Accents, Dialects, and Discrimination
thewalrus.ca
thewalrus.ca
The author seems to be writing for a U.S. audience, so most of his examples come from North American English. Similar problems also exist, of course, in other English-speaking places and in other languages. People in Britain, for example, are famously sensitive to class and regional differences in speech. In Japanese (I live in Japan), regional accents and dialects can vary greatly and are also sometimes associated with prejudice and discrimination.
For some languages, a national government might try to fix the pronunciation, grammar, and orthography of a “standard” language. In the 19th century in Japan, there was a partially successful government-led attempt to make a version of Tokyo Japanese standard; school textbooks and, later, the national broadcaster NHK mostly adopted that dialect. The government has also influenced how Japanese is written; the forms of many kanji that now appear in Unicode, for example, were originally decided by government fiat after World War II.
One interesting aspect of American English is that notions of what constitutes “standard” American English—including even spelling—have formed largely independent of the government. Publishers, broadcasters, educators, and a variety of complex social forces have had much greater influence.
The U.K.'s relationship with Received Pronunciation is very different: it is the native regional accent of the rich elite of London, and consequently it would be quite unusual for a homeless man on the streets of Liverpool to speak it.
At the very least, General American is an accent that can be spoken without revealing anything of one's birthplace and social situation. A man speaking R.P. reveals his wealth and upbringing around London to a greater degree.
The Finnish situation, for comparison, is that the standard language is spoken by about no one informally, and is a practically constructed languages that was created by the government by combining the most conservative elements of all dialects. — it is the native language of no one, so it is even more neutral territory than G.A., yielding kno one an unfair advantage.
Getting rid of latin as the lingua franca was a huge mistake.
We cannot expect everyone to be familiar with every accent and dialect, so we have General American and Received Pronunciation as standard accents (and Standard English), which helps communication especially with weak English speakers and ESL speakers. So for some examples mentioned
> while we’re at it: can’t we let Steven Colbert speak in his natural South Carolina accent, or Don Lemon in the strains of his native Baton Rouge? As with bias against visible ethnic features (skin colour, the epicanthic fold typical of Asian people’s upper eyelids), exposure is all.
from another perspective, using one's native accent on TV when they are perfectly capable of speaking in a more standard accent is arguably more supremacist than "antibigoted".
There is a subtle but very important (wrt what is ethical) distinction between prejudice against one's native accent and dialect, and deciding instead to speak, or require to speak in a standard accent and dialect: the latter can be due to prejudicial pressures, but also often for mere intelligibility and comprehension, and I'm not confident that the author notices and appreciates the distinction.
Perhaps if it be quite far off from one's own, but in many cases it does not hinder at all.
As a more interesting example, consider that intelligent characters in U.S.A. cinema have a statistically high probability of having either a received pronunciation, or German accent, — given that the target audience is one of the U.S.A., one can assume that either, especially the latter, would hinder communication to at least some degree, however marginal.
Yet, both accents impart upon the listener an impression of intelligence. This was even referenced in The Practice, in one scene, where a lawyer for his expert witness specifically picked an expert with an English accent, on his experience that an R.P. English accent leads to U.S.A. jurors' holding the expert more credible.
I'm quite sceptical that communication is truly hampered in many of these cases. It is certainly not difficult by any margin to understand what Eliza Doolittle is saying in My Fair Lady, but the story of course highlights the absurd degree of accent discrimination that permeates British society.
In what possible way would it be "supremacist" to speak in one's native accent on TV?
> using one's native accent on TV for certain programs when they are perfectly capable of speaking in a more standard accent
Thankfully, you are asking only for me to show that it is possible.
If:
* You are as fluent in a standard accent and dialect as in your local accent and dialect
* You know that using your local accent and dialect can cause intelligibility problems with a far greater part of your audience than using a standard accent and dialect
* You are communicating something to your audience
* You have an ethical duty to communicate to as much of your audience as possible
* You don't care that you may not be communicating the important information because your audience doesn't understand your accent well
* You are aware of the above
* And consequently choose to use your native accent, with all other things being equal
Then it is supremacist, because you favor a smaller group of your audience that understands your accent when there is an ethical duty to communicate to as much of your audience as possible.
