Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-jr42d Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-24T06:01:38.444Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Silencing nonstandard speakers: A content analysis of accent portrayals on American primetime television

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 January 2016

Marko Dragojevic ,
Dana Mastro ,
Howard Giles  and
Alexander Sink
Marko Dragojevic
Affiliation:
Department of Communication, University of Kentucky, 227 Grehan Building, Lexington, KY 40506-0042, USAmarko.dragojevic@uky.edu
Dana Mastro
Affiliation:
Department of Communication, University of California, Santa Barbara 4005 Social Sciences & Media Studies Bldg., Santa Barbara, CA 93106-4020, USA
Howard Giles
Affiliation:
Department of Communication, University of California, Santa Barbara 4005 Social Sciences & Media Studies Bldg., Santa Barbara, CA 93106-4020, USA
Alexander Sink
Affiliation:
Department of Communication, University of California, Santa Barbara 4005 Social Sciences & Media Studies Bldg., Santa Barbara, CA 93106-4020, USA
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Accent is a potent cue to social categorization and stereotyping. An important agent of accent-based stereotype socialization is the media. The present study is the first quantitative content analysis to comprehensively examine accent portrayals on American primetime television. We focused our analysis on portrayals of Standard American (SA), Nonstandard American (NSA), Foreign-Anglo (FA), and Foreign-Other (FO) accents. Results provide clear evidence that American media's portrayals of different accents are biased, reflecting pervasive societal stereotypes. Whereas SA and FA speakers are over-represented on television, NSA and FO speakers are effectively silenced, by virtue of their sheer absence and gross under-representation. Moreover, when NSA and FO speakers do rarely appear on television, they tend to be portrayed less favorably on status-related traits and physical appearance than SA and FA speakers. These findings provide insight into the potential influence of media consumption on consumers’ social perceptions of different linguistic groups. (Accents, media, language attitudes, stereotypes, content analysis)*

Type
Articles
Information
Language in Society , Volume 45 , Issue 1 , February 2016 , pp. 59 - 85
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abrams, Jessica; Eveland, William P. Jr.; & Giles, Howard (2003). The effects of television on group vitality: Can television empower nondominant groups? Communication Yearbook 27:193–219.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Abrams, Jessica, & Giles, Howard (2007). Ethnic identity gratifications selection and avoidance by African Americans: A group vitality and social identity gratifications perspective. Media Psychology 9:115–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Androutsopoulos, Jannis (2012). Introduction: Language and society in cinematic discourse. Multilingua 31:139–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Androutsopoulos, Jannis (ed.) (2014). Mediatization and sociolinguistic change. Berlin: de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ahrens, Frank (2004). Accent on higher TV ratings. The Washington Post, August 2. Online: http://www.washingtonpost.com.Google Scholar
Bell, Allan (1991). The language of news media. Cambridge, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Bodenhausen, Galen V.; Kang, Sonia. K.; & Peery, Destiny (2012). Social categorization and the perception of social groups. In Fiske, Susan T. & Macrae, C. Neil (eds.), The SAGE handbook of social cognition, 311–29. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre (1991). Language and symbolic power. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Bradac, James.J., & Giles, Howard (1991). Social and educational consequences of language attitudes. Moderna Språk 85:1–11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cheyne, William M. (1970). Stereotyped reactions to speakers with Scottish and English regional accents. British Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology 9:77–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clopper, Cynthia G.; Levi;, Savannah V. & Pisoni, David B. (2006). Perceptual similarity of regional dialects of American English. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 119:566–74.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Clopper, Cynthia G, & Pisoni, David B. (2004). Some acoustic cues for the perceptual categorization of American English regional dialects. Journal of Phonetics 32:111–40.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Clopper, Cynthia G, & Pisoni, David B. (2007). Free classification of regional dialects of American English. Journal of Phonetics 25:421–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coupland, Nikolas (2010). Language, ideology, media and social change. In Junod, Karen & Maillat, Didier (eds.), Performing the self, 55–79. Tübingen: Gunter Narr.Google Scholar
