The Way They Speak: A Social Psychological Perspective on the Stigma of Nonnative Accents in Communication

Abstract

The present review seeks to bridge research on accents, stigma, and communication by examining the empirical literature on nonnative accents, considering the perspectives of both speakers and listeners. The authors suggest that an accent, or one's manner of pronunciation, differs from other types of stigma. They consider the role of communicative processes in the manner in which accents influence people and identify social and contextual factors related to accents that affect the speaker, the listener, and the interaction between them. The authors propose a framework of stigma of accents and possible future avenues of research to examine the social psychological and communicative effects of accents. They also discuss implications for stigma of other types of accents (e.g., other native, regional, and ethnic). Understanding how stigma of accents and communication affect each other provides a new theoretical approach to studying this type of stigma and can eventually lead to interventions.

How non-native English-speaking staff are evaluated in linguistically diverse organizations: A sociolinguistic perspective

“…Moreover, the evaluation of non-standard accents indicates the existence of a 'hierarchy of prestige'. For example, within the US, more prestige is attributed to accents associated with other English speaking countries and Western European countries, and less with accents associated with the rest of the world (Gluszek & Dovidio, 2010;Lindemann, 2005). A similar hierarchization of varieties of English can be observed in other countries, as documented by studies conducted in Australia (Nesdale & Rooney, 1996), the UK (Coupland & Bishop, 2007;Giles, 1970) and Sweden (Boyd, 2003).…”

“…Our analysis, therefore, shows not only how non-native speakers evaluate themselves and are evaluated by listeners solely in relation to accent, but also how accent evaluations are intertwined with evaluations of other aspects of the speaker's spoken language (Fuertes et al, 2012). Additionally, we respond to Gluszek and Dovidio's (2010) call for including the speaker's perspective in language attitude-related studies and to Blommaert's (2003) suggestion that sociolinguistic phenomena should be studied as interconnected. Our data analysis thus draws on two data sources: semi-structured interviews and notes taken after the interviews to reflect on the process.…”

“…On the other hand, it is also possible for non-standard speakers to consider their accents as a source of positively understood uniqueness in comparison with standard speakers (Brewer, 1991;Moyer, 2007). Where this happens, non-standard speakers may adopt a more proactive and assertive approach in communication (Gluszek & Dovidio, 2010). Including this perspective into our framework, according to which the effects of communication are varied and dependent on the situation at hand, is also in line with the view on power as situated and relational adopted in this paper.…”

“…Employers tend to assign speakers with non-standard accents to lower status positions than those to which they assign standard speakers, which results in lower earnings for the former (Bradac & Wisegarver, 1984;de la Zerda & Hopper, 1979). What is also crucial, in particular for consideration in an international business context, is that accents have been shown to affect the assessed level of quality of the message communicated by the speaker, and the behavioral reactions of the listener towards the speaker, for example with respect to compliancegaining and decision making (Giles & Billings, 2004;Gluszek & Dovidio, 2010). Research has also evidenced the connection between accent evaluations on the one hand, and stereotyping and discrimination against speakers with non-standard accents on the other (Derwing & Munro, 2009;Ryan, Giles & Sebastian, 1982).…”

“…While the majority of language attitude studies have considered evaluations made by the listeners, Gluszek and Dovidio (2010) urge researchers to also address language attitudes from the perspective of the speakers. We respond to this call through our analysis.…”