Cover Letter

In this essay, there were many features that had to be taken into account. Stuff like style, phrasing, and structure had to be thought about. But what impacted my writing in this case in particular the most has to be evidence. Mainly because we had to use a lot of sources, meaning a lot of evidence. But that doesn’t mean quantity over quality, if you slap what quotes you find first into the essay then it just becomes words in quotations. There must be a reason for it being there and that reason has to be clearly explained. That leads into my next topic of the course outcome. This course I became better at being able to Locate research sources (including academic journal articles, magazine and newspaper articles) in the library’s databases or archives and on the Internet and evaluate them for credibility, accuracy, timeliness, and bias. Since my topic of how accents affect wages was very specific, there wasn’t a super big number of resources to work with in itself. However, I still only used about a third of the sources I could find because I had to consider what the article was saying and how it was saying it. If it had no similarities to what I was writing, there was no reason to use it. This essay helped to get a better eye for filtering out unnecessary evidence and putting only strong pieces in.

My biggest insight from this course is definitely what the essay is about. How people with accents can be affected in everyday life. It’s not something that many people pay attention to, and I think that’s what makes it so important. There’s a lot to research about how the life of people with accents differ to people that don’t have accents, and it’s not an easy task to research. There are so many aspects to everyday life, there’s varying amounts of an accent someone can have, and so on. There’s an infinite number of things to know about the topic. How often does someone with an accent get made fun of for it? How does it affect their mentality? Are people with accents trusted less? More? How does the data change in different regions of America? There’s many topics to talk about, but will likely never be done at the current state. Because no one is talking or thinking about these issues. This is why I designed this with my audience in mind being everyone. Whoever will listen to this and learn from it And actually care. This should be a topic that is known by people who don’t realize how some lives are affected. That is ultimately what this essay is about, informing people about something they had no knowledge about. With more awareness comes more incentive to not only research the topics, but to actually do something to help. This is one topic out of many that could be discussed, but it is also an important one.

 

Thomas Bajor

Professor Velez

October, 2021

FIQWS

How Accents affect Employment and Salary

In America, and around the world, millions of people have accents. It is nothing to be ashamed of, but unfortunately treating people with accents differently is a common problem. Accent discrimination is a less talked about issue, but that does not mean it isn’t an important one. It is an issue that cannot only affect people socially and mentally, but also financially. There are many ways and examples that accent discrimination leads to less employment, wages and income, and they are more common than people would like to think.

These examples could be intentional or unintentional, and direct or indirect; but it all has the same outcome. People with accents can have less morale and money because of accent discrimination, and there are many factors that go into it. It is first important to figure out why people with accents earn less. However, there is no clear-cut answer to this. It could be general discrimination towards hearing an unfamiliar voice, stigmatizing towards a specific country, or something different. In UChicago news, Professor Jeffrey Grogger states “While more research needs to be done, it appears that since listeners generally prefer mainstream to nonmainstream speech,” Grogger said. “This results in higher wages for mainstream-spoken workers in highly interactive sectors.” (Grogger, Morgan). These statement also brings up an interesting question; what is a ‘mainstream’ accent? BBC describes it by saying “Mainstream Dialects of English include Standard English and the Modern Nonstandard Dialects.” Basically, a generic western dialect, which could be subjective depending on where someone is from.

There are a few important details about payment and wages towards people with accents. The first thing to note is that this is not only an American issue, but a global one. This sort of discrimination happens in many countries, such as Germany. In an article by MarketWatch, Andrew Keshner says “On the whole, German workers without a distinct regional accent earned €17.62 euros an hour in 2016 while workers with an accent made €13.94 an hour” (Keshner). It’s important to observe that there is not only a difference in pay between someone with an accent from even a different region, but that there is a significant difference. A person with a regional accent in Germany makes 3.68 euros less than someone with none. That’s $4.28 less, just due to the way someone speaks.

The other important detail is that not all accents are discriminated against in equal ways. This was made evident by the article Accents in the workplace: Their effects during a job interview, by Anne-Sophie Deprez-Sims and Scott B. Morris. The article was written on a study of people with accents applying for a human resource manager position, and the accents were Colombian, French and Midwestern United States. The results that were reported were very interesting to look at, the study said “the present participants rated the Midwestern US applicant more favorably than the French applicant on the hiring scale. In contrast, the applicant with the Colombian accent was not evaluated more negatively than the US applicant” (7, Deprez-Sims, Morris). There are many factors that could have been present to get this result, but it still concludes that while some accents are treated to a higher standard. One thing that is also important to note is that while Columbian accents were treated similarly to midwestern accents, it does not mean they were treated better or even the same.

