Date of Completion

12-13-2017

Embargo Period

12-13-2017

Keywords

accent, stereotyping, nonnative accent

Major Advisor

Nairan Ramirez-Esparza

Associate Advisor

Diane Quinn

Associate Advisor

Adam Sheya

Field of Study

Psychology

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy

Open Access

Open Access

Abstract

During communication with a novel individual, nonnative accent can be one of the first factors that determine the course of the conversation. This dissertation aims to understand perceptions toward nonnative accented speakers. We aimed to understand the effect of the targets’ accent, background, and race on the perceivers’ perceptions. In Study 1, we exposed White American college students to fictional Latino and White American teaching assistants. In Study 2, we exposed White American college students to fictional French and White American teaching assistants. In Study 3, we exposed White American, Latino, and other ethnicity perceivers to fictional Latino and White American teaching assistants.

Our findings show that perceivers did not report negative attitudes toward nonnative accented speakers. In terms of behavioral intentions, White American perceivers across the 3 studies did not want to interact with the nonnative speakers in the professional domain whereas they did not demonstrate that aversion in the social domain. Nonnative accented speakers were perceived to be lower on conscientiousness by our college student samples. This finding was not replicated by our more diverse and older Mechanical Turk sample.

Results of this dissertation have two main conclusions: First, perceivers’ explicit attitudes did not align with their behavioral intentions. This may be explained by the system justifying functions of stereotypes. Perceivers may be utilizing the positive perceptions as a way to justify their negative views of the nonnative accented speakers. Second, negative perceptions toward nonnative accented speakers completely disappeared in the more diverse samples.

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