‘I am very sensitive on the subject of accent’: Children, young people and attitudes to speech in inter-war Britain

This article considers elite and popular attitudes to speech and accent in inter-war Britain, specifically with regard to children and young people. It begins by showing that speech was a consistent preoccupation of educationalists, for whom classed prejudices complemented more progressive concerns about citizenship and employment. It continues by considering everyday school practices, charting the ways in which schools tried to influence their pupils' speech. Efforts were often variable-and Mass-Observation accounts show that teachers' attitudes were not always consistent either-but children might respond positively nonetheless. Finally, it considers influences external to school such as family attitudes, the wireless, and the cinema, showing that concerns with speech and language were not limited to an educational hierarchy but were often shared by working-class parents and sometimes children themselves. The article thus suggests that there was less of a difference between official attitudes and the (literal and metaphorical) vernacular than is and was often assumed. It argues that widespread attention to speech and language was one way in which social and educational aspirations were fostered amidst the new technologies, consumerism, and democracy of inter-war Britain.