Day, Richard R. (1980). The development of linguistic attitudes and preferences. TESOL Quarterly 14:27–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Day, Richard R. (1982). Children's attitudes toward language. In Ryan, Ellen B. & Giles, Howard (eds.), Attitudes toward language variation: Social and applied contexts, 116–31. London: Edward Arnold.Google Scholar
Dixon, John A., & Mahoney, Berenice (2004). The effect of accent evaluation and evidence on a suspect's perceived guilt and criminality. The Journal of Social Psychology 144:63–73.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dixon, John A.; Mahoney;, Berenice & Cocks, Roger (2002). Accents of guilt? Effects of regional accent, race, and crime type on attributions of guilt. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 21:162–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dobrow, Julia R., & Gidney, Calvin L. (1998). The good, the bad, and the foreign: The use of dialects in children's animated television. The Annals of the American Academy of Political Sciences 557:105–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dragojevic, Marko; Berglund, Christofer; & Blauvelt, Timothy K. (2015). Attitudes toward Tbilisi- and Mingrelian-accented Georgian among Georgian youth: On the road to linguistic homogenization? Journal of Language and Social Psychology 34:90–101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dragojevic, Marko; Giles, Howard; & Watson, Bernadette M. (2013). Language ideologies and language attitudes: A foundational framework. In Giles, & Watson, 1–25.Google Scholar
Edwards, John R. (1999). Refining our understanding of language attitudes. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 18:101–110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Edwards, John R. (2009). Language and identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fiske, Susan T.; Cuddy, Amy J. C.; Glick, Peter; & Xu, Jun (2002). A model of (often mixed) stereotype content: Competence and warmth respectively follow from perceived status and competition. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 82:878–902.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fuertes, Jairo N.; Gottdiener, William H.; Martin, Helena; Gilbert;, Tracey C. & Giles, Howard (2012). A meta-analysis of the effects of speakers’ accents on interpersonal evaluations. European Journal of Social Psychology 42:120–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garrett, Peter (2010). Attitudes to language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gerbner, George, & Gross, Lawrence (1976). Living with television: The violence profile. Journal of Communication 26:173–99.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gerbner, George; Gross, Lawrence; Morgan, Michael; Signorielli, Nancy; & Shanahan, James (2002). Growing up with television: Cultivation processes. In Bryant, Jennings & Zillman, Dolf (eds.), Media effects: Advances in theory and research, 2nd edn., 43–67. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Gibson, Andy, & Bell, Allan (2010). Performing Pasifika English in New Zealand: The case of bro'Town. English World-Wide 31:231–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giles, Howard (1970). Evaluative reactions to accents. Educational Review 22:211–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giles, Howard (1971). Patterns of evaluation to R.P., South Welsh and Somerset accented speech. British Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology 10:280–81.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Giles, Howard (2012). Principles of intergroup communication. In Giles, Howard (ed.), The handbook of intergroup communication, 3–16. New York: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giles, Howard; Bourhis, Richard Y.; & Taylor, Donald M. (1977). Towards a theory of language in ethnic group relations. In Giles, Howard (ed.), Language, ethnicity and intergroup relations, 307–48. London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Giles, Howard, & Coupland, Nikolas (1991). Language: Contexts and consequences. Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole.Google Scholar
Giles, Howard, & Farrar, Kathryn (1979). Some behavioural consequences of accented speech. British Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology 18:209–10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giles, Howard; Harrison, Chris; Creber, Clare; Smith;, Philip M. & Freeman, Norman H. (1983). Developmental and contextual aspects of children's language attitudes. Language and Communication 3:141–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giles, Howard, & Johnson, Patricia (1987). Ethnolinguistic identity theory: A social psychological approach to language maintenance. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 68:69–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giles, Howard, & Marlow, Mikaela L. (2011). Theorizing language attitudes: Existing frameworks, an integrative model, and new directions. Communication Yearbook 35:161–97.Google Scholar
