7 ms·

Prejudice against accents is due to our lazy brains

71 points by bahargholipour 11y ago

kelukelugames 11y ago
As an immigrant, I declare this the most "the sky is blue" article of all time.
panglott 11y ago
HN headline is inaccurate: the article headline is simply "Judged by Your Accent". This article is really a mishmash: "Molly Babel, a linguist at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, replicated Rubin's study this year. More than 20 years later, Babel uncovered exactly the same bias that Rubin had. Students actually understood Chinese Canadian and Caucasian Canadian speakers equally as well when they didn't see either of their faces, Babel says. "It's only when listeners saw a picture of the Chinese Canadian speaker that their ability to accurately understand them went down." In other words, Rubin was right in his hunch. It was the students' own biases, and not the teachers' bad communication, that led to poorer ratings of foreign professors. The students were simply not listening to their teachers." This really undermines the discussion of the Lev-Ari study that it precedes. It's no surprise to anyone familiar with the McGurk Effect that we're predicting what people are going to say, and this can influence comprehension of different speakers. But the Babel study emphasizes that it's the stereotype that creates that perception, not merely a preference for acoustic similarity to one's own lect. The discussion of the 2013 study on British/working-class New York accents is also a mess. The author somehow reads it as a preference against foreign accents, when in fact the subject used inference more with the New York accents. Which sounds more like a preference for high-status accents (British) over low-status (working class New York) accents.
- bahargholipour 11y ago
  Regarding the 2013 study on British/working-class New York accents: Actually I believe your description exactly matches the one in the article, which says, participants had "higher false memory rate for the speaker with a working class accent," suggesting they thought that voice was making a mistake, whereas with the British voice they thought it wasn't a mistake and that "the Brit must have said what he meant." In general, there are two effects at work. One is stereotypes: cultural bias, which led the student in Rubin and Babel's studies to just assume that they won't understand the accent of a Chinese looking professor. Another cultural effect is that high-prestige accents like the British one in Lev-Ari study, are held more reliable. The second effect is cognitive: we have a tendency to avoid actually listening and paying attention to difficult stimuli, in this case, foreign accents. These effects are not mutually exclusive. And they also overlap. Stereotypes are partly born out of lazy brains. But they also shape how our brains interprets the world.
  - panglott 11y ago
    ...but the author is using it to support the point that "...we slip in what we think a foreign speaker means to say, particularly when their accent has low social standing." Which seems like it should mean that the participants would have a higher false memory rate with the British speaker. It's an interesting question, though, whether a working-class New York accent is less "foreign" than an upper-class British accent to a Stanford University student.
    - bahargholipour 11y ago
      Maybe you are not interpreting the term "false memory" in the right way: Here, false memory means that they falsely remembered something that didn't actually exist (a word that the New Yorker had not said). It's only a term used in the study to "describe" their action. In reality, they perfectly remembered that the New Yorker had not said a word that was previously on the list. But they assumed it was the New Yorker's "mistake." With the Brit, they assume it was his "intention" to drop a word. Also, another thing is confused here and you are right. For this: "...we slip in what we think a foreign speaker means to say, particularly when their accent has low social standing." The study is used to support specifically the latter part, that is, bias against accents with low social standing. Not foreignness. (An accent can be native but have low social status, it can be foreign AND low social status, or it can be foreign like the British one but have high social status.)
- jacquesm 11y ago
  There is something very funny about a linguist named 'Babel'.
  - ta0967 11y ago
    http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/understate http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/understate
ldd 11y ago
Life is unfair. As a person with an accent, I am very well aware that I will be judged by it. Just like fat people are judged for being fat, or stupid people for being stupid. Yet, I have found solace in the ideas brought forward by thinkers like Marcus Aurelius, and my mentality has changed drastically. Yes, I have an accent, and yes, that means that certain people will openly mock me. In fact, the only time I was bullied in high school was due to my accent. I try very hard, everyday, to practice my pronunciation, and I still fail. I try hard to be understood. I try hard to be positive and to be kind and gentle towards others. Ultimately, this is what matters, and not whether I have an accent or not. Haters are going to hate.
- bahargholipour 11y ago
  I think that's the right attitude. The point is to communicate clearly and in a powerful manner—for everyone. You can have the most Native accent and yet communicate poorly. Or you can have a foreign accent but work on aspects of it to communicate clearly. At the same time, Native speakers, too, should work on their comprehension skills, especially in increasingly diverse societies. Haters gonna hate. But you don't even need them. If you speak clearly and proudly, those who need to understand, will.
- vdaniuk 11y ago
  >Haters are going to hate. I am more optimistic. Major advances of equality and discrimination prevention in many countries empirically prove that some haters will, in fact, stop hating.
  - bahargholipour 11y ago
    That's a really good point.
  - vlehto 11y ago
    I've perceived more of this sort: "OK these gay people are not evil after all. But this other group, they are evil! I don't hate anybody, but hating evil people doesn't count!!!"
jgalt212 11y ago
These biases are not without latent opportunities. The upside of this is if your cohort is generally associated with a strong accent (e.g. grad students from China), a sure-fire way to separate yourself from the crowd would be work on diminishing your accent.
- at-fates-hands 11y ago
