Yorkshire Dialect - Yorkshire Dialect and Accent in Popular Culture

Yorkshire Dialect and Accent in Popular Culture

The director Ken Loach has set several of his films in South Yorkshire and has stated that he doesn't want actors to deviate from their natural accent. The dialect is strongest in the 1969 film Kes, filmed around Barnsley with local actors. The films Looks and Smiles (1981) and The Navigators (2001) were both set in Sheffield. Loach has noted that the speech is less regionally-marked in his more recent films and has attributed this to changing speech habits in Yorkshire.. Dialect of the northern dales featured in the series All Creatures Great and Small.

A number of popular bands hail from Yorkshire and have distinctive Yorkshire accents. Joe Elliott and Rick Savage, vocalist and bassist of Def Leppard, Bring Me The Horizon, While She Sleeps, Sam Bettley, Cameron Liddell and James Cassells from Asking Alexandria, Alex Turner, vocalist of Arctic Monkeys, Jon McClure, of Reverend and The Makers, Jon Windle, of Little Man Tate, Jarvis Cocker, vocalist of Pulp and Joe Carnall, of Milburn and Phil Oakey (of The Human League) are all known for their Sheffield accents, whilst The Cribs, who are from Netherton, sing in a Wakefield accent. Graham Fellows, in his persona as John Shuttleworth, uses his Sheffield accent, though his first public prominence was as cockney Jilted John.

The late British Poet Laureate, Ted Hughes originated from Mytholmroyd, close to the border with Lancashire, and spent much of his childhood in Mexborough, South Yorkshire. His own readings of his work were noted for his "flinty" or "granite" voice and "distinctive accent" and some said that his Yorkshire accent affected the rhythm of his poetry.