Last winter I read a great book about the human voice, about accents and ways of speaking. The book, called “This is the Voice”, is filled with interesting points about how we learn to speak, what can go wrong, how tone of voice matters, and how we make sense of the world by sound more than by sight.
At very many points the book had me thinking about social and religious implications of much of what I was reading. Of particular interest were the chapters that pointed out how we divide the world up according to voice and accent. I pondered how the uniformity sometimes demanded in religious circles is something that some people have sought in linguistic circles, in the way people talk.
I offer a somewhat extensive excerpt;
Efforts to reduce English to a single “standard” pronunciation began in earnest in the mid-eighteenth century when Thomas Sheridan, an ex-actor and teacher, appointed himself the authority on how English should sound, and became the country’s first National Elocutionist. The subtitle of his bestselling book British Education, published in 1756,7 left no doubt about the connection Sheridan drew between speech patterns and moral character:
‘Being an Essay towards proving that the Immorality, Ignorance, and false Taste, which so generally prevail, are the natural and necessary Consequences of the present defective System of Education. With an attempt to shew, that a revival of the Art of Speaking, and the Study of Our Own Language, might contribute, in a great measure, to the Cure of those Evils.’
Sheridan aimed “to fix and preserve [English] in its state of perfection”—which is to say, how well-educated, well-heeled, and well-connected Londoners spoke it. He denounced the Cockney habits of dropping the h in words like “Heaven” and “happy,” and pronouncing th as f or v (as in, “My bruvver finks ’e’s in ’eaven”). He derided speakers from northern cities like Liverpool for pronouncing the u in “cup” with dropped tongue and rounded lips that made the word sound like “coop”; he scorned the tendency of the Irish to “mispronounce” the vowels o and e (so that “sort” became “sart” and “person” became “pairson”), and he informed Scottish-accented speakers that they were doing almost everything wrong. The book was popular among the country’s growing middle class, whose insecurities about gaining membership in polite society Sheridan preyed upon mercilessly. His follow-up volume, A Course of Lectures on Elocution, announced that speaking like an educated Londoner (or member of the royal court) is “a sort of proof that a person has kept good company, and on that account is sought after by all, who wish to be considered as fashionable people, or members of the beau monde.” All other accents, he warned, “have some degree of disgrace annexed to them.”
Colapinto, John. This Is the Voice (pp. 169-170). Simon & Schuster.
If you grew up in an evangelical church you were likely told what were the appropriate views on particular moral issues. You may also have been told what behaviours or activities could identify whether someone was a good person or a bad person. At some point, if you matured cognitively and in terms of worldview, you came to question some of those prescriptions. You may still be in a place in which you feel that if you come to a different conclusion about an issue or a behaviour then you must be in the “bad” camp. Prescribed ways of thinking do not contribute to spiritual growth and development. I suppose that they are appropriate in stages of spiritual infancy and childhood, but we hope to get further than that in life. Here is a list, add to it what you remember from your past;
What we were told;
Good people;
pray, read their bible, oppose abortion and homosexuality, vote conservative, stay pure until marriage, watch only morally acceptable entertainment, go to church, etc. etc.
Bad people;
don’t believe in God, support homosexuality and the right to abortion, vote other than conservative, have sex before marriage, make immoral choices in terms of entertainment, smoke, don’t go to church, etc. etc.
In Thomas Sheridan’s economy of accents, one way of speaking was superior linguistically, culturally and morally. Just hearing someone speak differently than that signalled lack of character or inferior social status. As George Bernard Shaw put it, “it is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman hate or despise him.”
In the evangelical church there were many such signals about how to make moral sense of the world.
We need to let go of the idea that the accent with which someone speaks is a window into their character. The world has fallen prey repeatedly to people who knew how to speak “properly” even as they wreaked havoc upon others. In the same manner, when we accepted that to be a Christian you had to have a prescribed set of views we unwittingly allowed ourselves to be manipulated.
There is no virtue in holding uninformed opinions. It is not laudable to think that a view is correct just because you hold it. Telling people what to think and how to speak is a problem on the left and on the right of the political spectrum. The right has been at it for years (evangelicals can attest) and the left has picked it up with an astounding fervour.
When you have been part of a fundamentalist church or group, you can spot fundamentalism in other expressions. Maybe the people in Scotland and Ireland were on to something when they rejected Thomas Sheridan’s prescription for “fashionable” pronunciation.
An article from The Guardian describing a contemporary example of language control.