Preindustrial urban speech patterns immediately revealed a stranger’s social category

Evidence

I accept that to an RP speaker my broad slow vowels are evidence of stupidity. What bothers me is that nowadays, to a northern ear, I sound southern: that is to say, insufferably posh and affected. I don’t belong anywhere. And this gives me a problem: which bits of English history are my history? — Hilary Mantel, A Memoir of My Former Self- A Life in…, 48 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Urban life is possible because strangers remain categorically identifiable; Low literacy forced preindustrial cities to make streets the news medium — Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order and Action in…, 196; Preindustrial urban heterogeneity differed by being overtly displayed, not by existing (+5 more)

Related

• Regional accents signal perceived social class and cultural displacement to listeners. (similarity 0.81)
• Speech instantly revealed social class and group membership in preindustrial cities. (similarity 0.81)
• Preindustrial cities relied primarily on appearance with spatial segregation as a secondary cue (similarity 0.80)
• Preindustrial urban heterogeneity differed by being overtly displayed, not by existing (similarity 0.80)
• Urban history trends from appearance-based to location-based ordering (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Industrial urbanization destroyed appearance as a reliable clue to strangers’ identities #contradicts (0.80)
• Industrialization shifted urban stranger-identification from dress to location #complicates (0.70)
• Regional accents signal perceived social class and cultural displacement to listeners. #expands (0.70) — Hilary Mantel, A Memoir of My Former Self- A Life in…, 48
• City dwellers learn locations verbally but lack words to describe people #complicates (0.50)