cows are magnificent I mean there’s just
so much to love my love for cow began in
the quasi heart of South Florida’s cow
country my hometown Davie Florida I’ve
become a little bit of a of a cow
aficionado
that’s why when the famous Twitter
account uber fax tweeted about cows I
had to click the tweet read just like
humans cows Moo in accents specific to
their region a cow with an accent was
this just a load of bull apparently not
cows are actually pretty linguistically
complex cows herds dictate the accents
cows mooing but cows aren’t the only
ones with discriminating ears we to
judge each other by how we sound sounds
complicated in today’s globalized world
now more than ever and especially as
Americans we interact with other accents
in the most intimate of spaces and it’s
time we considered the way we perceive
them according to the Oxford Handbook of
language and social psychology our
brains can instantly flag an unfamiliar
accent as other which can cause mistrust
and misunderstanding the handbook
distinguishes accents across languages
like like polish or Colombian accents
from accents within languages like
southern or Boston accents the handbook
explains that both kinds of non-standard
speakers are by and large evaluated less
favorably in social situations when
making friends professional situations
when applying for high-class jobs and
even courtroom situations when defending
innocents so listen up let’s discuss
accent discrimination in its two forms
first judging accents across languages
and next judging accents within them
finally let’s
move to some solutions to open our ears
and our hearts for the next 10 minutes
or so I’m really going to be milking
these cow puns all right I get it
maybe not everyone loves milk maybe you
are an almond milk drinker it’s okay our
accents like our milk preference can
breed some discrimination let’s first
discuss the sour stigmas of foreign
accents when non natives cross languages
accent stereotypes undeniably parallel
racial ones in fact accents can be more
potent social markers than race in 2009
a Harvard University study published in
social cognition tested five-year-old
American children about who they would
choose to befriend after sound bites and
photographs of potential friends the
children almost exclusively chose those
with standard American accents selecting
consistently against alternative French
accents but inconsistently against race
maybe accents guide children social
preferences so heavily because starting
young we equate accent with character
and Disney had been doing it for ages
in 1933 doesn’t he released an animated
short film turned Disney classic the
three little pigs in it as linguist
Rosalina lippy green points out the the
big bad wolf is a Jewish peddler with
hook-nosed sidelocks brim hat and
glaring Yiddish accent after Jewish
sensibility complaints Disney changed
the wolf’s appearance but the Yiddish
accent remained for years and Disney has
yet to really kick this habit of
demonizing the foreign think about it
Mufasa
American accent Skaar foreign Peter Pan
American accent Captain Hook
foreign Aladdin American accent Jafar
foreign huh it is a whole new world
these stigmas translate into the real
world our world is marked with borders
that define and separate us but few
walls are as impenetrable as our accents
we cannot drop or swap our accents sorry
Madonna some learned firsthand
in his memoir East eats West writing in
two hemispheres Vietnamese American
Andrew Lam tells of his uncle pho lamb
at 44 though arrived in the States and
started over
after completing night school and law
school pho began his American dream but
something stopped him his tongue those
accent signaled his foreignness which
deemed him unemployable perfectly
qualified and especially insightful pho
never practice law instead he wound up
working in his wife’s grocery store
until his drinking habits claimed him
the advice he left for his nephew get
rid of your accent Americans turn a deaf
ear to foreigners you see accents aren’t
always sunshine and green pastures maybe
for the cows but unlike for cows accents
don’t go in one ear and out the other
accents impact we don’t just reject
foreign accents from other countries we
even reject homegrown accents within our
own language judgment of these accents
is no longer a question of nationalism
rather it Springs from from a localized
culture and a perceived status whether
you speak New York or southern or dude
your accent says a lot about you other
countries have similar phenomena let’s
travel across the pond there are several
dialects in the United Kingdom from
cockney to Queen’s English the play my
fair lady shows the difference that a
good British accent makes on the status
of London Knight Eliza Doolittle in the
story
fessor higgins transforms Miss Doolittle
from street rat to floristic rat by
changing her accent the story shows how
accents though potent social markers
they can’t tell you what’s in here but
we too often can’t hear them that way
and the harsh profiling of a way of
talking isn’t just fiction a 2002
researchers from Lancaster University
found that a criminal suspect in the
United Kingdom would be rated
significantly more criminal with a
Birmingham
British accent compared to a standard
British accent and Stanford linguist
John R Rickford unfortunately notices
similar biases directed against those
who sound african-american in courtrooms
in the United States as was the case for
Rachel jeantel key witness in the
Zimmerman trial widespread ignorance and
hostility about legitimate linguistic
and cultural differences in America as
Rickford explains influences the way
justice is parceled out in our country
bottom line our own accent biases taint
our perceptions of others even our own
countrymen even when it matters the most