There are also indirect factors that lead to less employment amongst people with accents. One of the greatest factors is morale. When a person is treated a specific way that causes them annoyance, they are clearly going to avoid it, if the way they are treated burdens them enough, they would have no incentive to work while enduring that treatment. Kevin Abroad is an example of how certain treatment affects a person’s attitude towards the subject, he is a youtuber that speaks about his linguistic experiences and in one video describes how frustrating it is when people question his name. He says “… often people will be like, ‘oh if you’re French, why are you called Kevin?’ And I’m like, ugh really? And I know people, maybe they do, but I feel like most people don’t mean to be rude or anything but… its just tiring.” (Abroad). This could affect people with accents in everyday life, but more so in a work environment, specifically interviews. If someone is being interviewed for a job, a situation in which the person’s name is brought up multiple times, it’s not hard to imagine that comments like the one Kevin described occur often. When they do happen, it would clearly have an effect on the individual and lower their morale. This leads to multiple outcomes, such as the person not wanting to get that job or any job as much. It could also lead to the person not working as hard even if they do get the job.

It is also important to bring up that even if people with accents are employed or even are trying to obtain money, they already own, they may not be taken as seriously. Amy Tan is an author who grew up with a mother who was a Chinese immigrant and had an accent due to that. Unfortunately, people did not take her accent seriously and this would be a financial disadvantage, as she would be ignored when asking to cash out money. This would lead Amy, who did not have an accent, to having to imitate her. Keeping in mind that Amy was a kid, and from what was said did not seem to have any issues with speaking to people on the phone. This implies that stockbrokers and people in similar fields would rather deal with a child about financial decisions and request, than someone with an accent. Amy say’s “One time it was a call to her stockbroker in New York. She had cashed out her small portfolio and it just so happened we were going to go to New York the next week, our very first trip outside California. I had to get on the phone and say in an adolescent voice that was not very convincing, ‘This is Mrs. Tan.’” (Tan,9). There is a good chance that Tan’s mother wouldn’t have gotten the money if she wasn’t there to help, which raises the thought of how often this most likely happens.

Accent Discrimination is an extremely prevalent issue, and it is one that could also affect income. It is an issue that affects millions all around the world, with each place treating different accents in different ways. It is an issue that cheats hard working people out of getting as much money as others in their position and discourages people with accents because of it. It is an issue that does not have a clear explanation of why it happens, and unfortunately there is no explanation of how to fix it. There are many angles and ways to discuss the topic, such as discussing what could be done, or what even is an ‘accent’ and what is not. No matter what is said about this topic, there will always be more to say.

 

 

 

Abroad, Kevin, creator. Linguistic Discrimination l My Story. Youtube, 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1Rku8RmAf4&t=271s.

Deprez-Sims, Anne-Sophie, and Scott B. Morris. “Accents in the workplace: Their effects during a job interview.” International Journal of Psychology, vol. 45, no. 6, 2010, pp. 417-426. https://onlinelibrary-wiley-com.ccny-proxy1.libr.ccny.cuny.edu/doi/pdfdirect/10.1080/00207594.2010.499950

Keshner, Andrew. “Speaking with a strong accent could lower your salary.” MarketWatch, Dow Jones & Co, 5 february 2020, https://www.marketwatch.com/story/speaking-with-a-strong-accent-could-mean-youll-get-paid-less-2020-02-05. Accessed 5 october 2021.

Morgan, Billy. “How your speech could impact your salary.” uchicago news, University of Chicago Office of publication, 2019, https://news.uchicago.edu/story/how-your-speech-could-impact-your-salary. Accessed 5 October 2021.

Tan, Amy. Mother Tongue. The Threepenny Review, 1990.

Trudgill, Peter. “language and place.” BBC voices, BBC, 2014, https://www.bbc.co.uk/voices/yourvoice/feature1_2.shtml. Accessed 8 october 2021.