By Amir Sepehri, Ph.D., and Julia Smith, MSc<\/p>\n
Anyone who speaks a language other than their mother tongue has inevitably had moments of self-doubt about their accent: \u201cDo they understand me? Do I sound silly? Is my pronunciation okay?\u201d<\/p>\n
While it\u2019s tempting to dismiss these fears and reassure yourself that no one is judging you based on your accent, recent research suggests there\u2019s some basis to those concerns. Amir Sepehri, assistant professor of marketing<\/a> at ESSEC Business School, and co-authors Aliah Zewail at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Reihane Boghrati at Arizona State University, and Mohammad Atari at the University of Massachusetts Amherst published a study <\/a>in Psychological Science suggesting public speakers with non-native English accents struggled to get attention<\/a> compared with native speakers. This indicates that there\u2019s work to be done when it comes to sharing knowledge across cultures and languages.<\/p>\n In our interconnected world, it\u2019s easier than ever to share your message, but ensuring your message gets heard is more complicated. TED Talks are one strategy for spreading the word<\/a>, used by experts all over the world and viewed by millions of people. However, not every video will rack up millions of views, and our research team identified the speaker\u2019s accent as a critical factor influencing engagement. Specifically, speakers with a non-native English accent garnered fewer views and likes. This indicates that \u201caccentism\u201d is a major form of bias, and one that has been underrepresented in past research.<\/p>\n While extensive research has been conducted on other forms of discrimination<\/a> (class, race, gender<\/a>), we know less about the impact of accents on how people are perceived. While accents are often linked to other qualities of the speaker, such as national origin or class, accentism is a distinct form of discrimination (Hegarty, 2020). Science is starting to explore the topic, with studies on the impact of our accent on how we are perceived at work and the link to stereotypes.<\/p>\n Our research team explored how viewers reacted to TED Talks to understand the accent-engagement link, analyzing information from over 5300 TED Talks. Since TED Talks\u2019 primary audience is young Americans, it\u2019s the ideal context to study the influence of a non-native English accent on how a talk is perceived. To further explore the impact of accentism, we also conducted a lab experiment to examine how American adults would react to the same talk by the same person but with a different accent. A Canadian-Iranian speaker recorded two audio clips: one with a North American English accent, one with a Persian accent.<\/p>\n Does having a stronger accent lead to fewer views?<\/p>\n The results from both studies indicated that engagement was higher for videos with native accents. Speakers with native English accents got more likes and views, regardless of their topic. Those with non-native accents were also more likely to be seen as cold, less trustworthy, and less competent. In turn, viewers were less inclined to engage with their content. Viewers also indicated that they found talks with non-native speakers harder to process. As I [Amir Sepehri] explained, \u201cWe saw that stereotypes and processing fluency play a powerful role in perception. Accents carry social stereotypes: They tie us to social identities, and a non-native accent identifies the speaker as \u201cother.\u201d The other effect in play is the role of processing fluency: a \u201cnative speaker audience can find that a non-native speaker is harder to understand, requiring more cognitive effort to process their message.\u201d These results indicate that stereotypes and cognitive processing are the key factors driving the impact of accents on engagement.<\/p>\n Takeaways and tools for speakers and platforms<\/p>\n The verdict is in: A non-native accent can impact your engagement. Our research team proposes several strategies for addressing this:<\/p>\n Sites can give equal footing to talks by non-native speakers, for instance, by featuring these talks on the site\u2019s homepage.<\/p>\n The ease of cognitive processing could be tackled by technology: subtitles, real-time translation, and other AI<\/a> tools to \u201csmooth\u201d voices could all reduce the load.<\/p>\n