Of course, much of what appears on TV is rarely important, but for business reasons you already see this: news tends to use a more standard accent for their audience and more informal programs have more diversity (and often in the latter the accents are an important aspect of what is being communicated as the utterances they are a vehicle for).
I used to speak English with a pronounced "Indian" accent, and snark about Indians who'd grown up in India, moved to foreign lands and mutated their accent to sound American/British/Canadian/Australian/whatever.
When I moved to the UK though, I was initially pretty "stand my ground" about only communicating in my accent -- after all, I was speaking perfectly correct English. After many rounds of having to repeat myself, and often slow down so that the "locals" could understand the way that I put together syllables, I realised that "being understood with low friction" is a pretty big factor that people use to decide whether or not to engage in future interactions with you.
So I've worked on a slightly more "neutral" accent that's about as close to RP as I can get without accent coaching, and it's worked wonders, both for communication, and given the nature of British society, for my implicit acceptance in certain circles.
These days I can slip in and out of either accent depending on who I'm talking to, but I can now completely see how using just one accent for extended periods of [valuable] time changes that to be the default.
- are content with a trial-and-error approach
- have friends/colleagues who can give you useful feedback
- don't mind making the odd [amusing] mistake
If on the other hand, you:
- want something more structured and results-oriented
- don't have enough self-aware friends/colleagues across different British social classes
- are not in a position to have mistakes brushed off without consequences
I briefly knew a Greek girl who'd moved to London for a project management role in a large company here, and she sounded reasonably British middle class (RP) having done daily professional accent coaching for I think 8-10 months.
Sorry I can't be more concrete, but I hope this helps!
That's an interesting cultural difference. Here in France (at least around me) teachers insist on trying to develop an accent similar to a native English accent. From what I've read in this thread, I think they're trying to teach people Received Pronunciation. Having perfect English with still a noticeable French accent is generally looked down upon.
A lot of Slovak people move to Czechia, especially to one of the university cities. This has been the case since the 1920s at least. Movement in the other direction is, these days, negligible.
Many Czechs can understand standard spoken Slovak (not so much the eastern dialects), but it is a high-friction interaction nowadays. My experience is that Slovaks tend to stand their ground for a year or two, then silently join a Czech language course and, within a few months, switch completely to Czech, just with slightly softer vowels that will indicate their origin, well, forever.
The friction thing is important. Even Austrians who move to Germany say the same.
You can pick up accents, both pronunciation, phrasing and vocabulary this way. Incidentally, this is why I dislike (find divisive) the fact the Afro-Americans use the N-word liberally - I don't think it would be hard for an non-PoC to accidentally pick up the word if they often communicated with people who used it.
As an aside: I don't have a strong accent from my place of origin, although I notice it is stronger on certain terms. One type of term is, obviously, those words that have features that are most pronounced differently (e.g. the "Aboot" as in the article). But I also notice it happens with place names in my place of origin - maybe because I rarely say them outside that area?
I studied in an English speaking middle school, in a Spanish speaking country. Only a few of our classmates were native U.S. English speakers and we occasionally picked up words from them, from music or movies.
> You can pick up accents, both pronunciation, phrasing and vocabulary this way. Incidentally, this is why I dislike (find divisive) the fact the Afro-Americans use the N-word liberally - I don't think it would be hard for an non-PoC to accidentally pick up the word if they often communicated with people who used it.
At some point, when we were about 13 years old, my classmates picked up the "N-word", perhaps from a song or from a movie. And we started using them between ourselves (classmates) during recess and lunchtime.
This went unnoticed for some time. Even by some of our local teachers.
That lasted for some weeks until an U.S. American teacher heard us. Then he took us to the classroom and spent the class explaining to us that not everyone could use that word. We spoke about how some people may use it and other not. While Spanish does not have this restriction, English does.
For example he explained to us that because he was white, there was no way he could use it. Then he looked at us, and told us that some of us _may_ be able to use it depending on our skin color, but not all of us. That it should be better for us not to use it.
