The Lens of Language: Prejudice, Speech Patterns, and Perception

The need to judge other humans has endured throughout the ages. Yet while judging can be considered necessary for people to make decisions –whether one individual is compatible with another, safe to be around, or qualified for a job position– prejudice (pre-judging an individual based on stereotypes and preconceived notions) is a hinderance to the progression of society. The symptoms of the ‘prejudice virus’ include racism, sexism, classism, ageism, and numerous other kinds of discrimination, and prevent people from being seen as individuals by lumping them into predesigned groups. Speech patterns, characteristics that exemplify different societies, and prejudice, a prevalent aspect of society that people prefer to ignore, often go hand in hand. People sometimes make assumptions about a person, such as their intelligence and economic situation, within moments of introduction based on how the person speaks. In other words, an individual’s manner of speaking and his or her identity (characteristics including economic status, education, race and lifestyle) intertwine in the mind of the prejudiced. Social status often influences speech patterns, which in turn can affect how others view an individual from a given group. Yet the way in which people perceive others and the way that individuals want to be perceived also affects speech patterns. Synthesizing these two ideas regarding how speech patterns are influenced will lead me to several tentative conclusions as to how language and social status relate to each other, and what this connection says about the ways in which perception of others and speech patterns are connected.

Generally speaking, the dialect of the people in a given community or neighborhood plays a large part in the development of speech patterns within said area, which is seen in the differing accents and dialects of people who live in different regions of the United States. For example, one would be hard pressed to find a native of Texas saying a phrase such as  “Dude, that movie was hella legit.” Yet, phrases such as this are commonly uttered by my college-aged, native Californian friends. In addition, speech patterns are also affected by socioeconomic factors, as people tend to live in neighborhoods that coincide with their means. Therefore, the dialects of different communities may also correlate with their wealth or lack thereof.

Though qualified individuals in the same field should be paid equally regardless of external factors such as accent, prejudiced people might discount a prospective employee’s level of qualification simply based upon speech patterns the employer believes to be indicative of lower socioeconomic status. One possible reason for the previously stated differing dialects is that individuals living in lower income areas often have fewer educational opportunities depending on the quality of the public schools in the area (a related issue that must be dealt with). In fact, research suggests that  “children from lower SES [socioeconomic status] build their vocabularies at slower rates than children from higher SES” (Hoff 1368), which has a significant effect on speech patterns later in life. However, even though some people have less educational opportunities based upon their socioeconomic status, many individuals who do not come from considerable means pursue an education. Accent does not make an individual more or less qualified for a job. Therefore, one’s accent should not be considered in the employment process. Unfortunately, in light of the fact that the way an individual speaks is believed to reveal much about them, many people develop prejudices about groups of people based on their speech patterns and accent.

In the same way, speech patterns are often used to judge socioeconomic status, education level, geographical location, lifestyle, and even race. For instance, in his article “Speech Patterns and Racial Wage Inequality,” Professor Jeffrey Grogger of the University of Chicago argues that because prejudiced individuals often believe the cornucopia of stereotypes about certain races to be valid, people aware of these stereotypes often revert to prejudices when relying solely on speech to assess the race of and their opinions about an individual:

Race is a salient characteristic of speech. Listeners can identify a speaker’s race from their speech, even small amounts of it (Thomas and Reaser 2004). For example, Purnell, Idsardi, and Baugh (1999) played a standardized single-sentence speech clip for listeners that varied only in its dialectical “guise,” that is, in whether the speaker delivered the sentence using typically SAE [Standard American English] or AAE [African American English] forms. Their listeners identified the African- American guise with 75 to 90 percent accuracy.

Furthermore, listeners act on racial information in speakers’ voices. Purnell, Idsardi, and Baugh (1999) and Massey and Lundy (2001) have conducted audit studies in which black- and white-sounding callers are randomly assigned to inquire by phone regarding apartments that have been advertised for rent. Black-sounding callers are more likely than white-sounding callers to be told that the apartment is already rented (1-2, emphasis mine).

Based on Grogger’s quotation and the evidence he cites, if a person can easily identify someone by their speech, he or she can easily pass judgement on that individual as well. Judgement based upon speech patterns is a prevalent issue because as stated by director of cooperative education at the University of North Texas (UNT) Dianne Markley, “accent judgments hide behind judgments on education and other qualifications […] And unlike race or sex, it’s not illegal to discriminate based on accent,” which makes it easier to get around laws about discrimination in the workplace (Kolsti 3).  For example, as expressed by a UNT study, “people’s intelligence and other qualities are usually judged based on how they sound” (Kolsti 1). Judgement based on speech patterns affects employment opportunities because people deemed the most “qualified” (intelligent and secure socioeconomically) based on accent alone, an extremely unreliable way to measure qualification, will more often than not have a better chance of being hired. Furthermore, Grogger reports that “even after controlling for measures of skill and family background, black speakers whose voices were distinctly identified as black by anonymous listeners earn about 12 percent less than whites with similar observable skills,” while black speakers whose race could not be identified earn about the same as comparable whites (Grogger 1). These statistics support the claim that a person’s accent often dictates what others think of him or her. Grogger’s quote reveals that as far as American society has come in terms of equality in the last few decades, there is still a long way to go. People with accents indicative of low socioeconomic status are less likely to have higher paying jobs, and therefore the cycle of poverty continues. If the United States is to become a land of equal opportunity for all of its inhabitants as the Constitution claims, ignorant judgements such as those based upon speech patterns must be eliminated. All things considered, judgements based on speech can affect socioeconomic status and lifestyle just as much as those two factors influence an individual’s accent in the first place — a vicious circle.

