The English Class System

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

Today, 21:08 #1 southall-1998
Senior Member
Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: Devon, Torquay.
Posts: 2,577
I'm Shane.

Social Class
Do some of you believe in it?

How do you really distinguish a working class and middle class?

Never mind the upper class

S.
*******************************************************************************************************************************
I find this subject interesting and as I cannot join in there I thought we would have our own chat.

Now what defines class - well IMO it is how you speak.

Strong local accent means working class no matter how rich or where you live.

BBC accent means middle class.

If you are upper class then you speak like the Queen.

Now what defines this, well obviously your education your parents and your peers.

[southall-1998]

Doc, do you consider yourself middle class?

S.

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

Well my parents did. Looking at it through their eyes then yes I am. I also am on my terms as I have next to no local London inflection or accent in my voice. Even though compared with when I was a kid class structure has far less importance and relevance it still hasn't died out, it has just become blurred at the edges. Many nations have a similar concept of class but with different motivation, surprisingly for an ex communist and still considers itself socialist state Russia has a strong class structure, but that is to do with where you live, and the insult is to call someone a peasant, to call them a worker is a compliment.

The country with the most embedded class structure is India with its caste system, which is class taken a stage further.

[wallace]

I look down on everyone,as i am in a class (world) of my own...

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

The English type class system like loads of other social things originated with the Norman invasion. The Normans spoke French and became the land owners so became the upper (ruling) class. The Anglo Saxon and Viking and Celtic were the peasants and they spoke the local languages and created the working class. The middle class were the local land owners who kow tow-ed to the Normans and were allowed to keep land and the locals the Normans employed as officials, and the Church. They had to speak both local and French.

To the present day and we have an English language that has bastard origins of combining the two with two sets of words meaning basically the same things, one set rooted in French i.e. Royal, and one in the Germanic i.e. Kingdom. There is still a bias in that the further up the social ladder you are the more you use the French root, and the lower the Anglo Saxon root. It shows how ingrained social convention can become, as the root we talk about is nearly 1000 years ago.

[Daniel Quinn]

Have been baffled by some of the discussion on AOS

Class is not a fixed concept with a fixed meaning . In discussing it you need to ask what is the purpose , what are you attempting to explain ?

Historically , it has been used as a term to denote people who have a particular set of economic circumstances , attitudes and beliefs and common culture .

However in a world of mass media and mass communications people have an ever increasing knowledge base and resources from which to form opinions and beliefs and to construct their culture so it no longer makes any sense to try and understand peoples beliefs , interests , attitudes and culture by placing them in a social class .

Marx of course defined class by a person’s relationship to the means of production , which means for him there are only two classes the proletariat and the ruling classes . Via historial materialism he argued that people’s ideas were a product of the particular set of historical circumstances and as capitalism evolved it would polarise these classes and one would revolt against the other .

Despite economies becoming increasingly complicated and the means of production [ let alone ownership ] fragmenting and manifesting itself in ways Marx could not have possibly of conceived a persons relationship to money and power is probably the only useful concept of class that remains .

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

Class also had a uniform it wore, less so now, but still detectable. In the past convention and social pressure from peers and neighbours ensured both the uniform and the language differences were maintained. Now we have a new concept of social mobility imported from America, and it seems to be changing us slowly.

[joe]

I was definitely born working class (strong local accent, father worked in a factory). My accent has almost gone now; most people guess I'm vaguely 'Northern', but usually assume I'm from Yorkshire, which is definitely not the case.

I guess my children are middle class, but the lines are so blurred these days it's hard to tell. They have no discernible accent.

[joe]

To the present day and we have an English language that has bastard origins of combining the two with two sets of words meaning basically the same things, one set rooted in French i.e. Royal, and one in the Germanic Kingdom. There is still a bias in that the further up the social ladder you are the more you use the French root, and the lower the Anglo Saxon. It shows how ingrained social convention can become, as the root we talk about is nearly 1000 years ago.

An example being the different words for an animal and the meat that comes from the animal. The name of the animal (cow, sheep, pig) is usually Germanic in origin, while word for the meat (beef, mutton, pork) has a French origin. This is because the peasants were the ones who looked after the animals, and the toffs were the ones who ate the meat.

[Fretless]

Class also had a uniform it wore, less so now, but still detectable. In the past convention and social pressure from peers and neighbours ensured both the uniform and the language differences were maintained. Now we have a new concept of social mobility imported from America, and it seems to be changing us slowly.

As an emigrant, now living in the semi-integrated federal state of continental Europe since 1991, I was completely out of touch with the UK for a very long time. Around 2010, i was finally able to get to see BBC One and Two here, 'at last' I thought, 'some civilised television again!' (Apologies to Holland - Dutch public TV channels are, in general, extremely polite and civilised).

My enthusiasm at seeing images from the old country again soon turned to a shocked disgust at what appears to be a cultural transformation; the 'Americanisation' of the UK has led to widespread use of an unpleasant accent (and certainly not BBC English) and social customs and structures appear to have become blurred or vanished altogether. This is not the England that I remember. And during my infrequent visits 'home' I feel like a total foreigner.

My social background: middle-class Yorkshire and 2nd division Public School.