Abstract
Accent bias, a type of linguistic bias that is based on a speaker’s pronunciation, is a source of partiality in hiring and retention decisions. This study sought to understand perspectives on linguistic diversity and accent bias among university instructors and students in undergraduate human resource management programs. Results point to a lack of coverage alongside stereotypical views about accents and accent bias among instructors and a desire for accent bias training among all participants. The discussion addresses misconceptions that arose, argues for greater focus on accent bias in business communication, and provides guidance for the development of accent bias training.
Introduction
According to the World Migration Report 2022, about two-thirds of the world’s approximately 280 million migrants in 2020 were labor migrants, and approximately 75% of those move to places where they will be required to speak a language other than their mother tongue when they begin their new jobs (McAuliffe & Triandafyllidou, 2021). The increase in labor migration means that human resource (HR) and talent professionals around the globe—among many other business communication specialists—face applicant pools that are more diverse than ever (Kim et al., 2019). These highly qualified, internationally trained applicants may have the technical skills and knowledge necessary to perform jobs in their new countries, but many face barriers due to the presence of something over which they have little control—a second language 1 accent. Most individuals speak their second—or indeed any additional language learned after about the age of 3 years (Long, 2003)—with a second language accent, or pronunciation that differs from the local “native” speaker variety (Munro & Derwing, 1998). Commonly referred to as “foreign” accents, they are stigmatized as salient indicators of otherness (Gluszek & Dovidio, 2010; Goffman, 1963; Russo et al., 2017). Although accents provide listeners with information about where a speaker is from, listeners who hear accents tend to engage in negative stereotyping, expressing unfavorable judgments about an individual’s competence purely based on their accented speech (Cook, 1999; Ryan, 1983). Among various business, commerce, and communication programs, university degree paths in HR management in particular are tasked with training future HR professionals, who are, in turn, the gatekeepers to gainful employment. However, the extent to which these programs are responding to the increasing diversity of job applicants is presently unknown. The goal of this study was therefore to probe students’ and instructors’ reflections on linguistic diversity and accent bias (i.e., discrimination on the basis of a second language accent) in undergraduate HR education in two diverse cities in Canada (City A, City B) with the goal of understanding the role of accent in business communication and ultimately informing supplemental accent bias training.
Background Literature
HR departments, which “optimize the utilization of [human] potentials that . . . help support and meet the business as well as strategic goal of the firm” (Chakraborty & Biswas, 2019, p. 659), are often the first points of contact for second language job applicants in the workplace. As one important pipeline to HR departments and firms, undergraduate HR programs prepare future HR professionals, who are the gatekeepers to gainful employment in a range of professions. In Canada alone, there are around 80 institutions that offer courses and degrees in HR management. These range from 4-year universities to short continuing education programs, and the credentials offered include certificates and bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees. Upon graduation, most Canadian HR specialists work under the auspices of an active federal association of certified professionals (https://cphr.ca) and its provincial affiliates such as CPHR Alberta (https://www.cphrab.ca), CPHR British Columbia & Yukon (https://cphrbc.ca), and CRHA Quebec (https://ordrecrha.org).
The development of business and professional communication is considered a cornerstone in business education, but recent comprehensive texts in the field fail to recognize the potential role that second language accents play in business settings (e.g., Hartley et al., 2023; Mautner & Rainer, 2017). While topics such as general bias (Hartley et al., 2023), intercultural communication (Mehra, 2011; Rathmayr, 2017), power dynamics (Roshid & Chowdhury,2023), and multilingualism in business (Lavric et al., 2017) might provide an opportunity to raise issues associated with accent bias, the topic remains conspicuously absent from many resources, including a major recent handbook in business communication (Mautner & Rainer, 2017). Although Mai and Hoffmann’s (2014) accents in business communication model proposes three main effects (social identity, activation of stereotypes, and processing of the speech) that speaking with an accent may have on outcomes in business contexts, this model is excluded from prevailing business and professional communication texts. Similarly, whereas researchers and practitioners have examined various issues (e.g., linguistic challenges, cultural difficulties, and emotional stressors) experienced by second language speakers in their business communication coursework (e.g., McGann et al., 2020), there has been little focus in business and professional communication literature on students’ awareness of and experience with second language accents and the role they play in their future job-relevant decision making.