Given the fact that people are judged (often unfairly) by their speech patterns, there are many reasons to believe that the the way in which individuals want to be perceived affects speech patterns. I can easily find evidence of this claim in my everyday life. Specifically, I find that I use different ‘dialects’ depending on who I am with. For example, when I am with friends or peers my language is much ‘looser’:I use slang and abbreviations much more, whereas when I am in the company of my family I am much more careful with my use of language and correct grammar so as to be respectful and polite. Furthermore, when speaking with superiors such as professors or professionals, my speech is much more formal and refined. I speak differently in each situation because adjusting my speech pattern allows me to have some control over how others perceive me, whether it be my laid-back demeanor when with friends, my ‘little angel’ routine when with family, or my mature persona I use when with superiors.

Though I use speech as a way to manage how I am perceived by others, these different speech patterns also display different identities. In fact, sociologists recognize that speech is very important in the creation of one’s identity. In the Phillip L. Hammack’s article “Narrative and the Cultural Psychology of Identity,” Hammack claims that individuals develop personal identities based on cultural, social, and personal values which they present to others through mediums such as speech (both inner and outer):

The cultural and historical resources with which individuals engage when constructing their identities are at base narrative resources that have the potential to infuse both inner and social speech. It is this inner speech that constructs personal identity as it is internally “sensed”; it is through social speech that identity is expressed, risked, and ultimately reformulated. Thus, there is a dynamic interplay between the individual and the social—the mind and culture. (235)

To clarify, people (usually) use their minds as “rehearsals” of how they want to make a statement in order to judge whether or not it fits in with both the social identity the individuals have created for themselves as well as the situation at hand. Individuals develop their identities internally through the use of some external resources including culture and history and express these creations through speech patterns to the outside world, thus building a bridge that connects one’s inner and outer self. Personal image is often deemed as of the upmost importance in modern society. Therefore, when individuals focus on maintaining a certain persona to present to others, they “use many forms of impression management to compel others to react to them in the ways that they wish” (Essentials of Sociology 93). Speech is an extremely important aspect of making positive (and negative) impressions because of how much it can reveal about a person in a relatively short period of time. In other words, individuals have ideas of themselves and what sort of individuals they want to become, which they partly express through speaking a certain way.

All in all, speech patterns and language can be both an advantage and a disadvantage depending on the ways in which they are used. Individuals are often unfairly judged on the basis of their accent. For example, if two individuals of equal qualification had the same job position in the same company but one spoke SAE (Standard American English) while the other spoke AAE (African American English), Grogger’s research suggests that the person who speaks SAE would be earning more than his or her AAE speaking counterpart. On the contrary, speech patterns can be used to one’s advantage when a person speaks in a way that exemplifies the persona that the individual would like to embody. However, both positions on language, though valid, are flawed in one way or another because they fail to encompass essential details about speech and judgement. On the one hand, while the first position explains how speech patterns can lead to negative prejudices, it fails to note that people can use speech to their advantage. For example, many famous musicians (such as Tupac Shakur, Harlem native and one of the world’s best selling music artists) flaunt their accent, adding strength to their art form through acceptance and pride of their cultural, economic, racial, educational, or geographical background. On the other hand, while the second position encompasses individuals’ ability to use language to create a self image, it is limited in that it does not account for accents people adopt not by choice but as a result of their environment. For instance, as much as I would like a British accent, I simply cannot change the fact that I grew up in the United States and therefore possess an American accent.

On the whole, most everyone will be judged on the basis of their speech pattern at some point; however, people also possess the ability to decide how they want to be perceived and manipulate their speech patterns accordingly. One’s accent has the ability to tell a story simply through phonetics, and changing an individual’s accent can allow him or her to take on a whole new persona. Much of life consists of acting a certain way depending on the context of a given situation, after all; people constantly judge others, and one must either act in the way he or she would like to be viewed in the ‘lens’ of others, or decide not to care. The fact that an individual who does not or cannot change his or her accent may be unfairly judged is extremely unfortunate. One can only hope that a day will come when judgment of others will be based upon who an individual truly is on the inside (factors such as moral fiber and personality), and his or her qualification in the case of employment, rather than external factors such as economic background, skin color, or speech patterns.

Works Cited

Grogger, Jeffery. “Speech Patterns and Racial Wage Inequality.” The Journal of Human Resources 46.1 (2009): 1-25. The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System. Web. 2 Nov. 2011. <http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/46/1/1.short>.

Rodriguez Mosquera, Patricia M., Ayse K. Uskul, and Susan E. Cross. “The Centrality Of Social Image In Social Psychology.” European Journal Of Social Psychology 41.4 (2011): 403-410. Academic Search Complete. Web. 3 Nov. 2011.

Hoff, E. (2003), The Specificity of Environmental Influence: Socioeconomic Status Affects Early Vocabulary Development Via Maternal Speech. Child Development, 74: 1368–1378. doi: 10.1111/1467-8624.00612

Cukor-Avila, Patricia, and Dianne Markley. “Job Hirers Show Bias against Regional Accents, Study Suggests.” University of North Texas. University of North Texas In House, 4 Aug. 2000. Web. 03 Nov. 2011. <http://www.unt.edu/inhouse/august42000/accent.htm>.

Giddens, Anthony, Mitchell Duneier, and Richard P. Appelbaum. “Chapter 3: Socialization and the Life Cycle.” Essentials of Sociology. New York: Norton, 2006. 73-93. Print.