  I remember seeing an interview with Sergei Federov (famous Russian NHL'er) it was one of his last seasons when he was playing with the Capitals. I was absolutely floored hearing him talk. There was no hint of his Russian accent at all. I remarked to one of my friends about him losing his accent. He told me it was well known after the late 90's backlash against Russian players, many went to great lengths to lose their accents by hiring language experts to help them with their English language skills. It would appear Sergei went above and beyond in that regard.
- coreyp_1 11y ago
  Us grad student here. The problem with most foreign grad students is that they do not want to work on their accent, or on English itself, for that matter. Many of them just congregate into their own groups, and rarely speak English except for when they have to. Then, they wonder why they get such low reviews when they give a lecture! In a way, this is highly pragmatic of them. Most of them do not want to stay in the United States after they graduate, so they have no interest in the extra effort that it takes to learn an American accent. The extra time it would take actually pulls them away from their research, and is seen as a distraction. Unfortunately, those who do want to stay either don't know how to, can't, or won't practice a better American accent, and so are extremely difficult to understand, even when you are familiar with the subject matter that they are talking about. I have met only I have a dozen or so foreign students that I did not were from another country until they told me so. It wasn't about the size of their vocabulary, but entirely based on their accent.
  - bbgm 11y ago
    Should they? I can't tell if your comment covers any accent, or just very thick ones. English is my first language (I speak Hindi but am not very comfortable carrying on a conversation in the language). I have lived in the US for almost 20 years, and at no point have I ever felt that my accent was holding me back.
tomhoward 11y ago
I'm an Australian who started spending extended periods of time in the US a few years ago. I have this distinct memory of being picked up this one time by an Australian friend who was taking my cofounder and me to lunch after we'd been in the US for a few weeks. As I sat in the car and we started chatting, I immediately had this sense of relaxation come over me, knowing that at least for the duration of that car trip, I'd be surrounded by only my native accent. I'd never noticed it before, but it was a stark realisation that deciphering foreign accents is hard work and seems to put your brain into a much higher processing rate. And as Australians, we've grown up being exposed to USA accents all the time through television etc. Yet even then it had been exhausting. So yeah, I can empathise with the notion that deciphering foreign accents is something that takes extra effort for all of us, and whilst it may be a factor that promotes prejudice, it's not an indicator of poor character, but just one of those things that we have to accept is there and be more mindful about overcoming.
- tertius 11y ago
  I'd add that when you're with those who speak your native accent you relax immediately because you feel at home. And this, as you state, is partly is fairly large reduction in communication error rate.
- bgilroy26 11y ago
  The character part comes into it with your reaction to the difficulty. A person with good character doesn't get embarrassed and lash out at unfamiliar things
  - tertius 11y ago
    And this should generally be good as those with good character won't lash out at those without, which in turn will make it easier for those without to build better character.
- huherto 11y ago
  > I'd never noticed it before, but it was a stark realisation that deciphering foreign accents is hard work and seems to put your brain into a much higher processing rate. Imagine how it feels not being a native speaker of the language. It is exhausting. Specially when you are having arguments over complex subjects. I feel like I loose 20 IQ points.
protomyth 11y ago
I remember from college returning from a weekend on the reservation talking to my friends and picking back up the slang (not as bad as Canadian infused Turtle Mountain accent but the Dakota reservation was not without its strangeness and slang) and the cadence change in my voice. It took a day for me to change back, but I sounded pretty odd given the normal ND / MN accent. It probably didn't help that my normal speech pattern back then threw a couple of Dakota words in the mix. And yes, the guy from NYC thought we all talked too slow and I was probably not very smart. It probably went worse because I have a loud, low voice. Laugh and live on, we judge patterns because that's what we got and how we survive. I will say, that an English accent spoken by one of my classmates might have had me with a bit of prejudice the other way. I loved her voice as it was smooth compared to my own rock-on-rock sound. Although, that was my first exposure to "being separated by a common language" as her description of fixing her car made me question my sanity ("bonnet??") rather than thinking less of her.
grownseed 11y ago
> Modern linguists agree that the best way to do this—to train your brain and to rid yourself of biases—is to spend more time with people who act, look, and speak differently from you. I'd argue that it's generally a good thing in life as a whole, not just when it comes to languages. I have an accent and a look that a lot of people can't place; the novelty of watching people ignore whatever comes out of my mouth while trying to figure "what" I am wears a bit thin over time. It does show that many people very much judge you by what they assume your background is, rather than what you have to say. I've moved around a lot over the years and it is clear to me that multi-cultural exposure is not just a good thing, it's essential if the world intends to move forward peacefully and productively.
ar7hur 11y ago
By the way, I you do have an accent and are about to interview at YC in a few days... this is my personal experience http://al3x.svbtle.com/yc-interview-when-english-is-not-your-first-language http://al3x.svbtle.com/yc-interview-when-english-is-not-your...
- nkurz 11y ago
  Great advice even for native speakers!
beachstartup 11y ago
i'm asian american and speak like a native, because i am one - i grew up in a mostly white affluent suburban setting. if anything i have a slight surfer twinge (spent most of my life in socal, and some in the bay, which also has a surfer twinge to their accent). at home or in places like new york, nobody has any trouble understanding me. when i go to places with less asian people, all of a sudden people ask me to repeat myself. but only at first - never halfway through a conversation. it's almost as if they expect me to have a heavy accent, and when i don't, they need to reset their hearing brain.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

