Work in perceptual dialectology has argued that listeners’ successful identification of accent areas is facilitated by their geographical proximity to a particular region. Montgomery (, ) argues that this proximity effect is mediated by a ‘cultural prominence’ effect, where localities of high cultural salience seem less distant. We explore these claims using an online survey in which listeners were asked to identify the regional origin of speakers of five accents from England's ‘linguistic north’ (Liverpool, Manchester, Crewe, Stoke‐on‐Trent and Macclesfield) from audio clips of four different sentences. We show that the proximity and cultural prominence effects are partially supported, and that the proximity effect is driven by listeners’ likely contact with/experience of the dialect in question. We also show that listeners react differently to different sentences in the same accent. While some sentences are identified correctly very often, others, even for culturally prominent locations with distinctive accents (i.e. Liverpool), are hardly ever correctly identified. We connect this to the geographical distribution of the linguistic features in the clips, and we argue that the presence, absence and range of individual linguistic features should be systematically considered in all perceptual dialectology work which uses audio stimuli.

This article examines /h/‐dropping in the occupational community of Stoke‐on‐Trent's pottery industry. Using oral history interviews, the article presents quantitative statistical analysis of linguistic and social factors influencing /h/‐variation among these speakers, showing that specific occupational department is the best social predictor of levels of /h/‐dropping. Speakers with more manual, factory‐floor‐based roles show consistently high rates of /h/‐dropping, while speakers with less manual, more varied and/or esteemed roles show lower, and more variable, rates. This suggests a reanalysis of the broad social meanings of /h/ on a local level to enact a hierarchy internal to the industry. Qualitative analysis of individual speakers is employed to explore social meanings of /h/ in this community and how these create and reflect broader social categories. Discussion is linked to wider themes of the role of occupation in social class groupings used in variationist sociolinguistics, suggesting complexity within the classic ‘working‐class’ category.

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