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Journal of Undergraduate Research

Keywords

native speaker, accent, American, Korean, German, second language

College

Humanities

Department

German and Russian

Abstract

Everyday listeners make personal judgments about the people with whom they are speaking based on the accent or voice quality of the speaker. Studies have shown that a person’s speech– independent of accent–can influence a listener to make judgments about the speaker’s intelligence, sociability, trustworthiness, and a number of other personal traits (Hiraga, 1999). But what happens when “foreign” accent is added to the equation? Purnell et al. (2005) found that when the same person reading from the same script called to make appointments to see apartments, the speaker had more success getting an appointment when he spoke with a “non- accented” American accent than with an AAVE (African American Vernacular English) or Hispanic English accent, highlighting the fact that a speaker’s accent can result in discrimination. Such negative judgments can play a critical role in a person’s performance and success in the work environment, especially if the position requires much verbal communication or instruction on the part of a foreign speaker (Chuang, 2010).

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