Accents & Intelligence
A lot of the behavior that people act out with, usually has a source, for the most part that source is their own minds. The mindsets that we have as pre-teens and adults stem from the way in which we were brought about in this world. Every word that we say, has a reason behind it – not in the sense of its meaning, but in the sense of our character. Most importantly how we say these words is how others grasp a sense of our own characters. Quite frankly, one’s accent could determine the treatment in which they are given and the opportunities that may open up for them. Unfortunately, as much as we each are our own individuals and have our own traits and characteristics, the way we speak, and how we speak can add value or devalue someone else’s perspective of us. Accents and their origins develop over time and through a variety of exposure to other languages and accents; picked up by who and where one is brought up. Accents are now being added to stereotypes, adding to the stigma of intellect being correlated to one’s accent. The concept of intellect behind accents creates an idea that certain accents are deemed as unintelligent or highly intelligent. The focus of this essay is to break that stigma of the high correlation between accents and intellect. Multiple studies and articles have made this topic the focal point of their research and articles. I’ll be using the work of multiple credible sources, and studies performed by students to help me develop and further explain the connection between the perceptions of others and accents. By incorporating these studies, the evidence, or lack thereof will help readers see that an accent does not determine the measure of their intellect, it is merely a perception of an individual.
The correlation between intellect and accents has been studied before. One aspect of this topic is what people think of when they hear certain accents. It’s been documented that one’s speech rate may also influence the way their accent is perceived. Leslie Colbert, an honors student who had multiple credible professors and directors reread her senior thesis for her study titled, “It’s How You Say It: A Study of Social Perceptions of Speech Rate and Accent”, focuses on the importance of perception people have relating to others accents and speech rate. Colbert’s study has a valid method of having people hear accents and record their perception of the accent which shows where the numbers of her results are coming from. Colbert’s purpose of her study is to define the relation between accents and perceptions in efforts to show her audience that the perception stems from the mind and what people have been previously been exposed to. Her study presents the perception that people possibly have when they hear someone with an accent with a fast or slow speech rate. Colbert’s argument is to show that those with a faster speech rate, with no accents – or neutral accents, are perceived as more intelligent than who do. Colbert uses the “neutral” and southern accents in her experiment. The study Colbert demonstrates consists of people listening to a message said in two different accents (‘neutral’ and southern) twice, in different rates. In Colbert’s result, she had found that, speech rate had little to no correlation to intelligence, however, “There was a main effect of accent on perceptions of intelligence, [F (1, 1 00)=4.02, p < .05] with participants rating the neutral accent speaker as more intelligent than the southern accent speaker.” (Colbert, 8). The outcome of the study connects to my claim in that it provides support to the idea that perception of one’s accent plays a role as to whether one believes someone is highly intelligent or not. Colbert’s data reflects on a previous study that she mentions by Boucher, Georgina, McLaughlin, & Henry (2011). This study focused on the perception children had with accents and intellects. It found that “The 9-1 0 year age group from both the north and the south rated the northern speaker as seeming smarter and the southern accented speaker as sounding nicer” (Colbert, 4). Colbert uses this data to help support and shape her hypothesis and ultimately compare results in the end. Finding that even with adults (her participants) had similar perceptions that those who ‘lack’ an accent were perceived as “smarter” and “nicer” (Colbert, 4). Their perception is just that – a perception. Meaning they have no idea as to who were the speakers were for the experiment. This adds that the correlation between accents and intellect is subjective to an individual as everyone has their own perception of what is ‘smart-sounding’. To put into perspective, Colbert’s subjects listened to the same speech about the importance of recycling. The speech was recorded in three different accents, and Colbert used two, the neutral, and American-Southern accents. This is a glimpse of one of the accents that are perceived in a certain way. Though this perception goes beyond a judgmental stance.
