Accent Discrimination, Language Prejudice and the Workplace

The title of the June 2010 article in the Telegraph “Gordon Brown starts using his Scottish accent again” is a curious one.  It is true that while former Prime Minister Gordon Brown was in office, he spoke with Britain’s Received Pronunciation (standard British English) despite being from Scotland.  But why was that necessary?

It would seem that Brown was a victim of accent discrimination in the workplace.  He probably feared he would not succeed as a politician if he did not ditch his native dialect and start speaking the standard variety.  The reasons for this type of discrimination are discussed below.

Accent discrimination in the workplace can be divided into roughly two types.  The first of these is discrimination based entirely on prejudice, while the second is based on judgements about the speaker’s ability to perform the job.

SEE ALSO: South Korea: Tongue Operations for Better English Pronunciation

Prejudice

In Brown’s case, we are talking about pure prejudice; clearly, the Scottish accent is viewed as undesirable enough to hamper careers in UK politics.

It is an unfortunate truth about humans that they make value judgements about other people based on where they’re from and who their parents are.  Speakers of more prestigious or “standard” forms consider non-standard dialects inferior.  The standard variety is often that spoken by some elite group (at least initially).  These are often the people in power, such as the royal family in England.  Eventually, their dialect comes to be seen as the prestigious form of the language and becomes the standard, either by convention or in some cases, by force.  Once this process is complete, the standard variety has acquired overt prestige, and people either feel compelled to adopt it or expect others to do so.  This is especially true of the workplace and in the business world.

The way that one speaks is one of his or her first recognized and most superficial traits, and it can communicate various characteristics (real or imagined), including socio-economic status, education level, and of course cultural origin.  This is beneficial for speakers of the standard variety, but it can also make people victims of prejudice and cause them problems in their careers if they happen to speak a non-standard variety.

Ability to perform a job

A second form of accent discrimination is based on judgements regarding a person’s ability to perform a job.  If a doctor’s accent is so thick that nobody understands a word he says, he might have a hard time getting a job.  This type of discrimination makes a lot more sense than the type discussed above, but it still holds people back in their careers.

Students of English as a second language have to deal both types of accent discrimination discussed above.  A student’s first concern should be the second of the two.

In most cases, depending on one’s career goals, the object is to be understood reasonably well.  If you want to get a job writing articles for a newspaper, however, it might not be that simple.  Now, in dealing with prejudice, one can hardly just rebuke people for their mistaken beliefs and start a revolution.  Sometimes it is necessary to go with the flow like Gordon Brown and start speaking the standard variety, and whether or not to be a nonconformist is a personal decision and it comes at a price.  Prejudice exists in this world and isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

While you’re working on your English pronunciation, take a look at this video which explains the origin of unique Southern American accents!