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Articles on Accents

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To address barriers that racialized women with non-native accents experience in the Canadian workplace, we need to understand what kinds of bias they face. (Shutterstock)

How ‘benevolent sexism’ undermines Asian women with foreign accents in the workplace

Recent research explores how women with non-native English accents — specifically Mandarin — fare in the Canadian job market.
Speech patterns. Bobboz via Getty Images

Do accents disappear?

Many people fear the disappearance of the unique way some communities speak. But accent loss is a complicated notion and embracing both language variation and change can be an important social goal.
When you imitate the speech of others, there’s a thin line between whether it’s a social asset or faux pas. Franklin McMahon/Corbis via Getty Images

What makes us subconsciously mimic the accents of others in conversation

We often imitate styles of speech we hear – what’s known as ‘linguistic convergence.’ But a researcher wanted to see if we alter our speech based on the mere expectation of how someone will sound.

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