That people still take the effort to go beyond this step and effectively remove all local traces from their accent can only be understood in the framework of social pressures. Because people tend to make all kind of assumptions about you based on your accent, it makes perfect sense if you want to get rid of it. But for intelligibility, you can stop way short of this goal.
I understand this, but you have a point that I didn't really communicate it. I don't take issue with local accents and dialects when intelligibility is reasonably presumed not to be an issue. Hence my chosen example of the writer thinking that primarily using a local accent on TV is ethically beneficial, for the intended audience of TV.
> That people still take the effort to go beyond this step and effectively remove all local traces from their accent can only be understood in the framework of social pressures. Because people tend to make all kind of assumptions about you based on your accent, it makes perfect sense if you want to get rid of it. But for intelligibility, you can stop way short of this goal.
I agree with this. I think you also have a point regarding my criticism of the example, that Colbert for instance ethically shouldn't need to extinguish all traces of his accent on TV: just to the extent that it doesn't cause intelligibility problems to a weak English speaker (if it does in the first place).
Of course, if more non-General American and RP accents were heard in the media more often, they would also be more easily intelligible by more people than they are now.
Standardising on one accent over others so that more people can understand the speaker is a bit of a self-fullfilling prophecy, that is. If everyone is constantly putting on a particular accent, how is anyone going to learn to understand all the others?
This proposal just moves the threshold, while making it even harder for weak English speakers to consume media. To the extreme, sufficiently strong accents and dialects effectively are another language, and we acknowledge that learning another language requires effort and exposure: I think we agree that this is beyond the threshold.
> Standardising on one accent over others so that more people can understand the speaker is a bit of a self-fullfilling prophecy, that is. If everyone is constantly putting on a particular accent, how is anyone going to learn to understand all the others?
I don't think it's necessary, beneficial, or feasible for someone to understand all the accents and dialects of English and keep updated on their evolution. One should learn to understand accents and dialects at least to the extent of interest and also to the extent that it helps intelligibility with the people around you. (This rule, applied to media, favors media using GA and RP).
minä nauran - ich lache - I laugh
sinä naurat - Du lachst - you laugh
me nauramme - wir lachen - we laugh
te nauratte - ihr lacht - you laugh
he nauravat - sie lachen - they laugh
hän nauraa - sie lacht - she laughs(!)
(Murik)
g-a-kərə-na
3P.NUM-1S.ERG-hit-PRS
‘I hit them’
n-umbwa-ŋa-kərə-ŋa-na
INV-3P.ERG-1S.ACC-hit-INV-PRS
‘They hit me’
(Yimas)
ma-mp-nanaŋ-yawra-kia-na-ntut
3S.ACC-3D.ERG-DUR-gather-NIGHT-DUR-RM.PST
‘They both were getting it during the night’
And it gets even worse… pity the poor language learner who wants to conjugate verbs in Isirawa:
SG.M SG.F DU PL 3PL
‘kill’ sən sin nonɪn trevrun trevroun
‘give’ vrɪn vrun ninɪn rirɪn nəniyəun
‘see’ maun main makaun marɪn maun
And, on the other extreme, there’s plenty of perfectly respectable languages with no inflection whatsoever, making the ‘insult’ even weirder. Lao, for example:
kap² maa² maø laang⁴ tiin³ laang⁴ mùù² …
go.back come DIR.ALL wash foot wash hand …
‘[We’d] come back and wash [our] feet, [and] wash [our] hands, …
… qanaa²maj² lèkaø khùn⁵ tiang³ tii³ kaleeng¹ nòòn²
… clean.up C.LNK ascend bed hit bell sleep
… clean up, and then get into bed, [when they’d] ring the bell to go to sleep.’
(Unless you’re talking about declension classes, as in Latin or Russian… but from what I can tell, those are actually surprisingly rare outside IE.)
It is not as hard for other Slavic speakers, because they are at least used to such a thing, even though their classes are not necessarily the same.
Sad, but true.
If someone interacts with Indian English speakers often enough that they develop a habit of avoiding Indians just in case they might call and speak with an accent they can't understand, it's probably time to do something about that, like getting more exposure in an environment where it's easier to understand (e.g. with subtitles)
In the case of recruiting, where there's no obligation to pay any attention to recruiters at all, it might not be much of an issue, but it's only a matter of time until you get an Indian colleague and avoiding them is no longer an option.
