“I’ve never met a barrister that sounded like I do”: accents, barristers and Bourdieusian capital

Braber, N ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2611-1190, Ching, J ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9815-8804, Jarman, J ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5745-0860, Robson, J and Stevens, O, 2024. “I’ve never met a barrister that sounded like I do”: accents, barristers and Bourdieusian capital. International Journal of the Legal Profession, 31 (2), pp. 143-157. ISSN 0969-5958

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Abstract

Use of Received Pronunciation (RP) is a proxy for particular kinds of elite social capital, but is also a professional norm and part of the Bourdieusian habitus of the Bar. This article uses the first empirical study of accent discrimination in relation to barristers in England and Wales as a basis for a theoretical consideration of the interaction between barristers and others: clients, jurors, judges and other barristers. In particular it evaluates ways in which understandings about accent, as a facet of social or cultural capital, impact on individual career decisions. It concludes that while considerable progress has been made on diversity of the profession, targeted action by the regulator and the profession is required to address perceptions of discrimination (and manifestations of discrimination itself) in a profession to whose activities speech is foundational.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	International Journal of the Legal Profession
Creators:	Braber, N., Ching, J., Jarman, J., Robson, J. and Stevens, O.
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis (Routledge)
Date:	May 2024
Volume:	31
Number:	2
ISSN:	0969-5958
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.1080/09695958.2024.2347390 DOI 1887994 Other
Rights:	© 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.
Divisions:	Schools > Nottingham Law School Schools > School of Arts and Humanities
Record created by:	Laura Borcherds
Date Added:	25 Apr 2024 08:27
Last Modified:	10 Jan 2025 15:10
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/51336

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