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What do you think stops upper-middle class people from imitating upper class people, and by faking being high status become high status? Shouldn't they be able to imitate that upper class accent and thereby convince people they're upper class and worthy of deference?
I would've thought upper+upper middle would be more than 5% of the population, more like 10-20%. But my question still applies, what stops the closest to upper middle class portion of the population from imitating elite class markers and thereby devaluing them?
In my experience (and this probably doesn't address your question directly) apart from, say, actors putting on whatever accent, people from the UK cling to their respective accents and would be loathe to put on another. This is not to say that living abroad doesn't flatten out accents (as it does to most people, as it certainly did to me) but typically people seem to have some sort of loyalty to their native brogue or whatever.
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