ASSESSING NATIVE AND NON-NATIVE ACCENTS IN THE UNITED STATES: ARE WE BIASED?

Abstract

Research that has investigated the perception of accented English in the United States has evidenced a stereotype being applied to people who speak English with a non-native accent. Such a stereotype is often attributed to individuals being from another country and being foreign. There is also evidence that individuals from the southern section of the United States face certain negative stereotypes because of where they are from. Such a bias against the South could include a bias against Southern accented English, which non-Southerners may perceive as being foreign, or belonging to an out-group rather than an in-group. The aim of the current study was to determine if there is a hierarchical preference to accented speech, in which more familiar native accents are preferred over unfamiliar non-native accents. Participants were presented with recordings of an individual speaking in one of three categories of accented English (non-native Hispanic, native Southern, and General American non-accented) and then asked to complete the Social Distance Scale (Bogardus, 1933). Results indicated that the groups with accented speech did not face greater social distance than the group without accented speech. Furthermore, non-native accents did not face greater social than native accents.