Do accents influence work relationships?

Let's start at the very beginning. Did you know that the wiki definition for first impressions goes beyond clothing / grooming and includes accent and voice too? As soon as your start speaking, my brain is trying to recognize if I have heard your accent before. And if I have, and I can successfully map it to a geography, then I begin associating you with my known reference group from said geography. You had me at Hello!

Positive and Negative Associations of Accents

Melissa Hogenboom for the BBC writes, 'Our trust for certain accents starts extremely young. There is evidence to show that affinity for language even starts before birth.' In a 2007 Harvard University?experiment, it was found that babies preferred the person who spoke their native language and accent, over another person who was foreign.

When we grow up in a social group, we develop ethnolinguistic identity, whose theory posits that you feel a sense of belonging and show affiliation to your communication partner if they belong to a common ethnic ancestry or speak a common language (and vice-versa, disaffiliation for non-native speakers).

What happens when your appearance looks Middle Eastern, but your accent sounds European? An interesting experiment run by Hansen, Rakic and Steffens investigated how 215 native German students evaluate others based on their appearance and accent, when one cue indicates outgroup member (e.g., looks Turkish) and the other indicates ingroup (e.g., speaks with a standard German accent). The findings are fascinating as participants evaluated competence and warmth, while they categorized the targets as native or non-native.

As the workplace becomes increasingly global, we are more likely to interview people whose accents identify their nativity as similar / different from the local workforce. If we aren't conscious about similarity-attraction biases like this group, we might end up favouring one candidate over another without any requisite competency evaluation for the role. Sometimes biases work in favour of candidates too - non-native accents can be associated with prestige, expertise, or local knowledge, which could increase credibility in some fields – a French accent in the fashion industry, for example.?The further we dissociate accents from identity and competencies, the better chances we provide to the candidates by setting a level-playing field.

Do accents affect policymakers?

Five years ago, then employment minister Esther McVey?made a plea?for employers to look beyond an applicant’s accent. This article for The Conversation calls out how UK MPs themselves aren't spared when it comes to being mocked for their accents (case in point - the deputy opposition leader?Angela Rayner). The article states, 'It is difficult to reconcile the best wishes of policymakers with the realities of our prejudices. While it is illegal under UK law to discriminate against a person based on?protected characteristics?such as gender, race, religion or disability, accent is not recognized in this list.'

Can accents be barriers to comprehension?

At a conference recently in London, I met an interesting Italian woman at my lunch table. When there is 'flow' in conversation, I imagine two people connecting and understanding each other perfectly (violins in the background, etc.) Unfortunately, none of that happened here. I don't know if it was a crowded room where we were trying to speak above the noise, or if it was unfamiliar accents for both parties (coupled with a mask which eliminates lip-reading) but we knew we were doomed. She had a very interesting position in her organization, but we spent more energy trying to understand each other rather than exchanging ideas and thoughts.

I felt quite insecure after that exchange and wondered 'is my accent too thick? should I speak slower? should I blend in more?' - which on hindsight I found funny because it could be that my Italian friend walked away with the same thoughts too! We were genuinely trying to connect, so what should we have done when our accents got in the way?

One of my British Asian friends subconsciously decreases her use of retroflex when she orders a cup of coffee. Her migrant parents stressed the importance of language for economic and societal acceptance due to hardships they faced in gaining employment. Today, English is used as a lingua franca among the majority of Services industries, and we hear the same words / phrases but we hear them in different accents - which may cause confusion since our visual and auditory cues don't match.

The Commonwealth Times writes, 'Contrary to public opinion, it is impossible to be “accentless”. Modifying one’s accent to the point that it is completely unrecognizable will erase an important sign of a person’s personal history and cultural heritage. Those who grow up with a particular accent may grow to embrace it and even make it a cornerstone of their self-identity.'

On streaming platforms, I've got subtitles. What have I got for real-life conversations?