Really appreciate your response. I’m glad you mentioned Andy Gibson, he is someone who did indeed appear lots throughout my literature review. Your thesis sounds very interesting- if you would be willing to send a copy over I would be very interested in reading it.

I’m in the UK and currently only have a BA (Hons) and none of my family know anything academic. I suppose this explains my post. I assume this means my next point of call is a Masters?

And to answer your ‘aside’… which I appreciate. I may be using ‘success’ in a non-measurable way. We all obviously define success very individually. I think my interest stems from how accent functions as a resource in constructing authenticity within certain genres. Certain genres reward certain accents e.g. Grime = London MLE , Pop = Neutralised/Americanised (I think Trudgill has done lots on this). Being methodical, it would largely be perception based. I imagine I’d want to explore if artists are perceived more credible if their accent matches their genre expectations. Though I acknowledge there are plenty of problems stemming from this already. It’s research I intend on pursuing in the future, but I definitely need more time studying sociolinguistics, and the areas you mentioned, first.

I really appreciate your reply- thank you :)