As an immigrant, I declare this the most "the sky is blue" article of all time.

HN headline is inaccurate: the article headline is simply "Judged by Your Accent". This article is really a mishmash: "Molly Babel, a linguist at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, replicated Rubin's study this year. More than 20 years later, Babel uncovered exactly the same bias that Rubin had. Students actually understood Chinese Canadian and Caucasian Canadian speakers equally as well when they didn't see either of their faces, Babel says. "It's only when listeners saw a picture of the Chinese Canadian speaker that their ability to accurately understand them went down." In other words, Rubin was right in his hunch. It was the students' own biases, and not the teachers' bad communication, that led to poorer ratings of foreign professors. The students were simply not listening to their teachers." This really undermines the discussion of the Lev-Ari study that it precedes. It's no surprise to anyone familiar with the McGurk Effect that we're predicting what people are going to say, and this can influence comprehension of different speakers. But the Babel study emphasizes that it's the stereotype that creates that perception, not merely a preference for acoustic similarity to one's own lect. The discussion of the 2013 study on British/working-class New York accents is also a mess. The author somehow reads it as a preference against foreign accents, when in fact the subject used inference more with the New York accents. Which sounds more like a preference for high-status accents (British) over low-status (working class New York) accents.

bahargholipour 11y ago
Regarding the 2013 study on British/working-class New York accents: Actually I believe your description exactly matches the one in the article, which says, participants had "higher false memory rate for the speaker with a working class accent," suggesting they thought that voice was making a mistake, whereas with the British voice they thought it wasn't a mistake and that "the Brit must have said what he meant." In general, there are two effects at work. One is stereotypes: cultural bias, which led the student in Rubin and Babel's studies to just assume that they won't understand the accent of a Chinese looking professor. Another cultural effect is that high-prestige accents like the British one in Lev-Ari study, are held more reliable. The second effect is cognitive: we have a tendency to avoid actually listening and paying attention to difficult stimuli, in this case, foreign accents. These effects are not mutually exclusive. And they also overlap. Stereotypes are partly born out of lazy brains. But they also shape how our brains interprets the world.
- panglott 11y ago
  ...but the author is using it to support the point that "...we slip in what we think a foreign speaker means to say, particularly when their accent has low social standing." Which seems like it should mean that the participants would have a higher false memory rate with the British speaker. It's an interesting question, though, whether a working-class New York accent is less "foreign" than an upper-class British accent to a Stanford University student.
  - bahargholipour 11y ago
    Maybe you are not interpreting the term "false memory" in the right way: Here, false memory means that they falsely remembered something that didn't actually exist (a word that the New Yorker had not said). It's only a term used in the study to "describe" their action. In reality, they perfectly remembered that the New Yorker had not said a word that was previously on the list. But they assumed it was the New Yorker's "mistake." With the Brit, they assume it was his "intention" to drop a word. Also, another thing is confused here and you are right. For this: "...we slip in what we think a foreign speaker means to say, particularly when their accent has low social standing." The study is used to support specifically the latter part, that is, bias against accents with low social standing. Not foreignness. (An accent can be native but have low social status, it can be foreign AND low social status, or it can be foreign like the British one but have high social status.)
jacquesm 11y ago
