What is linguistic discrimination?
How can we help stop linguistic discrimination?
Acknowledge that we all have accents. For instance, if you were born and raised in the Mid-West of the USA, your speech may be different than someone from who was born and raised in South Florida. These differences are unique and shouldn't be held against each other in the form of othering differing bodies and identities.
Actively stand up for those who are called out for their accents. Making sure that someone who speaks a different variety of English in the USA is receiving the same treatment as someone who speaks American English.
Use the power of social media! If you encounter bullying towards certain accents in your community, call them out on social media.
Know that although you may not. be able to stop the prejudice towards certain accents by yourself, it starts with you!
Resources that you should know
The following resources are a collection of work on accent bias and preventions. If you have any other suggestions please email me (ethankutlu@gmail.com).
Dr. Megan Figueroa's Scholars to Read/Know in the Field of Language database https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1WrZuImK---LByMIqw3n_9yaFntq5zOGyttndkhWA1SY/edit#gid=0
Accent Bias project https://accentbiasbritain.org/
Please follow Drs. Vijay Ramjattan @Vijay_Ramjattan, Nelson Flores @nelsonlflores, Jonathon Rosa @DrJonathanRosa, Kelly E. Wright @raciolinguistic, Ruth Kircher @ruth_kircheron Twitter to be informed
Please follow the Vocal Fries Podcast (https://vocalfriespod.com) to be informed about current issues in linguistics regarding stigmatization of all sorts. The hosts Drs. Megan Figueroa and Carrie Gillon can be accessed on Twitter @megandfigueroa and @carrie_gee
Some readings:
Kachru, B. B. (1992). Teaching world englishes. The other tongue: English across cultures, 2, 355-366.
Kutlu, E., & Wiltshire, C. (2020). Where do negative stereotypes come from? The case of Indian English in the USA. LSA Proceedings.
Floccia, C., Goslin, J., Girard, F., & Konopczynski, G. (2006). Does a regional accent perturb speech processing?. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 32(5), 1276.
Lippi-Green, R. (1997). English with an Accent: Language. Ideology, and Discrimination in.
Itzhak, I., Vingron, N., Baum, S. R., & Titone, D. (2017). Bilingualism in the real world: How proficiency, emotion, and personality in a second language impact communication in clinical and legal settings. Translational Issues in Psychological Science, 3(1), 48.
Kim, S. Y., Wang, Y., Deng, S., Alvarez, R., & Li, J. (2011). Accent, perpetual foreigner stereotype, and perceived discrimination as indirect links between English proficiency and depressive symptoms in Chinese American adolescents. Developmental psychology, 47(1), 289.
Babel, M., & Russell, J. (2015). Expectations and speech intelligibility. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 137(5), 2823-2833.
Kang, O., & Rubin, D. L. (2009). Reverse linguistic stereotyping: Measuring the effect of listener expectations on speech evaluation. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 28(4), 441-456.
Lev‐Ari, S., van Heugten, M., & Peperkamp, S. (2017). Relative difficulty of understanding foreign accents as a marker of proficiency. Cognitive science, 41(4), 1106-1118.
de Souza, L. E. C., Pereira, C. R., Camino, L., de Lima, T. J. S., & Torres, A. R. R. (2016). The legitimizing role of accent on discrimination against immigrants. European Journal of Social Psychology, 46(5), 609-620.
Two amazing blogpost by Dr. Ruth Kircher on language ideologies and intergenerational language transmission
Books
Gallery Subtitle
