Foreign accents，the obstacle for building the modern Tower of Babel in workplace

張曉鈴

There is a little story of the Tower of Babel from the Bible. At that point of time， the whole world had one common language. The people of the earth became skilled in construction and decided to build a city with a tower that would reach to heaven. God came to see their city and the tower they were building. He found their intention that the people build the tower as a stairway to heaven. As a result， God confused their language， causing them to speak different languages so they would not understand each other. As a consequence， the Tower of Babel became into the tower of bubble. Nowadays， the Tower of Babel happened in workplaces in our really life. Accents could be the language barrier which cost lots of efforts to solve it.

The term “accent” we talk about refers to a “distinctive way of speaking associated with a particular group of people， typically based on differences in phonology or intonation across geographic regions or social groups （LippiGreen， 1997）.” Globalization makes the workplace international. Multinational cooperations are more likely to hire employees from other countries. When employees communicate with each other with their accents， the misunderstanding might reduce their work efficiency.

According to the research of Deprez-Sims and Morris （2010）， accents can impact perceptions of an interviewees suitability for a job. Decision-makers are likely to view persons with different accents as different from themselves， and consequently to evaluate them negatively. Bias may be more likely to manifest when choosing among two or more similarly qualified candidates from different social groups.

Accents sometimes are the barrier to communicate between speakers and listeners， so the listeners are less likely to find what the person says as truthful. There are two main facts that could make non-native speakers less credible （Dixon， Mahoney & Cocks， 2002）. The first one is that the native speakers are easy to use non-native speakers accent as a signal that the speaker is an outsider. Perceived differences create a sense of distance between the speaker and the listener. On the other hand， perceived similarities create a sense of interpersonal attraction. If the listener found that the speaker had the similar in attitudes and background， he/she would treat and evaluate the listener more favorable than those who are dissimilar. This “similar-to-me” effect conjures up biases that people believe non-native speakers less. The second fact is that the accent makes the speech harder to process. The accent makes it harder for people to understand what the non-native speaker is saying. According to the research from Keysar （2010）， instead of perceiving the speech by non-native speaker as more difficult to understand， the native speaker perceives them as less truthful.

Accents are indeed used in the process of impression formation， and can play a role in employment-related decisions. People will doubt and judge the new information when they dont give enough credit for the information source. Such judgments could depend on how reasonable the information sounds， how credible the source appears， how the person says it and so on. Thats why discrimination against workers who speak accented English is one of the biggest problems that international job hunters must to face.

Reference：

[1]Lippi-Green， R. （1997）. English with an Accent： Language， Ideology and Discrimination in the United States. New York： Routledge. Chapters 2-4.

[2]Deprez-Sims， A.， & Morris， S. B. （2010）. Accents in the workplace： Their effects during a job interview. International Journal Of Psychology， 45（6）， 417-426. doi：10.1080/00207594.2010.499950.

[3]Dixon， J. A.， Mahoney， B.， & Cocks， R. （2002）. Accents of guilt？ Effects of regional accent， 'race' and crime type on attributions of guilt. Journal of Language and Social Psychology， 21， 162-168.

[4]University of Chicago.“Foreign accents make speakers seem less truthful to listeners， study finds.”ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily， 20 July 2010.. lead author of Why Don't We Believe Non-native Speakers？ The Influence.

[5]Shiri Lev-Ari， & Keysar （2010） Why Don't We Believe Non-native Speakers？ The Influence of Accent on Credibility. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology， 46， 1093-1096.