A STUDY ON DUTCH LISTENERS’ EVALUATIONS OF GERMAN-ACCENTED ENGLISH IN THE HIRING PROCESS USING PREJUDICE CONTROL

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2021-06-24
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nl
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As globalisation is an ongoing process nowadays, many organisations are now exploiting English as a lingua franca for their international workforce. As a result, the amount of non- native English speakers has increased over the last few years. However, non-nativeness can have ugly consequences. Non-native English speakers are evaluated more negatively than native English speakers due to their accentedness. The current study investigated the effects of non-nativeness within a hiring process. In an experiment, 89 Dutch participants evaluated either a German-accented job candidate or a native British English job candidate regarding the dimensions of hirability, perceived comprehensibility, solidarity and status. In addition, it was tested whether introducing prejudice control within the instructions could reduce the negative bias. It was found that prejudice control was effective solely for perceived comprehensibility. The German-accented speaker was evaluated significantly more negatively than the native speaker on hirability, perceived comprehensibility and status. The difference was not significant for solidarity. In addition to previous research, this study emphasises the importance that managers and recruiters must take into account possible accent discrimination during the hiring process.
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