The lack of coverage of second language accent in business communication stands in stark contrast with the available rich literature on language-based discrimination in the workplace and its often serious consequences for second language speakers’ employability (e.g., Ng, 2007; Schmaus, 2020) and workplace satisfaction (Kim et al., 2022). Accent is a highly salient marker of otherness (Bourhis et al., 2012) that often leads to social stereotyping and discrimination. Although listeners can understand accented speech well (Munro & Derwing, 1995), second language accents are perceived more negatively than first language (regional or dialectal) accents (Lindemann, 2003, 2005). 2 Research demonstrates the pervasive nature of accent bias, with individuals showing stronger negative reactions to accent than to visual cues of otherness such as skin color or facial features (Cohen et al., 2021; Huang et al., 2013; Kinzler et al., 2009). These biases have real-life consequences, often extending to stereotyping and prejudice (Sumantry & Choma, 2021). For example, listeners tend to believe information less when it is delivered by someone who speaks with a second language accent (Boduch-Grabka & Lev-Ari, 2021; Hanzlíková & Skarnitzl, 2017), and they judge second language speakers to be less intelligent (Lindemann, 2003), less competent (Boyd, 2003; Gluszek & Dovidio, 2010; Roessel et al., 2019), and inferior to first language speakers (Kim et al., 2019).
Linguistic bias can show itself in several ways in the workplace. Second language speakers are penalized in job interviews (Roberts, C. (2021). and are less likely to be offered jobs after being interviewed (De La Zerda & Hopper, 1979; Huang et al., 2013; Roessel et al., 2019). When they are hired, second language speakers tend to receive lower pay and are often overlooked for promotions (Hosoda et al., 2012; Huang et al., 2013). Immigrants are often sorted into low-paying and low-skilled jobs (Kalin & Rayko,1978; Teló et al., 2022), although they are often more highly skilled than their first language–speaking counterparts (Roberts, 2021). As a result, many second language speakers find it difficult to thrive in the workplace (Kim et al., 2019, 2022; Takino, 2020).
While previous research has investigated the impact on employment of speaking with an accent, we know of no research that has examined the perspective of business, commerce, or communication instructors and students—and especially those from university HR programs—about their experiences with accent bias discussions in the classroom. Put simply, there is no documented evidence about the coverage of accent bias in HR training, even though it is broadly recognized that fostering language communication and assessment skills is among the top priorities for business communication and HR/talent specialists (Burke-Smalley, 2014; Charles & Marschan-Piekkari, 2002; C. L. Engstrom, 2019; C. Engstrom & Helens-Hart, 2023). The current study therefore fills that gap through interviews with students and instructors from 4-year HR undergraduate programs in two large Canadian cities, focusing on their experience with accent bias in HR training with the goal of laying the groundwork for the development of supplemental training on the topic. In addition to being among the top four immigrant destinations in Canada (Statistics Canada, 2022), City A (1.3 million) and City B (1.7 million) are comparable in size and proportion of immigrants (about 30% per city), and both are characterized by cultural diversity, with around 250 ethnic communities reported in each city (Statistics Canada, 2022). However, the cities differ in degree of societal bilingualism. Located in French-speaking Canada, City B is effectively a French–English bilingual city, whereas City A is largely unilingually English, with only about 7% of the population interacting in both English and another language (Statistics Canada, 2023). We had no specific prediction as to the extent of City A and City B students’ and instructors’ exposure to and focus on accent bias in their respective programs, apart from the expectation that the bilingual context of City B, where proficiency in both English and French is often required for various occupations, might reveal a stronger focus on accents and language than the predominantly monolingual context of City A. This study was guided by the following exploratory question: What are students’ and instructors’ perspectives on linguistic diversity and accent bias in two Canadian undergraduate HR programs?
