Should You Ditch Your Regional Accent?

"I can tell you are educated," my dance teacher said to me one day when I was asking her for college ideas. I looked at her quizzically. "You talk like you're educated; I can tell you go to a private school." That was the first I had ever heard of anyone talking educated. After she said that it made sense to me. All of my friends from my private school talked like me. Everyone in the neighborhood and at dance had a type of New York accent. I was one of the few at dance without the typical New York accent. 

I had never realized how not having that accent made me educated. I had just figured that since my dad was not from my area, I talked like him instead of like my mom. I thought about it more, and realized that my mom was less educated than him and had not gone to a good private school in Connecticut like I had. 

According to linguist Robert Pooley there are different levels of language. He wrote about an illiterate level and a level for your region. There is another level where you make someone use proper English, so they sound educated. 

Forcing someone to speak at another "level" is probably not necessary. People grow up speaking a certain way because of where they live. If a person wants to become more educated they can change the way they speak. It may help someone who is going to be giving presentations, speeches, or acting on stage. Some people however will never need to use those skills and they may never even notice that they do not speak proper English.

Moving to go to college in the Boston area was quite a shock language-wise. I was hearing words like "bubbla" and "wicked." My roommate had the thickest Boston accent I have ever heard in on any Bostonian. I could barely understand her at first. That same roommate also failed out freshman year. She was clearly not as smart or educated as me. 

I have also met plenty of people from the Boston area that do not have thick accents at all. From my observations the thicker the person's accent is the less smart they are. However, I would not try and make someone I knew talk like an educated person unless they wanted to.