The Week of Action against Racism and for Equal Opportunities (SACR), which runs until March 31, has the main objective of preventing and combating exclusion based in particular on skin color and origin. ethnic or national. The SACR also aims to shine the spotlight on certain issues to raise awareness among governments and institutions in order to find solutions. But one issue relating to these issues often goes under the radar: accent discrimination.
Our accent stems from our socio-economic background, our linguistic and cultural environment, and our education. This is why people are prone to attribute all sorts of characteristics to us based solely on how we express ourselves. Commonly, we will say that the person who has an accent different from ours has an accent, as if there were supposedly a pronunciation without an accent and another with an accent. But make no mistake: we all have an accent.
The accent is sometimes stigmatized in society and can suffer from biased representations. If some people have negative prejudices, others find it charming. The sound of Italian is often seen as romantic. On the other hand, in the collective imagination, the Russian and German languages can be perceived as threatening, particularly for socio-political or historical reasons.
Biased representations also exist within the same language. This is the case with French: French from France is often considered to be the “standard” model, and all other varieties as derivatives. Let’s remember the outcry that followed the French adaptation of the Canadian podcast Alone, A Love Storyfor which CBC Podcasts preferred the services of a Parisian studio rather than local expertise, notably because the Quebec accent would have less international potential.
When we encounter other distinct groups, it is possible to take on another accent, by mimicry, by choice or by long-term exposure. Perhaps you have noticed that you “get your accent back” when you return to your hometown? Social pressure can also cause accents to change over time. Many people naturally change their accent depending on the image they would like to project, in an attempt to compensate for the linguistic insecurity they feel. Sometimes people are so ashamed of their accent that they want to eliminate it.
The propensity to want to change one’s accent, especially for professional reasons, can certainly be explained by the fact supported by numerous scientific studies that foreign accents can give rise to unfavorable judgments. Studies reveal that experts who speak with a foreign accent are judged less credible. Generally, people have a favorable bias towards people with similar linguistic and cultural backgrounds to their own. If a person speaks with a foreign accent, their interlocutor will tend to judge their words with less confidence than they will with regard to a person from their own reference group.
Other studies also reveal that the accent of our interlocutor can influence our empathetic response towards them. These phenomena refer to accentism, a form of discrimination based on accent. We are familiar with the concept of visible minority, but less familiar with that of audible minority. Our brain is sensitive to difference. Accents are no exception, they carry unconscious biases.
People who use accent modification services often do so to move up the career ladder or improve their competitiveness in job interviews. Employers are looking for a candidate who has “perfect French”, but confuse the grammar and quality of French in terms of accent and thus create a barrier to employment for “non-standard” accents.
Companies that operate call centers are using artificial intelligence to transform the accent of their employees in real time so that it adapts to that of the person on the other end of the line. It’s not science fiction. This is the case of Sanas AI, a Californian company whose technology makes it possible to modify the sound of a speaker in order to mask the accents of employees. Even if the objective is to reduce discrimination and ensure that the interlocutor wants to engage in conversation with the employee, the fact remains that it is diversity that is disappearing. This results in dehumanization.
The media has taken a vital role in developing a “standard” for accents. Certain accents are less present, or even absent. Have you ever heard an advertisement on television or radio in French spoken with a Spanish or Haitian accent? When we hear an accent other than the one we are used to, it is often in a stereotypical context.
Cinematographic works like Black Panther, through which the African accent is no longer caricatured, give hope. I have the deep conviction that if we heard a greater variety of voices and accents in public spaces, our ears would become accustomed to it, and our biases would diminish. The diversity that we see in our school environments is not fully reflected on stage, on television, in the cinema or on the radio. When will we see the normalization of the use of diverse accents in the media and fairer representation of audible minorities?