Giles, Howard, & Niedzielski, Nancy (1998). Italian is beautiful, German is ugly. In Bauer, Laurie & Trudgill, Peter (eds.), Language myths, 85–93. London: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Giles, Howard, & Powesland, Peter F. (1975). Speech style and social evaluation. London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Giles, Howard, & Watson, Bernadette M. (eds.) (2013). The social meanings of language, dialect, and accent: International perspectives on speech styles. New York: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Giles, Howard; Williams, Angie; Mackie;, Diane E. & Rosselli, Francine (1995). Reactions to Anglo- and Hispanic- American-accented speakers: Affect, identity, persuasion, and the English-only controversy. Language and Communication 15:107–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giles, Howard; Wilson, Pamela; & Conway, Tony (1981). Accent and lexical diversity as determinants of impression formation and perceived employment suitability. Language Sciences 3:91–103.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gluszek, Agata, & Hansen, Karoline (2013). Language attitudes in the Americas. In Giles, & Watson, 26–44.Google Scholar
Harwood, Jake (1997). Viewing age: Lifespan identity and television viewing choices. Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media 41:203–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gluszek, Agata, & Anderson, Karen (2002). The presence and portrayal of social groups on prime-time television. Communication Reports 15:81–97.Google Scholar
Hawkins, Robert, & Pingree, Susan (1990). Divergent psychological processes in constructing social reality from mass media content. In Signorielli, Nancy & Morgan, Michael (eds.), Cultivation analysis: New directions in media effects research, 35–50. Newbury Park, CA: SAGE.Google Scholar
Herman, Lewis, & Herman, Marquerite S. (1997). Foreign dialects: A manual for actors, directors and writers. 2nd edn.New York: Theatre Arts Books.Google Scholar
Hill, Thomas; Lewicki, Pawel; Czyzewska, Maria; & Schuller, Geoff (1990). The role of learned inferential encoding rules in the perception of faces: effects of nonconscious self-perpetuation of a bias. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 26:350–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hilton, James L., & von Hippel, William (1996). Stereotypes. Annual Review of Psychology 47:237–71.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hogg, Michael A.; D'Agata;, Paul & Abrams, Dominic (1989). Ethnolinguistic betrayal and speaker evaluations across Italian Austrians. Genetic, Social, and General Psychology Monographs 115:155–81.Google Scholar
Irvine, Judith T., & Gal, Susan (2000). Language ideology and linguistic differentiation. In Kroskrity, Paul V. (ed.), Regimes of language: Ideologies, polities, and identities, 35–84. Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Press.Google Scholar
Jaworski, Adam (1993). The power of silence: Social and pragmatic perspectives. Newbury Park, CA: SAGE.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jaworski, Adam(ed.) (1997). Silence: Interdisciplinary perspectives. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jaworski, Adam (ed.) (2005). Silence in institutional and intercultural contexts. Multilingua 24:1–156.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jaworski, Adam; Thurlow, Crispin; Lawson, Sarah; & Ylänne-McEwen, Virpi (2003). The uses and representations of host languages in tourist destinations: A view from British TV holiday programs. Language Awareness 12:5–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Katz, Elahu; Gurevitch, Michael; & Haas, Hadassah (1973). On the use of the mass media for important things. American Sociological Review 38:164–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kinzler, Katherine D.; Shutts;, Kristin & Correll, Joshua (2010). Priorities in social categories. European Journal of Social Psychology 40:581–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krippendorff, Klaus (2004). Reliability in content analysis: Some common misconceptions and recommendations. Human Communication Research 30:411–33.Google Scholar
Labov, William (2006). The social stratification of English in New York City, 2nd edn.New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lambert, Wallace E. (1967). A social psychology of bilingualism. Journal of Social Issues 23:91–109.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lambert, Wallace E.; Hodgson, Richard C.; Gardner;, Robert C. & Fillenbaum, Samuel (1960). Evaluational reactions to spoken languages. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 60:44–51.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lewicki, Pawel (1986). Nonconscious social information processing. Orlando, FL: Academic.Google Scholar
