Evaluations of employment suitability based on accent alone: An Australian case study

Seggie, Ian; Smith, Nancy; Hodgins, Patricia

doi:10.1016/s0388-0001(86)80011-0

Cited by 15 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…Contextual information may also influence NES' perception of NNES accents. Similar to results from studies using different social varieties of a NES accent (Seggie, Smith, and Hodgins ), some NNES accents may evoke associations of low social prestige and competence. Thus in Kalin and Rayko (), NES listeners downgraded foreign‐accented job seekers compared with Canadian‐English accented speakers for high status jobs, but not for low status jobs.…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 76%

Attitudes to English teachers' accents in the Gulf

Buckingham

2014

Int J App Linguistics

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While the spread of English as a lingua franca has led to calls for multidialectal competence, EFL learners often still consider inner circle native English speaker (NES) pronunciation as their learning goal, and may profess a preference for particular teachers based on their NES or non-native English speaker (NNES) status. This study investigates whether a teacher's NES/NNES status may affect Omani students' level of confidence towards the teacher. Using an adapted matched-guise technique with almost 350 students, the study reveals a preference for speakers and accents students understand to be from the UK, although students also responded favourably to Arabic native speakers. Where the NES/NNES variable remained constant, no significant difference in student's ratings of the teacher was found. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

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Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 76%

Attitudes to English teachers' accents in the Gulf

Buckingham

2014

Int J App Linguistics

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“…Also, the participants evaluated the Asian accent together with the Broad Anglo accent as being less suitable than the Standard Anglo accent for the accountant training program. Overall, results of this study confirmed that listeners preferred the prestigious accents for high-status jobs and the less prestigious accents for low-status jobs (Seggie, Smith & Hodgins, 1986).…”

Section: Accent Employability and English Language Learning At Tertisupporting

confidence: 73%

The Role of Accent and Ethnicity in the Professional and Academic Context

Ahmed

Abdullah

Heng

2013

IJALEL

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Language learning may be affected by a language instructor's accent. Many studies have been carried out to investigate whether accent has an influence on learners' perceptions toward their instructors or whether accent can affect employability. This overview links studies on accents through an empirical literature review on native and non-native accents, summarizing the most significant studies conducted to investigate learners' attitude toward accents. The learners as participants are both non-native and native speakers of a language. The results of the review demonstrated that speakers who use the standard language are preferred for prestigious jobs, whereas the nonstandard accented speakers are preferred for low-status jobs. Moreover, British and American accents are the most preferred by learners of English. Thus, the learners tended to show positive attitudes toward American and British accents and also adopt these varieties as models of pronunciation for their learning of English. In this review, limitations of some studies are highlighted and some implications for future studies related to accents, language learning at tertiary level and employability are discussed.

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“…Beginning with the ground-breaking work of Lambert and his colleagues (Lambert 1967;Lambert, Hodgson, Gardner and Fillenbaum 1960), a number of matched guise and verbal guise studies on language attitudes have shown that people typically prefer dialects or languages spoken by historically powerful groups, especially on the grounds of status-related qualities (Berk-Seligson 1984;Lambert et al 1960) and suitability for higher-status jobs (Seggie, Smith and Hodgins 1986). Non-native speakers are often evaluated negatively on measures of solidarity as well as status, as Ryan and her colleagues have found for U.S. native English speakers' perception of Spanishaccented (Ryan, Carranza and Moe 1977;Ryan and Sebastian 1980) and German-accented English (Ryan and Bulik 1982).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%