Materials and Methods
This project received approval from the ethics boards of two participating universities. The participants in this study were six instructors and 14 students who responded to calls for volunteers to participate in interviews on linguistic diversity and accent bias. They came from 4-year HR (Bachelor of Commerce) programs at English-medium universities in City A and City B. The programs are housed in reputable business schools at comprehensive public universities, both of which are similar in size, with over 30,000 registered students of whom approximately 20% are international students. Participant demographics are presented in Table 1.
Participants.
Students’ future professional goals included a career in change or project management (3), event planning (2), communications and branding (2), owning a business such as a consulting firm (3), and various HR positions, for instance, with a focus on education and labor law (4). Collectively, the instructors reported having diverse domestic and international HR experience in the public and private sector in addition to academic expertise in various HR-relevant fields, including industrial and organizational psychology, management, organizational behavior and theory, and leadership. In their respective HR programs, they were teaching a variety of courses related to all aspects of HR (i.e., health and safety, recruitment, DEI, HR management), and were conducting research on leadership, entrepreneurship, use of AI algorithms, and interpersonal relationships. Given the exploratory nature of this work and the use of interviews (rather than large-scale surveys) for data collection, a small, purposeful sample was considered adequate to enable us to formulate initial propositions about accent bias training in Canadian HR programs (Crouch & McKenzie, 2006).
Each participant was interviewed individually via Zoom (approximately 30 minutes) using a set of 14 questions (see Appendix A) with minimal adaptation for student and instructor participants (e.g., changing the wording to reflect learning vs. teaching experience). The initial eight brief questions focused on participants’ HR background and training (used to create a descriptive participant profile). The next three questions, which contributed to the present data set, targeted participants’ experience with accent bias in HR curriculum (e.g., In your university coursework/teaching, do your instructors/course materials discuss issues related to how a potential employee speaks and how it plays a role in hiring/retention decisions?). Three additional questions (not focused here) targeted participants’ personal experience with accent bias and their awareness of accent bias. 3 To follow up on emerging themes, participants were encouraged to describe their preferred accent bias training and express opinion about its relevance to university-level HR training.
Data Analysis
All interviews were transcribed and coded thematically in MAXQDA 2022 (VERBI Software, 2021), following an iterative process (Gibson & Brown, 2009). The categories emerged from the data, where an initially large set of labeled comments was combined, through comparative analysis within and across transcripts (Strauss & Corbin, 1998), under thematically similar categories around the three main interview themes. To obtain initial coding reliability, an independent coder recoded a random sample of 20% of the data (four transcripts), yielding 79% agreement, which was not unexpected given the subjective nature of qualitative analysis (Pope & Mays, 2006). All coding decisions were then revisited jointly by the coders who derived the final set of categories (described below and summarized in Table 2) and subsequently recoded all transcripts using the updated coding scheme. Intercoder agreement for an additional four transcripts (20% of the data), which were different from those used to establish initial reliability, reached 93% for the coding of category membership and 86% agreement for the coding of category frequency.
Accent Bias Coverage in HR Curriculum: Frequency and Distribution of Comments.
Note. Distribution refers to numbers of students (out of 7) and instructors (out of 3) providing relevant comments per coded category. The Yes and No coded responses under the “Accent bias focused in HR training” category are not mutually exclusive because participants could provide comments compatible with each perspective.
Results
With respect to the coverage of accent bias in HR coursework and teaching materials, participants’ comments generally followed three broad categories: (a) their experience with accent bias in HR training (with a total of 39 comments), (b) their descriptions of other relevant topics targeted through training (with a total of 39 comments), and (c) their suggestions for improving HR instruction (with a total of 35 comments). Table 2 summarizes the outcome of data coding, separately for City A and City B participants, where the frequency values refer to the number of coded comments per category and the distribution values indicate the number of students (out of seven per location) and instructors (out of three per location) contributing relevant comments to each category.
