Stop it! Reducing the impact of non-standard accentedness in the workplace

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2023-02-07
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en
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How well french accented speakers (Slight and moderate) of english are understood, perceived and evaluated in a hiring context when using self disclosing comments. In this verbal-guise experiment (N = 168) the effects of slight and moderate french accented English speakers using either a self disclosing humourous or non humorous comments were tested on perceived comprehensibility, perceived hirability and attitudinal evaluations (likeability, status and competence). Dutch ( N = 122), German (N = 191), other listeners from different nationalities ( N = 27) heard one of the two accent strengths and one of the three self-disclosing comments (no comment, humorous, non-humorous). The study discovered that accent strength influences comprehensibility and hireability evaluations of a French accented speaker in a job interview setting. However, the use of self-disclosure (humorous or not) had no effect on the evaluations. The type of comment made by the speaker had no effect on comprehension, which was more heavily influenced by accent strength. More research is needed to understand the impact of self-disclosure and accent strength on evaluations of non-native speakers in various contexts, according to these findings.
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