Howard Giles

Howard Giles


Researched a range of situations and speakers focusing on perceptions of and attitudes to accents.

‘Matched-guise’ technique = Giles often asked participants to listen to the same speaker using a range of different accents and then pass judgement on each one.

1973 – British teenagers presented with the same speech arguing against the death penalty, in different accents.
They were more likely to value the argument and the content if the speaker used a more prestigious accent.


1975 – perception of RP and the Birmingham accent by two groups of 17 year olds.
Same speaker spoke about psychology: once in RP and once in the Birmingham accent.
The teenagers rated the RP speaker higher in terms of competence and intelligence


Possible criticisms of this technique:
  • Listeners could realise that the various speakers are all the same person
  • Dolisteners express their true feelings or what they think they should say
  • Encourages stereotyping: affecting any further data collected
  • Usually used in ‘artificial’ situations e.g. classrooms/labs – not reflective of natural, spontaneous speech
  • Experimental situations ‘force’ an answer

Accommodation Theory

Convergence - when people adjust their dialect, accent or speech style to those of others.
Reasons?: Job interview, meeting, new people.

Divergence - speech patterns become more individualized and less like those of the other person in the conversation.
Reasons?: Pride, proving themselves, show intelligence, deter people.

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