🚀 go-pugleaf

IanG@tirnanog.demon.co.uk wrote:
[ about subtitling TV programmes where the speakers don't have ruling-class
  accents ]
> For something to be racist it must display a belief in the superiority
> of one race over another.  Subtitles for clarity don't quite fit this.

The implicit assumption you're making is that there is a privileged dialect
whose speakers have special rights.  John Major's dialect is just as much
effort for a working-class Glaswegian or Caribbean immigrant to understand
as the converse.  You don't see subtitles provided for *their* benefit;
similarly, you don't see such subtitling in the US for the benefit of
people who don't speak the elite forms of English that TV anchormen use.
The "clarity" you're talking about is a service laid on for the benefit of
a privileged minority.  It's institutional discrimination on the basis of
both race and class.

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