Rob Drummond has lost the ability to simply listen. A professor of socio-linguistics at Manchester Metropolitan University, he hears far more than what’s being said when someone opens their mouth. “I have this particular facial expression that indicates when I’ve stopped listening to the content of what someone’s saying, and am thinking about their accent,” he says. “Apparently, I start to quietly recreate the interesting sounds under my breath.”
Drummond’s fascination with the way we talk began while teaching English as a foreign language in Manchester in the early 2000s – some of his international students would take on a noticeable Manchester accent; others wouldn’t. “It led me to my PhD: why some Polish people in Manchester acquired a Mancunian accent, and some did not. The results were fascinating: people who intended to settle acquired a local accent quicker than those here temporarily. I started to see accents as a way of associating, or distancing, yourself from a certain group. At times, it’s deep-rooted, trained into your brain. At other times, it can be a performance. Sometimes both.”
