
Prejudice against accents is due to our lazy brains - bahargholipour
https://www.braindecoder.com/judged-by-the-sound-of-your-voice-1446330758.html
======
tomhoward
I'm an Australian who started spending extended periods of time in the US a
few years ago.

I have this distinct memory of being picked up this one time by an Australian
friend who was taking my cofounder and me to lunch after we'd been in the US
for a few weeks.

As I sat in the car and we started chatting, I immediately had this sense of
relaxation come over me, knowing that at least for the duration of that car
trip, I'd be surrounded by only my native accent.

I'd never noticed it before, but it was a stark realisation that deciphering
foreign accents is hard work and seems to put your brain into a much higher
processing rate.

And as Australians, we've grown up being exposed to USA accents _all the time_
through television etc. Yet even then it had been exhausting.

So yeah, I can empathise with the notion that deciphering foreign accents is
something that takes extra effort for all of us, and whilst it may be a factor
that promotes prejudice, it's not an indicator of poor character, but just one
of those things that we have to accept is there and be more mindful about
overcoming.

~~~
huherto
> I'd never noticed it before, but it was a stark realisation that deciphering
> foreign accents is hard work and seems to put your brain into a much higher
> processing rate.

Imagine how it feels not being a native speaker of the language. It is
exhausting. Specially when you are having arguments over complex subjects. I
feel like I loose 20 IQ points.

~~~
ubertaco
Yeah, the worst I've dealt with this is debating the implications of the
doctrine of predestination...in Spanish...at past-midnight after waking up at
5 every morning.

It makes you waaaay less coherent.

------
panglott
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
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
...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
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.)

------
ldd
Life is unfair.

As a person with an accent, I am very well aware that I will be judged by it.
Just like fat people are judged for being fat, or stupid people for being
stupid.

Yet, I have found solace in the ideas brought forward by thinkers like Marcus
Aurelius, and my mentality has changed drastically. Yes, I have an accent, and
yes, that means that certain people will openly mock me. In fact, the only
time I was bullied in high school was due to my accent. I try very hard,
everyday, to practice my pronunciation, and I still fail.

I try hard to be understood. I try hard to be positive and to be kind and
gentle towards others. Ultimately, this is what matters, and not whether I
have an accent or not.

Haters are going to hate.

~~~
themetrician
> I try very hard, everyday, to practice my pronunciation, and I still fail.

You're missing some realization. Get a pronunciation trainer to help you.
Anyone can overcome their accents - actors do it all the time. The tongue is a
muscle that can learn new tricks, but you need a mirror and an expert guiding
you. It should take you no time with help if you are an intelligent person.

I'm not a native speaker but I have native-level speaking skills that I
acquired through practice. Having an accent while possessing an IQ above 110
is laziness.

~~~
charlesism
Laziness? To learn a second language takes a long, long time. I remember
reading "4400 hours" somewhere.

If you don't have an accent, congratulations, but it's not solely because of
how hard-working you are, it's also because you learned the language while you
were young.

I have yet to meet a single person who speaks a second language without an
accent who began their study as an adult.

~~~
Jtsummers
[https://voxy.com/blog/wp-
content/uploads/2011/03/110329-VOXY...](https://voxy.com/blog/wp-
content/uploads/2011/03/110329-VOXY-HARDLANGUAGES-FINAL-WIDE.png)

An infographic I found once regarding approximate time to learn a language for
English speakers.

> I have yet to meet a single person who speaks a second language without an
> accent who began their study as an adult.

I've met a couple, but they're indeed very rare. Although English may not have
been their second language, it may have been more like 4 or 5, perhaps that
made a difference.

------
beachstartup
i'm asian american and speak like a native, because i am one - i grew up in a
mostly white affluent suburban setting. if anything i have a slight surfer
twinge (spent most of my life in socal, and some in the bay, which also has a
surfer twinge to their accent).

at home or in places like new york, nobody has any trouble understanding me.

when i go to places with less asian people, all of a sudden people ask me to
repeat myself. but only at first - never halfway through a conversation.

it's almost as if they expect me to have a heavy accent, and when i don't,
they need to reset their hearing brain.

------
jgalt212
These biases are not without latent opportunities.

The upside of this is if your cohort is generally associated with a strong
accent (e.g. grad students from China), a sure-fire way to separate yourself
from the crowd would be work on diminishing your accent.

