You’re All Talk why we are what we speak

‘Telling and compelling’ Susie Dent, author of Word Perfect

‘Rob Drummond has achieved something very special in this book’ David Crystal, author of How Language Works

‘Intriguing and engaging’ Gyles Brandreth, author of Word Play

Why do we have different accents and where do they come from? Why do you say ‘tomayto’ and I say ‘tomahto’? And is one way of speaking better than another?

In You’re All Talk, linguist Rob Drummond explores the enormous diversity in our spoken language to reveal extraordinary insights into how humans operate: how we perceive (and judge) other people and how we would like ourselves to be perceived. He investigates how and why we automatically associate different accents with particular social characteristics — degrees of friendliness, authority, social class, level of education, race, and so on — and how we, consciously or subconsciously, change the way we speak in order to create different versions of ourselves to fit different environments.

Ultimately, You’re All Talk demonstrates the beauty of linguistic diversity and how embracing it can give us a better understanding of other people — and ourselves.