Not everyone needs to conduct an experiment with the scientific method in order to find convincing results. There are others ways to go about it, like that of linguist Chi Luu, who wrote an article on how accents can shape one’s life. Both a writer and one with a degree in theoretical linguistics and literature, Chi Luu creates a focal point around the importance of accents and how it could possibly affect one’s life, she writes about this on her piece “Does Your Accent Make You Sound Smarter?”. Luu supports this focal point created by providing the stories of other people who have felt the need to “polish” their “accents” in order to seem more professional during interviews for either jobs or perhaps stage plays. By delving into this choice of action, Luu uncovers that in the end those who do this are ultimately mocked due to their unrealistic accents. Luu’s purpose in her piece is to show the audience that there is such a thing where people believe a set standard and have that set standard in the labels of being perfect; uncovering that unrealistic ideology of what is to be perfect as that is a subjective opinion and can change. Her article also brings up the concept of perception and accents similarly to Colbert’s study. Which supports the idea that people perceive others simply off of their accents.
People will judge off the accent they hear and connect it to the stereotypes that they know of and conclude that said person may or may not be smart enough or qualified for a position. This is an example of someone not being able to get a job because of their accent. Luu shares a statistic that “A surprising 80% of employers admit they do discriminate based on accent” (Luu 3:4). This not only shows that people admit they do this but also supports the correlation of perception people have on accents. Perceptions that are likely initiated by stereotypes. Luu’s findings do extend the data of Colbert’s studies, where those without a southern accent were considered “smarter” and “nicer” (Colbert 4). Adding to the claim that intelligence is not directly tied to accents. It is that the judgments and perceptions of others create a tie that cannot be undone. Putting people in an endless positive feedback loop. That loop being, someone looking for a job. They have an accent, their accent is judged and then the person is labeled. Once they are rejected of the job, they go and search for a new job. This loop will only be broken when a job employer does not discriminate based on their accent.
In Luu’s article, she touches on the question of, how does one’s accent might affect their chances in different areas of work? Well, the answer is that it does, regardless of the connotation. Luu mentions how “Studies have shown it can take just 30 milliseconds of speech – enough to say “hello” – for listeners to identify a person’s ethnic or cultural background”(Luu, 2:5). This calls for an immediate judgment of who the said person might be, despite it being positive or negative. As a linguist, Luu brings fellow linguist Lippi-Green into the picture to strengthen her point on the impact that accents have on people. She discusses the effect that dialects and accents are now used to identify people. Revealing the fact that accents say a lot more of a person than people think. Their diction and syntax all give key factors to who they really are. The article touches on how some accents are more “prestigious” than others and how it affects the perception of other accents to be inferior. She also mentions how Received Pronunciation (RP) is used when comparing accents. Received Pronunciation is the considered right” way to pronounce. Connecting back to my thesis, this shows that the correlation between accents and intellect is all within one’s perception.
Accents provide a sense of identity, yet should not devalue who someone is. As mentioned before, Rosina Lippi-Green is yet another linguist with a PhD who questions the stigma related to accents. In her English with an Accent she discusses the topic of accents across the board and argues that it does not determine how intelligent someone is. She supports this claim by defining what an accent is by using her knowledge in the field of linguistics to go into depth what it means to have an accent, why we have accents and how everyone has some form of an accent. Lippi-Green gives her professional view of the definition of an accent that an “accent is used to distinguish stress in words” (Lippi-Green 44). This may play a role in which people who use more stress in some parts of a word are considered “smarter” than others. Accents are subjective to whoever is listening, when the majority stresses on the third syllable of a word then it’s seen as different when the stress is put elsewhere. This connects back to how subjective it is to say that someone is smarter just because of a need to compare back to RP. In her piece, she touches on how in order for there to be an idea of an accent we need to have something to compare it too. For the most part, people compare another’s an accent to either their own or the considered Standard English. According to Lippi-Green this occurs “because the phonologies of those languages influence the learner’s pronunciation of U.S. English” (Lippi-Green 46). As I brought up, where one grows up and their environment will influence on what is considered to be correct. The mind feels that in order to validate an idea, it needs something else to compare it to.
Evaluating how accents can develop and how they become a part of a person in order to rid the stigma of accents; allowing for everyone to see everyone for who they are even including their accents is Lippi-Green’s purpose in her piece. She provides an excellent metaphor in this chapter called “The Sound House” (Lippi-Green 48) where everyone is born with the foundation guidelines of all languages. In this metaphor, when things are said or sound different, anyone can decide to add that difference to their sound house or not. It proves to be a sound metaphor since accents are what allows for words of a language to sound more authentic. This connects to Luu’s claim that people use accents to polish up their appearance for interviews for jobs because if an accent is used, and used to the point where it sounds authentic, that person may have doors opened up to them. As opposed to someone who doesn’t freshen up their accent. Lippi-Green’s claim connects to my thesis in that an accent is merely something that we perceive to be a barrier, when in fact, it is not.
