Accent bias is real

- The first step, recognizing that accent bias is real. Before we begin practicing how to make your speech more intelligible and comprehensible, let's take a moment to consider why that work will help you advance your goals. You probably decided to take this course because you have experienced accent bias. Maybe it made you less confident. Perhaps you think your accent is having a negative impact on the way people see you. These feelings are common, and research shows that accent bias is real. It's not in your imagination. Our accents, like many other parts of our being, help us to distinguish certain groups from others. The practice of defining an in-group, an out-group based on speech dates back millennia. In fact, in the Old Testament, the tribe of Gilead identified the Ephraimites based on their difficulty pronouncing the sh sound associated with the word shibboleth. Each time we divide people, whether it's based on gender, race, language, politics, or many other factors, there is a possibility of bias. And bias is prejudging something or someone either positively or negatively. All of us have bias. And rarely do we notice how it influences our behavior. For example, we may hire people who are similar to us, rather than people who are different from us. We may act more favorably to people who speak our language, and less favorably to those that don't. Or, we may prefer a specific accent over another. And this happens almost everywhere, I mean, think about your first language, are there some accents that are considered to be more acceptable than others? Are some regions or ways of speaking considered less than, or even ridiculed? Or, urban accents more favored than those from rural areas? Is the south different from the north? If you ask any French person, which accent is the most acceptable? They'll likely answer Parisian French. Any other accent marks someone as being provincial or from the provinces, that is, not from Paris. In 2018, a politician mocked a journalist from the south of France saying, "Can someone please ask a question in comprehensible French?" And again, in 2020, France elected a new prime minister from the southwestern part of the country, making headlines because of his accent. One news broadcaster saying, "It's an accent that we are not used to hearing in the upper echelons of the government." French linguists have coined the term glottophobia to describe this kind of prejudice. And the government passed a law in 2020, making it illegal to discriminate based on accent. At least in France, accents are now protected by law, allowing people to speak freely, and without fear of discrimination. But let's turn quickly to different accents in English. Recent research revealed that over a quarter of British people feel discriminated against because of their regional accent. And according to a British law firm, Peninsular, 80% of employers admit to making discriminating decisions based on regional accents. According to another recent study, over a quarter of Brits will adjust or change their accent at work in order to avoid being discriminated against. A recent study found a whopping 76% of people from Newcastle, which is in the north of England alter their voice to sound plainer. This is called code switching, and people do it all the time, changing their vocabulary, accent, or manner of speaking depending on their audience. Similar findings have been found in many other accent bias studies. In the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, two researchers, Sherry LeVari and Boez Kezar, presented native English speaking adults with pieces of information that might be true or false. The topics were quite obscure, and few participants would be familiar with them. Like for example, how long does a bear sleep? And how much water does a camel drink in a day? Right? The participants simply had to guess whether each statement of fact was true or false. When people heard the statement spoken in a native accented voice, they were more likely to say it was true. When they heard the same information spoken in a foreign accent, they were relatively more likely to guess that it was false. The researchers write, "You may not know how long a bear sleeps, but if someone gives you an estimate in a native accent, it's more likely to sound correct to you." However, there are ways to defeat accent bias in both yourself and in others. Becoming aware of the bias you may have within your first language might be helpful in your ability to recognize it in others when you're speaking in English. Let's look at additional methods you can employ when speaking English, so that you might reduce that bias overall.