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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 Universit

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

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