but there’s no use crying over spilt
milk now that we understand accent
discrimination there’s a lot a we can do
to stop it
first let’s get familiar with other
accents enroll in a class whose
professor has a non-standard accent or
listen to a foreign music station in the
car the more comfortable your ear the
better and that’s a fact a recent study
from the University of Chicago published
in the Journal of Experimental
Psychology found that the leading reason
we distrust or dismiss accented speakers
may be that their speech is difficult to
process the experiment involved
participants
hearing trivia statements like ants
don’t sleep and de-rating the statements
reliability the heart of the speech was
to understand the less reliable it was
we cannot continue living with tunnel
vision or in this case tunnel listen
next let’s get educated about accent
stereotypes so we won’t fall for them in
the media Hollywood uses accents as
archetypes to imply character traits but
these don’t translate literally a
southern drawl does not mean a lack of
education or poor hygiene and a British
accent does not mean savvy cunning and
instantly more cultured than you
the majority of roles in the media
pigeonhole accents this way but as
informed viewers we can be ear witnesses
to the truth about accents and finally
if you have a non-standard foreign or
homegrown accent do not let it faze you
and allow me to share something with you
my family is Cuban American and my
grandparents have the accent that comes
with that they also have the immigrant
story that often accompanies before an
accent my immigrant grandfather who came
to this country with $5 in an education
grinded to provide for his family after
grappling the trauma associated with
fleeing one’s country learning English
and making moves he became an expert
physician at his local hospital when I
asked him how his accent impacted his
journey he told me about his colleagues
who too had Cuban accents one of his
colleagues once remarked if I didn’t
have an accent I could be king of this
hospital
my grandfather though he never became
king of anything did become chief chief
of anesthesia that is my grandfather has
since retired from his position at the
hospital but doctors across the
community admire him still because he
was a good doctor my grandfather says
that he’s proud of his accent it means
he knows more than one language and
connects him with his culture so gather
the herd today we’ve grazed both foreign
and
homegrown accents and how we interact
with them our voices are our greatest
advocates we as available community
should have a special place in our
hearts for diversity and make it our
business to be the best listeners
possible across all cultures who knew
that both cows and people have accents
the next time I see a cow in my hometown
I’ll ask the burning question hello how
do you move
[Applause]
so much to love my love for cow began in
the quasi heart of South Florida’s cow
country my hometown Davie Florida I’ve
become a little bit of a of a cow
aficionado
that’s why when the famous Twitter
account uber fax tweeted about cows I
had to click the tweet read just like
humans cows Moo in accents specific to
their region a cow with an accent was
this just a load of bull apparently not
cows are actually pretty linguistically
complex cows herds dictate the accents
cows mooing but cows aren’t the only
ones with discriminating ears we to
judge each other by how we sound sounds
complicated in today’s globalized world
now more than ever and especially as
Americans we interact with other accents
in the most intimate of spaces and it’s
time we considered the way we perceive
them according to the Oxford Handbook of
language and social psychology our
brains can instantly flag an unfamiliar
accent as other which can cause mistrust
and misunderstanding the handbook
distinguishes accents across languages
like like polish or Colombian accents
from accents within languages like
southern or Boston accents the handbook
explains that both kinds of non-standard
speakers are by and large evaluated less
favorably in social situations when
making friends professional situations
when applying for high-class jobs and
even courtroom situations when defending
innocents so listen up let’s discuss
accent discrimination in its two forms
first judging accents across languages
and next judging accents within them
finally let’s
move to some solutions to open our ears
and our hearts for the next 10 minutes
or so I’m really going to be milking
these cow puns all right I get it
maybe not everyone loves milk maybe you
are an almond milk drinker it’s okay our
accents like our milk preference can
breed some discrimination let’s first
discuss the sour stigmas of foreign
accents when non natives cross languages
accent stereotypes undeniably parallel
racial ones in fact accents can be more
potent social markers than race in 2009
a Harvard University study published in
social cognition tested five-year-old
American children about who they would
choose to befriend after sound bites and
photographs of potential friends the
children almost exclusively chose those
with standard American accents selecting
consistently against alternative French
accents but inconsistently against race
maybe accents guide children social
preferences so heavily because starting
young we equate accent with character
and Disney had been doing it for ages
in 1933 doesn’t he released an animated
short film turned Disney classic the
three little pigs in it as linguist
Rosalina lippy green points out the the
big bad wolf is a Jewish peddler with
hook-nosed sidelocks brim hat and
glaring Yiddish accent after Jewish
sensibility complaints Disney changed
the wolf’s appearance but the Yiddish
accent remained for years and Disney has
