The 'Scouse Accent'

The ‘scouse’ accent

                        

The Liverpool accent is an instantly recognisable accent based in the city of Liverpool; it is a fairly recent trend. Before the 19^th century, Liverpudlians usually spoke in a Lancashire accent, even today; the accent can be discreetly heard in the scouse accent. The roots of the accent can be traced back to when a huge influx of immigrants entered Liverpool.

Scouse is renowned for being a accent with a fast, highly accented manner of speech, ranging from rising and falling tones. Phrases are frequently utilized by scousers, and would seem alien compared to other areas of the United Kingdom. As a regional urban accent Scouse is rated very low in comparison to other accents as it is associated with crime and being "dirty" in accent test.

Pronunciation is a foremost aspect of the scouse accent, this is feature makes the accent instantly recognisable. Scouse is known to often emphasise the ‘k’ on the end of words and even elongate the pronunciation of some words. For example, instead of ‘Steven Gerrard’ they may pronounce it as ‘Steeeeeven Gerrard’. They also amplify the vowels in certain words, in which it makes a ‘eeee’ sound. One of the most unique Scouse features is the way the accent renders the letter `t' at the beginning of a word or a stressed syllable /t/ is affricated, becoming something of a /ts/ sound, for example,  tree becomes `tsree' or town becomes `tsown'. Grammar is also a key aspect, with Liverpudlians using nonstandard pronouns and pluralisation; they often say ‘yous’ instead of ‘you’. Double negation is often used in the accent, as they will use two negative words in a clause which makes the sentence clumsy, for example ‘I ain’t done nothing’.

It is often seen that the Liverpool accent carries connotations of unintelligence and illiteracy. This could be argued because they often use vowel omission, double negation etc. It creates an impression that they are not intelligent, as it can be perceived by some that they cannot craft a functioning sentence. Stereotypes have been manufactured around the accent, with one of them being that those who use the accent are ‘rough’ and are at a financial deficit. This is shown in the diagram, with a quarter of brits voting the Liverpool accent to be the most unintelligent.