researchers asked 180 participants - half of them male, half female - from across the UK to listen to recordings of male voices with regional accents from Belfast, Birmingham, Bradford, Bristol, Cardiff, Glasgow, Liverpool, London, and Newcastle.

They also listened to Standard Southern British English (SSBE), also referred to as received pronunciation, or RP.

Participants were then asked to rate the voices on 10 social traits – educated, intelligent, rich, working class, friendly, honest, kind, trustworthy, aggressive and confident - as well as on 10 morally good, bad and ambiguous behaviours, which included crimes.

Among the behaviours were: returning a lost wallet to its owner; standing up for someone who was being harassed; cheating on a romantic partner; reporting a relative to the police for a minor offence; driving dangerously; physically assaulting someone; shoplifting; touching someone sexually without consent and vandalising a shop front.

The researchers said the study was "particularly concerned about accented speakers being incorrectly selected from voice identification parades".

It used a wider range of recorded accents, behaviours and criminal offences than previous research, which has tended to focus on criminal behaviour in general or the binary of white versus blue-collar crime, they said.

It was "the first to identify links between listener perceptions of morality, criminality, and social traits".

People harbour stereotypes about particular accents, and those judgements may be brought with them into the legal domain, the study stated.

These stereotypes, the researchers argued, could affect all parts of the system - from arrest to sentencing - and undermine not only suspects and defendants, but also the testimony of witnesses.

"Voices play a powerful role in the criminal justice system and police officers, lawyers and juries are all susceptible to judging voices based on stereotypes, whether they're aware of it or not," Ms Paver said.

"As things stand, listeners think some accents sound guiltier than others and we should all be concerned about that."

The results showed that people with non-standard accents were more likely to be associated with criminal behaviour, but there was significant variation in perceptions between accents.

The RP-like accent was perceived as the least likely to behave in criminal ways - except when it came to sexual offences - while the Liverpool and Bradford accents were perceived as the most likely.

Ms Paver said: "The strongest connection we found was between people's perceptions of class or status, negative traits such as aggression, and how they think someone is going to behave, particularly when it comes to crime.

"This is the first time that a concrete link between traits and behaviours has been made in the context of accent judgements."

However, non-English accents, in particular Belfast's and Glasgow's, were rated significantly less likely to behave in criminal ways than almost all other accents.

They were also thought to be the most likely to "stand up for someone being harassed" - categorised as "honourable behaviour" - and least likely to exhibit "morally bad" behaviours.

Ms Paver added: "Our findings show that perceptions of speakers of regional accents and how status, social attractiveness and morality interact are much more complex than previously assumed.

"We need a much more nuanced understanding of how accents are evaluated when it comes to different crime types."

The Ministry of Justice declined to comment on the study.

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