yet to really kick this habit of
demonizing the foreign think about it
Mufasa
American accent Skaar foreign Peter Pan
American accent Captain Hook
foreign Aladdin American accent Jafar
foreign huh it is a whole new world
these stigmas translate into the real
world our world is marked with borders
that define and separate us but few
walls are as impenetrable as our accents
we cannot drop or swap our accents sorry
Madonna some learned firsthand
in his memoir East eats West writing in
two hemispheres Vietnamese American
Andrew Lam tells of his uncle pho lamb
at 44 though arrived in the States and
started over
after completing night school and law
school pho began his American dream but
something stopped him his tongue those
accent signaled his foreignness which
deemed him unemployable perfectly
qualified and especially insightful pho
never practice law instead he wound up
working in his wife’s grocery store
until his drinking habits claimed him
the advice he left for his nephew get
rid of your accent Americans turn a deaf
ear to foreigners you see accents aren’t
always sunshine and green pastures maybe
for the cows but unlike for cows accents
don’t go in one ear and out the other
accents impact we don’t just reject
foreign accents from other countries we
even reject homegrown accents within our
own language judgment of these accents
is no longer a question of nationalism
rather it Springs from from a localized
culture and a perceived status whether
you speak New York or southern or dude
your accent says a lot about you other
countries have similar phenomena let’s
travel across the pond there are several
dialects in the United Kingdom from
cockney to Queen’s English the play my
fair lady shows the difference that a
good British accent makes on the status
of London Knight Eliza Doolittle in the
story
fessor higgins transforms Miss Doolittle
from street rat to floristic rat by
changing her accent the story shows how
accents though potent social markers
they can’t tell you what’s in here but
we too often can’t hear them that way
and the harsh profiling of a way of
talking isn’t just fiction a 2002
researchers from Lancaster University
found that a criminal suspect in the
United Kingdom would be rated
significantly more criminal with a
Birmingham
British accent compared to a standard
British accent and Stanford linguist
John R Rickford unfortunately notices
similar biases directed against those
who sound african-american in courtrooms
in the United States as was the case for
Rachel jeantel key witness in the
Zimmerman trial widespread ignorance and
hostility about legitimate linguistic
and cultural differences in America as
Rickford explains influences the way
justice is parceled out in our country
bottom line our own accent biases taint
our perceptions of others even our own
countrymen even when it matters the most
but there’s no use crying over spilt
milk now that we understand accent
discrimination there’s a lot a we can do
to stop it
first let’s get familiar with other
accents enroll in a class whose
professor has a non-standard accent or
listen to a foreign music station in the
car the more comfortable your ear the
better and that’s a fact a recent study
from the University of Chicago published
in the Journal of Experimental
Psychology found that the leading reason
we distrust or dismiss accented speakers
may be that their speech is difficult to
process the experiment involved
participants
hearing trivia statements like ants
don’t sleep and de-rating the statements
reliability the heart of the speech was
to understand the less reliable it was
we cannot continue living with tunnel
vision or in this case tunnel listen
next let’s get educated about accent
stereotypes so we won’t fall for them in
the media Hollywood uses accents as
archetypes to imply character traits but
these don’t translate literally a
southern drawl does not mean a lack of
education or poor hygiene and a British
accent does not mean savvy cunning and
instantly more cultured than you
the majority of roles in the media
pigeonhole accents this way but as
informed viewers we can be ear witnesses
to the truth about accents and finally
if you have a non-standard foreign or
homegrown accent do not let it faze you
and allow me to share something with you
my family is Cuban American and my
grandparents have the accent that comes
with that they also have the immigrant
story that often accompanies before an
accent my immigrant grandfather who came
to this country with $5 in an education
grinded to provide for his family after
grappling the trauma associated with
fleeing one’s country learning English
and making moves he became an expert
physician at his local hospital when I
asked him how his accent impacted his
journey he told me about his colleagues
who too had Cuban accents one of his
colleagues once remarked if I didn’t
have an accent I could be king of this
hospital
my grandfather though he never became
king of anything did become chief chief
of anesthesia that is my grandfather has
since retired from his position at the
hospital but doctors across the
community admire him still because he
was a good doctor my grandfather says
that he’s proud of his accent it means
he knows more than one language and
connects him with his culture so gather
the herd today we’ve grazed both foreign
and
homegrown accents and how we interact
with them our voices are our greatest
advocates we as available community
should have a special place in our
hearts for diversity and make it our
business to be the best listeners
possible across all cultures who knew
that both cows and people have accents
the next time I see a cow in my hometown
I’ll ask the burning question hello how
do you move
[Applause]
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