Posh accent in British English is associated with upper class. Previous research on
poshness has been centred on vocabulary, grammar and phonology, but little is
known about the phonetic properties. This study, as part of a larger project, is an
attempt to connect posh accent with attractiveness of voice through a common set of
dimensions originating from emotional prosody research. Using VocalTractLab and
Praat, we created stimuli varying in voice quality, nasality, formant shift ratio, pitch
shift and duration. Results of two separate perception experiments showed that only
voice quality and formant shift ratio functioned significantly. Breathy voice sounded
the most posh and attractive, and pressed voice the least. Likewise, utterances with
the smallest formant shift ratio sounded the most posh and attractive