~~~
coreyp_1
Us grad student here. The problem with most foreign grad students is that they
do not want to work on their accent, or on English itself, for that matter.
Many of them just congregate into their own groups, and rarely speak English
except for when they have to. Then, they wonder why they get such low reviews
when they give a lecture!

In a way, this is highly pragmatic of them. Most of them do not want to stay
in the United States after they graduate, so they have no interest in the
extra effort that it takes to learn an American accent. The extra time it
would take actually pulls them away from their research, and is seen as a
distraction. Unfortunately, those who do want to stay either don't know how
to, can't, or won't practice a better American accent, and so are extremely
difficult to understand, even when you are familiar with the subject matter
that they are talking about.

I have met only I have a dozen or so foreign students that I did not were from
another country until they told me so. It wasn't about the size of their
vocabulary, but entirely based on their accent.

~~~
bbgm
Should they? I can't tell if your comment covers any accent, or just very
thick ones. English is my first language (I speak Hindi but am not very
comfortable carrying on a conversation in the language). I have lived in the
US for almost 20 years, and at no point have I ever felt that my accent was
holding me back.

~~~
coreyp_1
IMO, slight accents are not a problem. Very thick ones are (such as not being
able to understand individual words because the vowels and consonants are so
badly mispronounced).

I am a native speaker, but I have a regional accent. When I teach classes, I
consciously minimize my home accent because it is difficult for non-native
speakers to understand my English if they are not familiar with its sounds.
Why shouldn't an ESL speaker do the same?

When I go to other countries whose language I have studied, I try very hard to
mimic the national accent, and people appreciate the effort. I think of it as
a way of showing respect to them, their heritage, and their culture. If I
disregard it simply because I don't have time or can't be bothered, then I am
being extremely rude. And so, yes, when I have gone to Mexico, Brazil, France,
and Germany, I have tried to speak those languages as authentically as
possible.

------
grownseed
> Modern linguists agree that the best way to do this—to train your brain and
> to rid yourself of biases—is to spend more time with people who act, look,
> and speak differently from you.

I'd argue that it's generally a good thing in life as a whole, not just when
it comes to languages. I have an accent and a look that a lot of people can't
place; the novelty of watching people ignore whatever comes out of my mouth
while trying to figure "what" I am wears a bit thin over time.

It does show that many people very much judge you by what they assume your
background is, rather than what you have to say. I've moved around a lot over
the years and it is clear to me that multi-cultural exposure is not just a
good thing, it's essential if the world intends to move forward peacefully and
productively.

------
ar7hur
By the way, I you do have an accent and are about to interview at YC in a few
days... this is my personal experience [http://al3x.svbtle.com/yc-interview-
when-english-is-not-your...](http://al3x.svbtle.com/yc-interview-when-english-
is-not-your-first-language)

~~~
nkurz
Great advice even for native speakers!

------
kelukelugames
As an immigrant, I declare this the most "the sky is blue" article of all
time.

------
protomyth
I remember from college returning from a weekend on the reservation talking to
my friends and picking back up the slang (not as bad as Canadian infused
Turtle Mountain accent but the Dakota reservation was not without its
strangeness and slang) and the cadence change in my voice. It took a day for
me to change back, but I sounded pretty odd given the normal ND / MN accent.
It probably didn't help that my normal speech pattern back then threw a couple
of Dakota words in the mix. And yes, the guy from NYC thought we all talked
too slow and I was probably not very smart. It probably went worse because I
have a loud, low voice.

Laugh and live on, we judge patterns because that's what we got and how we
survive. I will say, that an English accent spoken by one of my classmates
might have had me with a bit of prejudice the other way. I loved her voice as
it was smooth compared to my own rock-on-rock sound. Although, that was my
first exposure to "being separated by a common language" as her description of
fixing her car made me question my sanity ("bonnet??") rather than thinking
less of her.

