Seriously a joke? An empirical study on the effect of humorous and non-humorous self-disclosure comments on non-native English speakers’ evaluations.
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2023-01-09
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en
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Abstract
Non-nativeness in English often means having an accent. Accent-based discrimination occurs not only in informal settings but also in the workplace. But how – in the role of a speaker – can we counteract possible discrimination due to our non-native accent in job interviews?
The study aimed to investigate whether negative ratings of French-accented non-native English speakers can be eliminated with the help of humorous or non-humorous (neutral) self-disclosing (exposing personal information to another) comments about the speaker’s accent in a hiring context. During the experiment with a 2 (moderate/ slight French accent) x 3 (No comment, non-humorous self-disclosure comment, humorous self-disclosure comment) between-subjects design, 173 participants were presented with a moderately or slightly French-accented NNE speaker that either humorously, neutrally, or not at all self-disclosed about her non-native accent during a job interview pitch. Participants were then to evaluate the speaker with regard to attitudinal evaluations, comprehensibility and hirability. The results revealed that accent-based discrimination occurred in the case of comprehensibility and hirability. However, comments did not have an effect on speaker evaluations, neither the humorous nor the non-humorous comment. The outcomes of this study are relevant to professionals and English learners as our results suggest that moderately accented NNS are rated more negatively than slightly accented speakers concerning comprehensibility and hirability in a recruiting context.
Keywords : Self-disclosure, humor, speaker evaluations, non-nativeness, accent strength, discrimination
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