Presentation

The Power of Prejudice in Accent Perception: Reverse Linguistic Stereotyping and Its Impact on Listener Judgments and Decisions

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Abstract

Pronunciation is not merely accoustics; it has an active social life. Linguistic stereotyping is a robust mechanism of social judgment whereby listeners ascribe a myriad of traits to speakers based often on only very thin samples of pronunciation. The converse social judgmental process is “reverse linguistic stereotyping,” whereby listeners ascribe pronunciation characteristics to speech samples based on cues about speakers’ social identities. In reverse linguistic stereotyping, listeners “hear” the pronunciation they expect to hear, sometimes with little regard to the actual properties of the acoustic signal. Much of the research on reverse linguistic stereotyping applies to educational settings. Over two decades of research document that mainstream college students often expect international teaching assistants to speak with incomprehensible accents. Therefore when an international identity is ascribed to a voice with patently standard North American pronunciation, students rate the pronunciation as nonstandard and evince comprehension decrements. Another arena in which mainstream speakers have consequential interactions with Outer and Expanding circle World Englishes speakers is healthcare. The broader significance of research on reverse linguistic stereotyping includes at the the following four recommendations: (1) Keep research practices simple and replicate, replicate. (2) Pronunciation rating is susceptible to error. (3) Train listeners, not just speakers. (4) Preserve social justice as the core.

How to Cite:

Rubin, D., (2011) “The Power of Prejudice in Accent Perception: Reverse Linguistic Stereotyping and Its Impact on Listener Judgments and Decisions”, Pronunciation in Second Language Learning and Teaching Proceedings 3(1).