![]() ![]() ![]() This is where human nature takes a nasty departure from the way songbirds use dialect. This develops in part by the attitudes we subtly convey to our children and by how we adults organize our society and culture. Ten-year-old children from both Chicago and Tennessee thought the Northern-accented individuals were “smarter” and “in charge,” and that the Southern-accented individuals were “nicer.”Ĭlearly, children must learn these attitudes from us that is parents and other adults. The results after children had aged 4-5 years were quite different. So the researchers then gave the same test to 10-year-old children. This last result, as I mentioned above, deviates from how Southern adults associate positive attributes to people speaking with a Northern rather than a Southern accent. What do you think happened when the young children were asked who was “nicer,” “smarter,” or “in charge?” The children from Chicago attached these positive attributes to the Northern speakers, but the children from Tennessee were indifferent to how these attributes were associated with people speaking with either accent. Interestingly, the kids from Tennessee had no preference based on accent. When asked if they would want to be friends with the person, the Northerners overwhelmingly selected the Northern-accented speakers as friends. Children 5-6 years of age from Chicago and a small town in Tennessee were shown pictures of people accompanied by a brief 3 second audio clip of speech in either a Northern or Southern accent. Katherine Kinzler and Jasmine DeJesus in the Psychology Department at the University of Chicago have just published a study of children’s attitudes toward accents that provides some surprising answers. Adults from Mississippi rate their own region as relatively low in linguistic “correctness.” How can that be? You might presume, viewing human speech like naturalists studying songbird dialects, that people would simply prefer the accent of speech spoken where they grew up, but it’s not that simple. Italian is judged as sounding beautiful while German sounds ugly. In surveys ranking where in the country people speak “correctly” or “incorrectly,” the Southern states always get the lowest marks. Interestingly, attributes of character that are attached to different accents are widely shared among the population. ![]() Americans can be taken back when hearing a black person speak with a proper British accent, for example, or be just as perplexed when they discover that a rapper singing with a “black” accent is Caucasian. A 2011 study by Rakic and others found that in categorizing people, a person’s accent carried more weight than even visual cues to ethnicity. Numerous studies show that we instantly attach cultural stereotypes and subjective judgments about people’s knowledge and abilities from hearing their accent in speech. I wonder would Adele have attracted notice outside the walls of a Tottenham pub if that same sterling singing voice resonated with a Cockney accent? She articulates lyrics beautifully with a perfect American accent, but it was if a different person had sprung out when she started to talk the way everyone does in Tottenham England. I wondered about this when I was swept away by Adele’s supreme singing voice but had the bliss shattered rudely when she addressed the audience in her “lowly” Cockney accent. Even on a tiny island country like the United Kingdom, accents abound and they pigeonhole individuals into strict social strata that have persisted for centuries. This is not just a smoldering relic from the Civil War accent-based bias is universal. Strange, isn’t it? From a biological point of view there is no “correct” or “incorrect” accent. Accents influence who we select as friends, who we respect with authority and leadership, where we prefer to live, employment, and to the very real extent our personal aspirations in life as a consequence of self-perception directing ambition in education and other endeavors. Stereotypes based on accent are deep rooted and they have profound consequences. Studies have shown that whether you are from the North or South, a Southern twang pegs the speaker as comparatively dimwitted, but also likely to be a nicer person than folks who speak like a Yankee.
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