Relative accents?
I wonder whether a person's perception of someone else's accent is affected by how it differs from their own. It would kind of make sense - they would notice the bits that are different but not the bits that are the same.
I come from Sahf London. When I was at secondary school in Bournemouth, a lot of people thought I was Australian. (At the time, I was quite offended by that for some reason so I spent my teenage years developing what I thought was a very "cultured" accent, which I used until I heard a recording of it and realised that it was a complete train wreck - RP turned up to about 25 - after which I returned to Bromley post-haste.)
When I was working in Plymouth, however, several people asked me if I was from somewhere near Birmingham. (Bromley -> Brisbane is understandable. Bromley -> Brum... WTF but maybe the difference relative to Plymouth is similar or something.)
I'd love to know what my accent sounds like to someone with a different one. Maybe there might be some way of simulating it (AI? It seems to be a bit of a panacea at the moment...) by "differencing" the two accents at the phonetic level then applying the difference to my accent in the opposite direction.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