Focus on Accent Bias in HR Training
A common sentiment expressed by all was the general absence of explicit coverage of accent bias in HR coursework and teaching materials. Of the 39 comments coded under this theme, there were only two where an explicit instructional focus on accent bias was mentioned. In one comment, an instructor mentioned that “one chapter [in her course] was international HR management, so [they] did . . . touch base on the importance of language but . . . didn’t cover much about the potential bias” (City B Instructor 1). The other comment came from a student who described his instructional experience with accent bias as follows: Yeah . . . they talked about a lot of biases regarding like race and culture, and how that kind of intersects with language and how there can be like unconscious biases . . . and how that can sometimes come hand in hand with a heavy language that gives you a preconceived notion that . . . someone is not as intelligent as they are just because they may have an accent. (City A Student 6)
Although issues of accent rarely came up in their teaching, instructors were certainly aware of these issues. One instructor, for example, lamented that she had few opportunities to incorporate a focus on accent in her teaching but acknowledged that she herself speaks English with “a thick accent” and that she reminds her students to flag any problems of understanding so that she can “speak slower and louder and . . . write down some of the terms that may be more difficult to understand” (City B Instructor 1). Another instructor provided examples of negative accent-driven stereotyping against second language university professors and students and showed concern about the employability of some of his non-Canadian students while also emphasizing that students must be taught that “not everybody’s going to be perfect in their language” (City A Instructor 1).
Three instructors avoided an explicit focus on accent in their teaching “so that students wouldn’t feel stressed because of their language skills in general” (City B Instructor 2) or to create a safe space for students to thrive because some second language speakers “hide” in class, unwilling to show their [linguistic] “deficiency” (City A Instructor 2). In fact, one instructor avoided issues of language or accent altogether for fear of making her students feel self-conscious about their speech when it comes to hiring, explaining her decision through the very research that demonstrates how speakers from some language backgrounds do not have “a good accent” and are downgraded in hiring decisions (City B Instructor 3). “What if I have a [second language speaker from the background discussed in the research on accent bias] in my class, you know?” she explained. Finally, one instructor, who does not address language in his teaching, noted that the role of accent gets folded into such topics as personality traits, values, and working styles, concluding that accent bias “probably does deserve its own specific consideration” (City A Instructor 3).
Other Topics Focused in HR Training
Even though accent bias was not directly targeted in teaching, some participants—more so in City B (with 26 comments out of a total of 39 in this category) than City A (with 13 comments)—discussed having received (or given in the case of instructors) other types of bias-related training or awareness-raising activities (see Table 2). From the students’ perspective, these largely included a focus on a general understanding of “what discrimination really is . . . and how it affects especially HR,” “the difference between direct and indirect discrimination, the protected groups in Canada” (City B Student 5), and general notions such as “that you couldn’t make a decision and not hire someone based on something that’s not concrete” (City A Student 3). One instructor, for example, emphasized awareness training in her teaching, targeting biases “related to how we talk, how we look, how old we are, our gender” to reinforce “the importance of being . . . evidence-based and using the appropriate criteria for guiding the interview process” (City B Instructor 2).
Among the themes relevant to HR training, a prominent topic emerging in a quarter of all comments concerned language testing in HR practice (see Table 2). According to students, language testing was rarely mentioned in class: “No, I don’t remember any of those courses talking about that” (City A Student 7), “Very rarely, I think I’ve only had one course that maybe skimmed over it, and just said, like language proficiency is done, sometimes” (City B Student 6). In fact, students’ knowledge about language tests came from their field experience, inasmuch as they either had used language tests themselves (City B Student 2) or saw HR specialists use them (City A Student 6). According to one instructor, he covered other types of tests in his teaching, including “personality tests and intelligence tasks . . . and then talked about potential . . . biases and issues with [them]” (City A Instructor 3). Another instructor noted that she did not cover language tests “because it was not part of the textbook,” explaining that “it’s a small topic and we just brushed over it [in discussing one example], we didn’t really go into the details” (City B Instructor 3).
Suggestions for Improving HR Instruction
Although an explicit focus on accent bias in HR training was scarce, most participants shared an opinion on the relevance and scope of such training, with City B participants providing 20 comments and City A participants contributing 15 comments to this coded category (see Table 2). Some felt that accent-focused training would be beneficial and relevant. For instance, one instructor argued that the HR curriculum needs updating to reflect the new reality where “the society is more diverse [with] people speaking different languages” so that students can be made aware of various biases, acknowledging that in her HR program they “don’t have too much of the international element in the courses” (City B Instructor 1). A similar thought was echoed by another instructor who saw the potential of including accent bias as part of instruction emphasizing the transparency and accountability of HR decision making, where there are clear criteria and evidence helping HR specialists “avoid letting bias creep in” (City B Instructor 2). In a similar vein, another instructor considered a focus on accent bias within a broader context of training HR specialists, where “potentially we’re building, you know, it’s not tolerance, we build the flexibility” (City A Instructor 1).
