Accent perception

Accents are the distinctive variations in the pronunciation of a language. They can be native or foreign, local or national and can provide information about a person’s geographical locality, socio-economic status and ethnicity. The perception of accents is normal within any given group of language users and involves the categorisation of speakers into social groups and entails judgments about the accented speaker, including their status and personality. Accents can significantly alter the perception of an individual or an entire group, which is an important fact considering that the frequency that people with different accents are encountering one another is increasing, partially due to inexpensive international travel and social media. As well as affecting judgments, accents also affect key cognitive processes (e.g., memory) that are involved in a myriad of daily activities. The development of accent perception occurs in early childhood. Consequently, from a young age accents influence our perception of other people, decisions we make about when and how to interact with others, and, in reciprocal fashion, how other people perceive us. A better understanding of the role accents play in our (often inaccurate) appraisal of individuals and groups, may facilitate greater acceptance of people different from ourselves and lessen discriminatory attitudes and behavior.^{[subjective / citations?[}

Social identity theory is a theory that describes intergroup behaviour based on group membership. Markers of group membership can be arbitrary, e.g., coloured vests, a flip of a coin, etc., or non-arbitrary, e.g., gender, language, race, etc. Accent is a non-arbitrary marker for group membership that is potentially more salient than most other non-arbitrary markers such as race and visual cues in general. One component of social identity theory states that members of the same group will treat and judge other members of their group (in-group members) preferentially compared to those who are not in their group (out-group members). This phenomenon is called in-group bias and when applied to accents is called the own-accent bias. There are many examples of the discrimination of out-groups based on language, e.g., the banning of the public speaking of German in the United States during World War I and the Al-Anfal Campaign, however, there are also examples of discrimination based on accent. Some of these instances date back many several millennia, for example, in the Bible in Judges 12:5-6 the following quote depicting the mass-killing of a people based on their accent appears:

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