Lindemann, Stephanie (2003). Koreans, Chinese or Indians? Attitudes and ideologies about non-native English speakers in the United States. Journal of Sociolinguistics 7:348–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lippi-Green, Rosina (1994). Accent, standard language ideology, and discriminatory pretext in the courts. Language in Society 23:163–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lippi-Green, Rosina (2012). English with an accent. 2nd edn.New York: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Luhman, Reid (1990). Appalachian English stereotypes: Language attitudes in Kentucky. Language in Society 19:331–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mackie, Diane M.; Hamilton, David L.; Susskind, Joshua; & Rosselli, Francine (1996). Social psychological foundations of stereotype formation. In Macrae, C. Neil, Stangor, Charles, & Hewstone, Miles (eds.), Stereotypes and stereotyping, 79–120. New York: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Marlow, Mikaela L., & Giles, Howard (2010). ‘We won't get ahead speaking like that!’ Expressing and managing language criticism in Hawai'i. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 31:237–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mastro, Dana E. (2009). Racial/ethnic stereotyping and the media. In Nabi, & Oliver, 377–92.Google Scholar
Mastro, Dana E., & Seate, Anita Atwell (2012). Group membership in race-related media processes and effects. In Giles, Howard (ed.), The handbook of intergroup communication, 357–69. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Mastro, Dana E., & Behm-Morawitz, Elizabeth (2005). Latino representations on primetime television. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 82:110–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mastro, Dana E.; Behm-Morawitz, Elizabeth; & Ortiz, Michelle (2007). The cultivation of social perceptions of Latinos: A mental models approach. Media Psychology 9:347–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mastro, Dana E., & Tukachinsky, Riva (2013). The influence of media exposure on the formation, activation, and application of racial/ethnic stereotypes. In Scharrer, Erica (ed.), Media effects/media psychology (International encyclopedia of media studies 5), 295–315, Boston, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Milroy, Lesley (2001). Britain and the United States: Two nations divided by the same language (and different language ideologies). Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 10:56–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Milroy, James, & Milroy, Lesley (1985). Authority in language: Investigating language prescription and standardization. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morgan, Michael (2009). Cultivation analysis and media effects. In Nabi, & Oliver, 69–82.Google Scholar
Nabi, Robin, & Shanahan, James (1997). Two decades of cultivation research: An appraisal and meta-analysis. Communication Yearbook 20:1–45.Google Scholar
Nabi, Robin, & Oliver, Mary B. (eds.) (2009). The SAGE handbook of media processes and effects. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.Google Scholar
Neuendorf, Kimberley (2002). The content analysis guidebook. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.Google Scholar
Nielsen (2010, August). How people watch: A global Nielsen consumer report. The Nielsen Company. Online: http://www.nielsen.com/content/dam/corporate/us/en/reports-downloads/Global%20Video%20Report%20How%20People%20Watch.pdf.Google Scholar
Pew Hispanic Center (2011). Statistical portrait of the foreign-born population in the United States, 2011. Online: http://www.pewhispanic.org/files/2013/01/PHC-2011-FB-Stat-Profiles.pdf.Google Scholar
Potter, W. James (1991). Examining cultivation from a psychological perspective. Communication Research 18:77–102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Powesland, Peter F., & Giles, Howard (1975). Persuasiveness and accent-message incompatibility. Human Relations 28:85–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Purnell, Thomas; Isdardi, William; & Baugh, John (1999). Perceptual and phonetic experiments on American English dialect identification. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 18:10–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rakić, Tamara; Steffens, Melanie C.; & Mummendey, Amélie (2011). Blinded by the accent! The minor role of looks in ethnic categorization. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 100:16–29.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Reid, Scott A.; Giles;, Howard & Abrams, Jessica R. (2004). A social identity model of media usage and effects. Zeithschrift für Medienpsychologie 16:17–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Riffe, Daniel; Lacy, Stephen; & Fico, Frederick (2005). Analyzing media messages: Using quantitative content analysis in research. 2nd edn.Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Rosenthal, Marilyn (1974). The magic boxes: Pre-school children's attitudes toward black and standard English. The Florida FL Reporter 12:55–62, 92–93.Google Scholar
