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Listeners' responses to broadcast advertisements in Northern Ireland (NI) are shown here to be significantly affected by the accent used in the ads. NI listeners consistently rate Southern Irish English (SIE) accents negatively in comparison both to NI accents and to those whose regional association is initially unclear. There is clear evidence that presentations and representations of Irish accents, whether Northern Irish English (NIE) or SIE, have the potential either to be potentially hazardous and detrimental to the message of the advertisement or to enhance listener response significantly. Yet, surprisingly, the question of accent effect has not been systematically investigated within commercial advertising fields.
This study advances knowledge on broadly ethnolinguistic attitudes in NI and on processes of language standardisation. On a theoretical level, steps are taken towards establishing a schema within which NI listeners' evaluations of accents might be modelled, drawing on pragmatic frameworks. It is argued here that an informed understanding of accent effect should have a central role both in academic accounts of advertising discourse and in professional advertising strategies in Ireland. The research opens up interesting areas for future research on accent and marketing communication, using both positivist and interpretivist approaches.
Introduction
This paper deals with responses of audiences in Northern Ireland (NI) to accents used in broadcast advertisements within NI. The main area of interest is whether advertisements presented in Northern Irish accented English (NIE) have the potential to affect listeners differently to those presented in Southern Irish accented English (SIE). For instance, do NI listeners routinely rate SIE speakers as being less competent, likeable or trustworthy than their NIE counterparts? Given the interactive nature of advertisements, such evaluations would be likely to exert a profound influence on audience uptake (see Bloch and Starks, 1999). Presumably, therefore, advertisers might be expected to channel this knowledge into giving due attention to accent, a variable whose role in involving and disaffecting the audience is demonstrably powerful.
The present findings have direct relevance to a variety of pursuits. Most obviously, they contribute to the growing body of work on the role of accent as a persuasive device in broadcast media in general (see, for example, Birch and McPhail, 1999; Schmidt and Kess, 1986). However, while existing work has focused on the...