Students uniformly echoed these viewpoints, suggesting that accent bias should be treated “in the same category [as discrimination] based on age or religion” (City B Student 3), arguing that it is unfair to “[take] away talent and employment opportunity from people simply because you don’t like the way that they’re structuring their sentences or the way that they’re speaking” (City B Student 6) and commenting that they are largely unaware of what it feels like to be “in the position where somebody has told me that my accent has gotten in the way” (City A Student 7). Unlike instructors, students provided concrete ways of implementing accent-awareness activities, proposing to hold in-person or virtual workshops, either as information sessions or communication opportunities “with people sharing past experiences” (City A Student 4) or through “one-on-one sessions for students to get used to different accents” (City A Student 5).
Finally, instructors’ comments about accent bias and its relevance to HR training revealed a nuanced picture of how an employee’s language (and accent in particular) factors into workplace communication and HR training. Two instructors, for instance, while being aware of accent bias in the workplace, described accented speech as related to anxiety or nervousness during interviews (City B Instructor 2), which is consistent with that instructor’s avoidance of explicit discussion of accent for fear of making her students anxious, or as part of a general language barrier in workplace communication, where individuals from different backgrounds might encounter difficulty understanding each other for cultural reasons (City B Instructor 1). A conflation of second language or regional accents and language skills was also apparent in one instructor’s description of negative stereotypes held by some university faculty about second language speakers, where students are portrayed as using “very, very short sentences and they don’t have many adjectives or adverbs . . . you know who write like bad engineers” (City A Instructor 2). Another instructor argued that accents can be disregarded in some cases such as when recruiting “the best programmers in the world” but that accents might be a key aspect of decision making for other positions involving a strong emphasis on communication such as a salesperson (City B Instructor 3). Perhaps more controversially, the same instructor argued that it is beneficial for some job applicants to take accent reduction courses because “getting rid of accents is much easier than training the interviewer to understand every accent,” even though accent was consistently discussed throughout the interview in reference to minimizing unfair judgment based on how a person speaks rather than enabling interlocutors understand every speaker.
Discussion
The goal of this study was to examine the extent of instruction in linguistic diversity and accent bias in HR programs in two of Canada’s most culturally diverse cities, City A and City B, with the aim of understanding the extent of second language accent and accent bias coverage in business communication at university. Overall, we found that HR coursework and materials in both programs generally do not focus explicitly on the nature of second language accents or accent bias. Indeed, there was minimal evidence to suggest that issues of language and accent might feature prominently in HR coursework, as a dedicated topic, apart from sometimes being mentioned in passing in lectures or textbook materials. Even though the two cities differ in the degree of societal bilingualism, there were no differences in the coverage of accent bias in the programs. The insights provided by instructors, however, point to underlying beliefs about accents more generally that may have affected their decisions not to discuss the topic. Instructors in City A, all first language speakers of English, the dominant language spoken in that city, tended to focus on accent as a “deficiency” or a lack of mastery of the language. In City B, which is known for high levels of bilingualism, the instructors were all second language speakers of English. These individuals indicated a general concern for fellow second language speakers, who may feel self-conscious about speaking with an accent and who may ultimately be discriminated against in the workplace, a concern that echoes similar sentiments expressed by university students and instructors about the challenges faced by second language speakers enrolled in business communication courses (McGann et al., 2020). Nevertheless, these beliefs shared by second language speakers—no matter how helpful in fostering a common identity—may perpetuate accent bias, in the sense that they tend to reinforce, rather than undo, the association between people’s speech and how they are perceived in professional contexts. This unhelpful association between speakers’ accent and their professional performance is further solidified through the unfortunate descriptions of accented speech in some business communication texts, which point to “problems” and “confusion” (Mehra, 2011) or “hamper[ed] understanding” (Stegu, 2017) caused by speaking with a second language accent.