Each sound cue not mastered hinders information redundancy and thus increases risk of not being understood. It probably seems like percolation: small crevices that suddenly reach a critical point where comprehension is lost at the receiver side.
Also way before that point, the receiver needs more subconscious effort and thus fatigues itself parsing the message.
We've societally conditioned ourselves through media that persons with certain accents - cough a very specific kind of British accent cough, are more "sophisticated", and a very specific kind of Southern USA accent as "unsophisticated"; even though logically, the manner in which a person speaks should neither validate nor invalidate the substance of what is being spoken.
But implicit bias affects us all and so we have voicism.
If we really want to break down voicism monetarily, it's a suboptimal way to work.
It makes it more likely that you might reject a good idea because the person who expressed it didn't have the dialect/accent with which you're most familiar. Likewise it makes it more likely you might let a less-than-good idea or a straight-up bad idea get through your filter, because it's been expressed in an accent/dialect you've come to associate with "pleasurable".
The OP is self-aware enough to know that this bias exists within them. This is already better than those who might reject any notions of such biases at play. The OP could, for example, to remediate this bias, watch YouTube videos where English is spoken by those from that given region. Whatever this "region" might be. This would help reduce the cognitive burden of parsing accents during any future interactions. So that your brain would be less focussed on the peculiarities of the accent and more focussed on *what* they're actually saying. It would make establishing rapport easier. It's just a better way to work. But like with most things though, practice makes perfect.
Also personally I find it fascinating to listen to people speak the same language differently. So it's a fun cognitive exercise to train your mind to ignore the accent and listen to what they're saying.
On to the recruiters-side now.
Sometimes it's not just unfamiliar accents/dialects, for which they're not at fault whatsoever. Sometimes it's straight-up poor sentencing structure and grammatical errors. And that is obviously not the OP's fault. And is definitely the recruiters' fault. The recruiters stand to gain a lot from being able to express themselves more clearly.
But language skill is a much more fundamental problem to address, that's endemic to the educational system and curriculum of that area. There's very little the OP could do, or any one person could do, to remedy that.
To summarize, the barrier to de-biasing the OP is, at this moment, much lower than the barrier to fixing deficits in language skills of an entire people in any given region.
Obviously things will need fixing from both sides, but let's try to fix what's relatively easy to fix first I guess.
I've personally had a few experiences with professors, both in undergrad and grad school, in which I found them hard to understand because of their accents. Rather than dropping the class and complaining about that "foreign professor," I stuck it out and spent significant effort into trying to parse their language, because I knew there were a significant number of things I could learn from these people. What's more, they were actually people to me; I physically interacted with them multiple times a week, every week for a semester or more.
If I were cold called by some random recruiter with a thick accent with whom I had no previous relationship, I can't say as I'd put the same amount of effort into trying to understand them. They aren't people I interact with on a near daily basis, and they probably don't have anything interesting to offer me, so I tend toward feeling it's not worth the effort to try and force my brain to hear the message through the accent.
Although the Indian call center recruiter is a common stereotype, the thing is, I'd apply the same sort of logic with any accent, in just about any situation I can think of. That is, if the interaction is potentially significant, I'm inclined to expend effort. If they're people I'll be interacting with frequently, I'm also inclined to spend the effort.
I've encountered Indian people I couldn't easily understand. I've also encountered Chinese, American, European, and South American people I had difficulty understanding. In each case, I applied the same logic to determine whether I would expend brainpower on understanding their literal words to get at what they were saying.
Is this closer to what you meant to say?
We should add an infinite list to that.
The truth of the matter is that few men care as much about “discrimination” or “præjudice” as they say they do. Rather, they only care when it's based on whatever category they've arbitrarily taken an interest in.
Yes, accent is one of those that often goes unnoticed, so is height, æsthetic value of one's face, haircut, depth of one's voice, and an endless lists of things I can mention.
That the auctor of this article focuses on accent in particular, suggests a particular interest in accent above al the others.