There is something very funny about a linguist named 'Babel'.
- ta0967 11y ago
  http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/understate http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/understate

ldd 11y ago

Life is unfair. As a person with an accent, I am very well aware that I will be judged by it. Just like fat people are judged for being fat, or stupid people for being stupid. Yet, I have found solace in the ideas brought forward by thinkers like Marcus Aurelius, and my mentality has changed drastically. Yes, I have an accent, and yes, that means that certain people will openly mock me. In fact, the only time I was bullied in high school was due to my accent. I try very hard, everyday, to practice my pronunciation, and I still fail. I try hard to be understood. I try hard to be positive and to be kind and gentle towards others. Ultimately, this is what matters, and not whether I have an accent or not. Haters are going to hate.

bahargholipour 11y ago
I think that's the right attitude. The point is to communicate clearly and in a powerful manner—for everyone. You can have the most Native accent and yet communicate poorly. Or you can have a foreign accent but work on aspects of it to communicate clearly. At the same time, Native speakers, too, should work on their comprehension skills, especially in increasingly diverse societies. Haters gonna hate. But you don't even need them. If you speak clearly and proudly, those who need to understand, will.
vdaniuk 11y ago
>Haters are going to hate. I am more optimistic. Major advances of equality and discrimination prevention in many countries empirically prove that some haters will, in fact, stop hating.
- bahargholipour 11y ago
  That's a really good point.
- vlehto 11y ago
  I've perceived more of this sort: "OK these gay people are not evil after all. But this other group, they are evil! I don't hate anybody, but hating evil people doesn't count!!!"

jgalt212 11y ago

These biases are not without latent opportunities. The upside of this is if your cohort is generally associated with a strong accent (e.g. grad students from China), a sure-fire way to separate yourself from the crowd would be work on diminishing your accent.

at-fates-hands 11y ago
I remember seeing an interview with Sergei Federov (famous Russian NHL'er) it was one of his last seasons when he was playing with the Capitals. I was absolutely floored hearing him talk. There was no hint of his Russian accent at all. I remarked to one of my friends about him losing his accent. He told me it was well known after the late 90's backlash against Russian players, many went to great lengths to lose their accents by hiring language experts to help them with their English language skills. It would appear Sergei went above and beyond in that regard.
coreyp_1 11y ago
Us grad student here. The problem with most foreign grad students is that they do not want to work on their accent, or on English itself, for that matter. Many of them just congregate into their own groups, and rarely speak English except for when they have to. Then, they wonder why they get such low reviews when they give a lecture! In a way, this is highly pragmatic of them. Most of them do not want to stay in the United States after they graduate, so they have no interest in the extra effort that it takes to learn an American accent. The extra time it would take actually pulls them away from their research, and is seen as a distraction. Unfortunately, those who do want to stay either don't know how to, can't, or won't practice a better American accent, and so are extremely difficult to understand, even when you are familiar with the subject matter that they are talking about. I have met only I have a dozen or so foreign students that I did not were from another country until they told me so. It wasn't about the size of their vocabulary, but entirely based on their accent.
- bbgm 11y ago
  Should they? I can't tell if your comment covers any accent, or just very thick ones. English is my first language (I speak Hindi but am not very comfortable carrying on a conversation in the language). I have lived in the US for almost 20 years, and at no point have I ever felt that my accent was holding me back.