Anyone can provide their opinion on what it means to have an accent. Data and the words of linguist only explain the science of what it means to have an accent. Amy tan takes the step of sharing her personal experience of accents and what it means to her and her mother. Having written 7 successful novels, Amy Tan has an overall theme that collectively surrounds a mother-daughter relationship which is clear in her piece Mother Tongue, where she places her mother as the topic, yet focuses on her mothers’ ‘English’ and how it does not measure her knowledge nor her intellect. Tan shows through her text that even though some may find her mother’s accent difficult to understand, others were able to. Tan uses this In her piece in the 6th paragraph of her personal essay, she says that some of her friends only “understand 50 percent”(Tan 1) of what her mother says and others say “80 to 90” (Tan 1). Not changing the fact that her mother had a large lexicon and still did standard American English activities well enough. Tan’s friends only being able to understand a certain percentage of her mother does not exactly mean that they believe that her mother was not an intellect. However, it provides insight that the perception is within the person listening. Those friends who may not understand may not be trying to. Though that is only a theory we can make given there is only so much information that Tan provides us with.
Despite reading newspapers and reads books with ease, Tan’s mother still faces challenges when it comes to dealing with others. The purpose of adding the stories that she has gone through with her mother of getting treated differently is to represent how there is such thing of being treated differently because of one’s accent, simply because there is a negative connotation between accents and intelligence. Tan brings up the word “englishes” (Tan 1) to the reader, and continuously uses it thought her text to break the stigma of their only being one type of English; the purpose is to make it clear that everyone speaks differently and they should not be viewed or treated differently because of it. Tan also provides the incident that occurred when the hospital did not understand her, and in turn, told her she was there for nothing for her. They did not put the effort to attempt to understand Tan’s mother to retrieve that CAT scans. However once Tan spoke, they “had assurances the CAT scans would be found.” (Tan 2). Showing that there was no effort put into helping the Tans when they had thought they didn’t speak their Standard English properly. This extends the previous sources, primarily Lippi-Greens argument where there needs to be a comparative standpoint. If the nurses who were to help the Tans did not compare their accents with their own they may have put more of an effort in order to help them. This supports my claim that the nurses’ perception of the Tans affected their ability to aid them. Assuming that Tan’s mother may not have known what she was talking about because of her accent. Connecting back to the measuring of intellect based off of an accent. Tan’s mother fell victim to this.
The root of accents is from one’s origins. However, the root of perception comes from ignorance. Often times, we don’t realize that we are in fact the ignorant ones when it comes onto socializing with others. We try to see ourselves as the better one, however, there are times where we see ourselves as the lesser. Perception is what allows us to think of others in a way that we can, with the information that we have. With these perceptions, ideas such as correlations between two factors arise. Such as that of intellect and accents. Colbert’s findings show that the correlation between perception and accents were high. Allowing for Luu’s article of accents and opportunities to shed a light on why many of those with polished accents are given opportunities than those who have accents that are perceived as not smart. Connecting to Lippi-Greens piece where she touches on the linguist perspective of what accents are. Tan wraps up all the sources with a personal experience that represents each of these sources in one. All supporting my claim that there is no substantial evidence to suggest that someone’s accent measures their intellect; their perception of someone’s accent may affect their perception of their intellect.
Work Cited
Colbert, Leslie, “It’s How You Say It: A Study of Social Perceptions of Speech Rate and Accent” (2016). Honors Theses. 222
Lippi-Green, Rosina. English with an Accent: Language, Ideology and Discrimination in the United States. Routledge, 2012.
Luu, Chi. “Does Your Accent Make You Sound Smarter?” BBC Worklife, BBC, 23 May 2017, www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20170523-does-your-accent-make-you-sound-smarter.
Tan, Amy. “Mother Tongue.” The Threepenny Review, no. 43, 1990, pp. 7–8. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/4383908. Accessed 1 Feb. 2020.