While data in the current study come from two Canadian programs, the insights shared by the participants are likely indicative of broader trends across HR programs and work in the field of business and professional communication more broadly speaking (Hartley et al., 2023; Mautner & Rainer, 2017). Despite the lack of inclusion of accent bias in their HR courses, students and instructors alike were able to provide examples of how it plays out in the real world. This was especially true among City B students, whose experiences living and studying in a bilingual city may either expose them to accent bias more frequently or may lead to a heightened awareness of such issues. Students indicated a desire to address accent bias and to learn about the use of language tests in their HR courses, and they pointed to both the relevance and benefits of such instruction, which echoes multiple calls from students and faculty across different contexts to enhance both the quantity and the quality of instruction targeting the skills required for future professionals to communicate effectively (Frei et al., 2023; Sharma, 2021).
Conclusion
HR programs prepare professionals who recruit, train, and manage a workforce in order to meet the needs of a given organization. The nature of that workforce is currently in flux, with a large number of labor migrants applying for jobs (McAuliffe & Triandafyllidou, 2021). Many of these highly qualified applicants will end up working in their new countries in their second language, which they speak with a noticeable accent. Although a second language accent is not related to an individual’s ability to perform their job well, research has shown that second language speakers tend to be penalized both in the hiring process (De La Zerda & Hopper, 1979; Roessel et al., 2019; Roberts, 2021) and after they are on the job (Hosoda et al., 2012; Huang et al., 2013). As in previous studies investigating linguistic diversity in the workplace, the current study has shown that many consider linguistic diversity to be related to issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI; Ciuk et al., 2023). Nonetheless, DEI discussions most often fail to focus on the role of language. It is therefore essential that HR programs explicitly address linguistic diversity and incorporate dedicated accent bias training into their programs to ensure that current and potential employees are assessed fairly.
Such training should highlight activities and experiences that have been shown to reduce and mitigate bias (May, 2008). The first step might involve tasks that focus on Ciuk et al.’s (2023) notion of thinking differently about linguistic diversity. We recommend that training involve accent education by focusing on the nature of accents, their place in society, and the role that they play in stereotyping (Munro et al., 2006), and also on the extent to which it is possible for listeners to understand accented speech (Derwing et al., 2002). In the next step, training should also consist of tasks that encourage participants to reflect upon linguistic diversity (Ciuk et al., 2023) by taking the perspective of second language speakers. This can include writing about the likely experiences of a second language speaker (Weyant, 2007), performing a task in their second language (Hansen et al., 2014), or completing and reflecting on a task that a second language speaker is expected to perform (Taylor Reid et al., 2021). In addition, we recommend that training include cooperative activities that pair first and second language speakers (Staples et al., 2014). Contextualized activities that require negotiation highlight the reciprocal nature of communication and can break down cultural and linguistic barriers by requiring conversation partners to engage as individuals (Kassis-Henderson et al., 2018). The goal of such accent education is inclusion: the development of positive attitudes toward language varieties, less likelihood of separation of individuals along the lines of first and second language users, and ultimately reduced discrimination toward individuals based on how they speak (Ciuk et al., 2023).
The current study uncovered several possible misconceptions about accent bias that extend beyond the lack of linguistic diversity and accent bias training in HR classrooms. The first is the belief that an accent is a sign of language proficiency. Research has, in fact, demonstrated that many individuals who speak with a second language accent can produce language that is indistinguishable from that of first language speakers in terms of grammar, vocabulary, and the use of idioms (Derwing & Munro, 2009). Even though a strong accent can sometimes interfere with communication, it does not always lead to comprehension difficulty (Derwing & Munro, 2009), and people are generally fast (in a matter of a few minutes, in fact) at accommodating to the speech of unfamiliar interlocutors, regardless if they are speakers of regional or second language varieties (Baese-Berk, 2018). The second misconception is the assumption that language tests play an important role in assessing a candidate’s suitability for employment. Students in the current study indicated both lack of in-depth knowledge and a desire to learn about the types of language tests that exist and how they can be used in the field. A review of HR-approved language tests indicates that most do not focus on the language required to perform a given job (including the functional aspects of language performance and understanding the speaker) as separate from a speaker’s accent (Derwing, 2016). The third misconception is that accent—and thus accent bias—is a taboo topic that causes anxiety and discomfort and therefore should not be discussed in class. Avoidance is a counterproductive approach to dealing with this very real issue. We argue that the most effective way to tackle the unjust treatment associated with accent bias is to discuss issues of language and accent upfront. Engaging students in dialogue regarding case studies and personal experiences with accent bias can ensure that the issues are acknowledged and can ultimately be dealt with in meaningful ways.