tomhoward 11y ago

I'm an Australian who started spending extended periods of time in the US a few years ago. I have this distinct memory of being picked up this one time by an Australian friend who was taking my cofounder and me to lunch after we'd been in the US for a few weeks. As I sat in the car and we started chatting, I immediately had this sense of relaxation come over me, knowing that at least for the duration of that car trip, I'd be surrounded by only my native accent. I'd never noticed it before, but it was a stark realisation that deciphering foreign accents is hard work and seems to put your brain into a much higher processing rate. And as Australians, we've grown up being exposed to USA accents all the time through television etc. Yet even then it had been exhausting. So yeah, I can empathise with the notion that deciphering foreign accents is something that takes extra effort for all of us, and whilst it may be a factor that promotes prejudice, it's not an indicator of poor character, but just one of those things that we have to accept is there and be more mindful about overcoming.

tertius 11y ago
I'd add that when you're with those who speak your native accent you relax immediately because you feel at home. And this, as you state, is partly is fairly large reduction in communication error rate.
bgilroy26 11y ago
The character part comes into it with your reaction to the difficulty. A person with good character doesn't get embarrassed and lash out at unfamiliar things
- tertius 11y ago
  And this should generally be good as those with good character won't lash out at those without, which in turn will make it easier for those without to build better character.
huherto 11y ago
> I'd never noticed it before, but it was a stark realisation that deciphering foreign accents is hard work and seems to put your brain into a much higher processing rate. Imagine how it feels not being a native speaker of the language. It is exhausting. Specially when you are having arguments over complex subjects. I feel like I loose 20 IQ points.

protomyth 11y ago

I remember from college returning from a weekend on the reservation talking to my friends and picking back up the slang (not as bad as Canadian infused Turtle Mountain accent but the Dakota reservation was not without its strangeness and slang) and the cadence change in my voice. It took a day for me to change back, but I sounded pretty odd given the normal ND / MN accent. It probably didn't help that my normal speech pattern back then threw a couple of Dakota words in the mix. And yes, the guy from NYC thought we all talked too slow and I was probably not very smart. It probably went worse because I have a loud, low voice. Laugh and live on, we judge patterns because that's what we got and how we survive. I will say, that an English accent spoken by one of my classmates might have had me with a bit of prejudice the other way. I loved her voice as it was smooth compared to my own rock-on-rock sound. Although, that was my first exposure to "being separated by a common language" as her description of fixing her car made me question my sanity ("bonnet??") rather than thinking less of her.

grownseed 11y ago

> Modern linguists agree that the best way to do this—to train your brain and to rid yourself of biases—is to spend more time with people who act, look, and speak differently from you. I'd argue that it's generally a good thing in life as a whole, not just when it comes to languages. I have an accent and a look that a lot of people can't place; the novelty of watching people ignore whatever comes out of my mouth while trying to figure "what" I am wears a bit thin over time. It does show that many people very much judge you by what they assume your background is, rather than what you have to say. I've moved around a lot over the years and it is clear to me that multi-cultural exposure is not just a good thing, it's essential if the world intends to move forward peacefully and productively.

ar7hur 11y ago

By the way, I you do have an accent and are about to interview at YC in a few days... this is my personal experience http://al3x.svbtle.com/yc-interview-when-english-is-not-your-first-language http://al3x.svbtle.com/yc-interview-when-english-is-not-your...

nkurz 11y ago
Great advice even for native speakers!

beachstartup 11y ago

i'm asian american and speak like a native, because i am one - i grew up in a mostly white affluent suburban setting. if anything i have a slight surfer twinge (spent most of my life in socal, and some in the bay, which also has a surfer twinge to their accent). at home or in places like new york, nobody has any trouble understanding me. when i go to places with less asian people, all of a sudden people ask me to repeat myself. but only at first - never halfway through a conversation. it's almost as if they expect me to have a heavy accent, and when i don't, they need to reset their hearing brain.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]