Roskos-Ewoldsen, David R., & Roskos-Ewoldsen, Beverly (2009). Current research in media priming. In Nabi, & Oliver, 177–92.Google Scholar
Rubin, Alan M. (2009). Uses and gratifications: An evolving perspective of media effects. In Nabi, & Oliver, 147–59.Google Scholar
Ryan, Ellen B. (1983). Social psychological mechanisms underlying native speaker evaluations of non-native speech. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 5:148–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shuck, Gail (2004). Conversational performance and the poetic construction of ideology. Language in Society 33:195–222.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shuck, Gail (2006). Racializing the nonnative English speaker. Journal of Language, Identity, and Education 5:259–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shrum, Larry J. (1995). Assessing the social influence of television: A social cognition perspective on cultivation effects. Communication Research 22:402–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shrum, Larry J. (1996). Psychological processes underlying cultivation effects: Further tests of construct accessibility. Human Communication Research 22:482–509.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shrum, Larry J., & O'Guinn, Thomas C. (1993). Processes and effects in the construction of social reality: Construct accessibility as an explanatory variable. Communication Research 20:436–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Signorielli, Nancy, & Morgan, Michael (eds.) (1990). Cultivation analysis: New directions in media effects research. Newbury Park, CA: SAGE.Google Scholar
Silverstein, Michael (1996). Monoglot ‘standard’ in America: Standardization and metaphors of linguistic homogeneity. In Brenneis, Donlad & Macaulay, Ronald K. S. (eds.), The matrix of language: Contemporary linguistic anthropology, 284–306. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
St. Clair, Robert N. (1982). From social history to language attitudes. In Ryan, Ellen B. & Giles, Howard (eds.), Attitudes towards language variation: Social and applied contexts, 164–74. London: Edward Arnold.Google Scholar
Stangor, Charles, & Lange, James E. (1994). Mental representations of social groups: Advances in understanding stereotypes and stereotyping. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology 26:357–416.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stangor, Charles, & Schaller, Mark (1996). Stereotypes as individual and collective representations. In Macrae, C. Neil, Stangor, Charles, & Hewstone, Miles (eds.), Stereotypes and stereotyping, 3–78. New York: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Stewart, Miguel A.; Ryan;, Ellen B. & Giles, Howard (1985). Accent and social class effects on status and solidarity evaluations. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 11:98–105.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stuart-Smith, Jane (2007). The influence of the media. In Llamas, Carmen, Mullany, Louise, & Stockwell, Peter (eds.), The Routledge companion to sociolinguistics, 140–48. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Stuart-Smith, Jane; Pryce, Gwilym; Timmins, Claire; & Gunter, Barrie (2013). Television can also be a factor in language change: Evidence from an urban dialect. Language 89:501–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stunkard, Albert J.; Sørensen, T. I.; & Schulsinger, Fini (1983). Use of the Danish adoption register for the study of obesity and thinness. In Kety, Seymour S. (ed.), The genetics of neurological and psychiatric disorders, 115–20. New York: Raven Press.Google Scholar
Subtirelu, Nicholas C. (2015). ‘She does have an accent but…’: Race and language ideology in students’ evaluations of mathematics instructors on RateMyProfessors.com. Language in Society 44:35–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tabachnick, Barbara G., & Fidell, Linda S. (2007). Using multivariate statistics. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.Google Scholar
Tajfel, Henri, & Turner, John C. (1986). The social identity theory of intergroup behavior. In Worchel, Stephen & Austin, William G. (eds.), Psychology of intergroup relations, 7–24. Chicago, IL: Nelson-Hall.Google Scholar
US Census Bureau (2015). US and world population clock. Online: http://www.census.gov/popclock/.Google Scholar
von Hippel, William; Sekaquaptewa, Denise; & Vargas, Patrick (1995). On the role of encoding processes in stereotype maintenance. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology 27:177–254.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woolard, Kathryn A. (1985). Language variation and cultural hegemony: Toward an integration of sociolinguistic and social theory. American Ethnologist 12:738–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar