Aleksandra Najdeska

 Stereotype: -generalization about a group’s characteristics that does not consider variation between individuals - Not necessarily negative For instance, all Englishmen drink tea /all Saudi Arabian are terrorists.  Prejudice: ‘prae’ – in advance ‘judicium’ – judgment Holding an opinion before you have facts in evidence -Unjustified negative attitude toward an individual based on the individual’s membership in a group -Judgment based on speech / we use the speech as a source of information about the speaker.

 Many people believe that there is a correct way to speak English, and anything that deviates from this way of speaking is incorrect, lazy or unintelligent, and has no rules or structure. This belief is called Standard Language Ideology.  Because of this widespread ideology, dialects like African American English become marginalized for reasons that have little to do with the structure or complexity of the dialect itself.  The reason that a dialect become standardized or stigmatized usually has to do with social and historical forces, so that the dialect of those in power becomes the “standard” way of speaking.

Suzanne Romaine Language in Society. An Introduction to Sociolinguistics. 2 nd ed. Oxford University Press.

 Linguistic stereotypes and prejudices  In a study, Giles investigated reactions of British school children to a variety of English accents. Children listened to a variety of accents and made judgments about the speakers. These accents included the educated accent known as Received Pronunciation or RP, and a number of rural and urban accents, including the accent of Birmingham, a city in the English Midlands. (Giles, 1975).  Giles discovered that people who spoke with a standard British educated English RP accent were considered to be the most intelligent or competent and that those who spoke with a Birmingham accent were considered to be the least intelligent.  He discovered that that people thought that those who had accents similar to their own, no matter whether these were rural or urban speakers and sounded more like themselves, were more honest and warmer.

 A second piece of research studied people’s responses to arguments given in different varieties of English. The arguments were given as a written transcript and in four different accents. These varieties were: RP, Welsh (the variety of English spoken in Wales); Somerset (a mainly rural county – province, state or prefecture - in the South West of England); and the accent of Birmingham.  In this study, the children considered that the arguments given in RP were more intelligent than the arguments given in the regional accents. However, they found the arguments given in regional accents were more persuasive, as only regional voices ‘were effective in producing a significant shift in subjects’ attitudes; the typescript and the RP guise did not’ (1975:94).

 "I learned to change my accent; in England, your accent identifies you very strongly with a class, and I did not want to be held back.“ (English musician Sting [Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner])

 Accentism - Certain accents tend to carry more prestige in some societies over other accents depending on the cultural context, on the location and on the individual. For instance, in the United States, an absence of an accent or "speaking American" is widely preferable. Also, in the United Kingdom, the Received Pronunciation is associated with being of higher class and thus more likeable.  In addition to prestige, research has shown that certain accents may also be associated with less intelligence, and having poorer social skills. An example can be seen in the difference between Southerners and Northerners in the United States, where people from the North are typically perceived as being less likable in character, and Southerners are perceived as being less intelligent.  Received Pronunciation (RP: traditionally the highest- status variety in England) is sometimes stigmatized. Its speakers may be perceived as 'posh' or 'snobbish'

 While, theoretically, any individual may be the victim of linguicism regardless of social and ethnic status, oppressed and marginalized social minorities are often its most consistent targets, due to the fact that the speech varieties that come to be associated with such groups have a tendency to be stigmatized.  Linguicism, of course, applies to written as well as spoken language. The quality of a book or article may be judged by the language in which it is written. In the scientific community, for example, those who evaluated a text in two language versions, English and the national Scandinavian language, rated the English-language version as being of higher scientific content.

 What is language discrimination?  Language discrimination occurs when a person is treated differently because of that person’s native language or other characteristics of that person’s speech.  In an employment situation, for example, an employee may be being subjected to language discrimination if the workplace has a “speak-English-only” policy but the employee’s primary language is something other than English.  The employee may also be the victim of language discrimination if he or she is treated less favorably than other employees because he or she speaks English with an accent, or if the employee is told he or she does not qualify for a position because of a lack of English proficiency.  Outside the employment context, language discrimination may also occur if a person is denied access to businesses or government services because he or she does not speak English.

 Does our way of speaking identifies us very strongly with a class in Macedonia?  Is it possible to be free of prejudice? - Have you ever met anyone who was?  Are you prejudiced?