Finally, the interviews uncovered the notion that accents might be perceived as a disorder and the belief that accent reduction training is effective at eliminating them. Research has not only demonstrated that accent reduction courses are usually ineffective but also that they are often counterproductive in their fear-mongering and false claims (Derwing & Munro, 2009; Thomson, 2014). 4 While speaking may be the most important skill in the workplace (Çal et al., 2023), it is important to remember that everyone speaks with an accent and that accents provide listeners with information about where a person comes from, regardless of whether that accent is in one’s first language (e.g., Newfoundland English, Tokyo Japanese, Berlin German) or any other language that they speak (e.g., an American accent in Spanish, a French accent in English, a Korean accent in Italian). Like skin color or facial features, an accent provides information about a person’s heritage and should not play a role in HR decision making.
Increased labor migration brings with it new opportunities and diversity of ideas, experience, and working styles. It also results in linguistic diversity, as applicants and employees enter the workforce with a range of first languages and, as a result, a spectrum of accents in the lingua franca of the workplace environment. Linguistic bias often creates barriers for individuals who speak with an accent, making it harder for them to access and participate in the work for which they are qualified and to receive appropriate compensation. Our goal was to uncover perspectives on linguistic diversity and accent bias in two Canadian undergraduate business programs. Such programs prepare the future gatekeepers to the labor market. While previous research has examined the obstacles faced by second language speakers in the workforce, the current study demonstrated that instructors and students in these programs are aware of accent bias on the one hand but that they do not have the opportunity to explore its causes or its impacts in their courses on the other hand. Reasons for the lack of coverage in coursework include a reliance on textbooks that do not address the topic, concerns surrounding discomfort and anxiety, especially on the part of students and instructors who are themselves second language speakers, and the assumption that appropriate resources exist for assessing the language abilities of applicants and employees. The study uncovered several common mistaken beliefs about second language accents in the workplace, and we have shared suggestions for how to combat these misconceptions and to address accent bias in university courses. Presenting students with the facts about accents and encouraging them to humanize second language speakers by imagining their experiences and engaging with them on an individual level can go a long way toward mitigating accent bias.
Limitations and Future Work
Based on the current findings, which demonstrate a lack of treatment of linguistic diversity and accent bias in HR programs in two of Canada’s most diverse cities, we recommend that future research focus on the curricular content of a wider range of business, commerce, and communication programs across the globe. Such work might involve an analysis of existing course materials such as textbooks that are used in university business, commerce, and communication courses and may extend to continuing education programs, as these also play an important role in training professionals, including future HR and talent managers. Subsequent studies may also be expanded in terms of the number and type instructors (e.g., full-time researchers and instructors vs. adjunct instructors whose primary work is in the HR field) and trainees (e.g., those in university programs vs. certificate programs vs. professional development) to be interviewed with the goal of providing a fuller picture of the coverage of linguistic diversity and accent bias in the training of a range of business professionals. Subsequent work might also focus on the extent to which accent bias plays a role in workplace decision making, for example, by manipulating the strength of second language accents among a pool of potential applicants. Finally, we recommend that the effectiveness of accent bias training be tested in workplace settings to determine the extent to which confronting biases, educating participants about the realities of accents, and encouraging perspective-taking and collaborative exchange with second language speakers might play a role in mitigating such biases.
Footnotes
Appendix A. Interview Questions
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This paper draws on research supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
