Leadership with an accent? An experimental study into the effect of native and non-native accentedness in English on evaluations of perceived leadership.

Abstract

In a matched-guise and verbal-guise experiment, 277 listeners with three nationalities (92 Dutch, 92 Danish and 93 native speakers of English) listened to samples recorded by male speakers with three accents (Dutch, Danish and British). Accent and listener nationality were evaluated for perceived leadership ability (status, solidarity, dynamism and leadership qualities) and comprehension (perceived intelligibility and actual comprehension). Results showed that Danish-accented speech was evaluated more negatively than British-accented for leadership qualities and status and that Dutch-accented speech was evaluated more negatively than British-accented speech for status. Overall, findings indicated that a non-native English accent might lead to more negative evaluations of leadership qualities than a native English accent.