Regional Accent Discrimination in Hiring Decisions: A Language Attitude Study Page: 24
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Selection of Subjects
Subject speakers are native U.S. speakers of English whose accents are representative
of a geographical region. None have particular distinguishing voice characteristics or
speech impediments. The subjects are all white males with no particularly distinguishing
vocal characteristics that indicate age. The study was designed for the investigation of
geographic regional accents, and any ethnicity or gender difference in the subjects would
have added other variables. As nearly as possible, the only difference in the voices heard
by the respondents was the speakers' regional accents.
Each subject represented a geographic region in a broad sense, so an attempt was
made to select speakers who had accents common to a large population within a given
region, rather than accents that are marked and associated with a smaller group within the
region. In other words, the speaker from Louisiana did not have the accent commonly
identified as "Cajun" within Louisiana itself. To verify that each speaker was a good
representative of a particular geographic region, at least two natives of each represented
region were asked to listen to the recordings and identify which, if any, of the speakers
sounded like he was from that region. In each case, the native listeners identified the
correct speaker as being representative of the region. While not flawless, this process did
lend some credibility to the authenticity of the regional speech samples that were included
in the study.
The primary target of the study was to discover attitudes that influence hiring
decisions for professional level positions. Many professional positions require candidates24
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Markley, E. Dianne. Regional Accent Discrimination in Hiring Decisions: A Language Attitude Study, thesis, August 2000; Denton, Texas. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc2623/m1/31/: accessed April 25, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; .