Accentism in Academic Research
Below are links to journals, projects and a selection of academic studies on accentism and linguistic discrimination. These include research on accentism in many settings including legal, institutional, and educational contexts. In many cases, the studies highlight how language can be used as a vehicle for other social judgements such as race, class or regional origins. Some articles require institutional access through a university. Please contact us if you don’t have access to something you need.
2025 – 2029
Jeffries E, Lawyer L, Cole A, Martin Vega S. (2025). Accent the positive: An investigation into five-year-olds’ implicit attitudes towards different regional accents. Journal of Child Language. [access here]
Paver, A., Wright, D., Braber, N., & Pautz, N. (2025). Stereotyped accent judgements in forensic contexts: listener perceptions of social traits and types of behaviour. Frontiers in Communication, 9, 1462013. [access here]
2020 – 2024
Hoffman, V., Kalluri, P. R., Jurafsky, D., & King, S. (2024). Dialect prejudice predicts AI decisions about people’s character, employability, and criminality. [access here]
Braber, N., Ching, J., Jarman, J., Robson, J., & Stevens, O. (2023). Accentism at the Bar. [access here – presentation]
Śliwa, M., Aguzzoli, R., Brewster, C., & Lengler, J. (2023). Workplace accentism as a postcolonial and intersectional phenomenon: The experiences of Brazilians in Portugal. Human Relations. [access here]
Spence, J. L., Hornsey, M. J., Stephenson, E. M., & Imuta, K. (2022). Is Your Accent Right for the Job? A Meta-Analysis on Accent Bias in Hiring Decisions. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 50(3), 371-386. [access here]
Dovchin, S., & Dryden, S. (2022). Unequal English accents, covert accentism and EAL migrants in Australia. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 2022(277), 33-46. [access here]
Romero-Rivas, C., Morgan, C., & Collier, T. (2022). Accentism on trial: Categorization/stereotyping and implicit biases predict harsher sentences for foreign-accented defendants. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 41(2), 191-208. [access here]
Cole, A. (2021). Disambiguating language attitudes held towards sociodemographic groups and geographic areas in South East England. Journal of Linguistic Geography, 9(1) 13-27. [access here]
Dryden, S., & Dovchin, S. (2021). Accentism: English LX users of migrant background in Australia. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 1-13. [access here]
Hegarty, P. (2020). Strangers and states: Situating accentism in a world of nations. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 39(1), 172-179. [access here]
Formanowicz, M., & Suitner, C. (2020). Sounding strange (r): Origins, consequences, and boundary conditions of sociophonetic discrimination. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 39(1), 4-21. [access here]
Roessel, J., Schoel, C., & Stahlberg, D. (2020). Modern notions of accent-ism: Findings, conceptualizations, and implications for interventions and research on nonnative accents. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 39(1), 87-111. [access here]
2015 – 2019
McKenzie, R. M., & Carrie, E. (2018). Implicit–explicit attitudinal discrepancy and the investigation of language attitude change in progress. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 39(9), 830-844. [access here]
Baratta, A. (2017). Accent and linguistic prejudice within British teacher training. Journal of language, identity & education, 16(6), 416-423. [access here]
Timming, A. R. (2017). The effect of foreign accent on employability: A study of the aural dimensions of aesthetic labour in customer-facing and non-customer-facing jobs. Work, employment and society, 31(3), 409-428. [access here]
Reinares-Lara, E., Martín-Santana, J. D., & Muela-Molina, C. (2016). The effects of accent, differentiation, and stigmatization on spokesperson credibility in radio advertising. Journal of Global Marketing, 29(1), 15-28. [access here]
2010 – 2014
Wang, Z., Arndt, A. D., Singh, S. N., Biernat, M., & Liu, F. (2013). “You Lost Me at Hello”: How and when accent-based biases are expressed and suppressed. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 30(2), 185-196. [access here]
Hosoda, M., & Stone‐Romero, E. (2010). The effects of foreign accents on employment‐related decisions. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 25(2), 113-132. [access here]
Lev-Ari, S., & Keysar, B. (2010). Why don’t we believe non-native speakers? The influence of accent on credibility. Journal of experimental social psychology, 46(6), 1093-1096. [access here]
Gluszek, A., & Dovidio, J. F. (2010). Speaking with a nonnative accent: Perceptions of bias, communication difficulties, and belonging in the United States. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 29(2), 224-234. [access here]
2000 – 2009
Munro, M. J., Derwing, T. M., & Sato, K. (2006). Salient accents, covert attitudes: Consciousness-raising for pre-service second language teachers. Prospect, 21(1), 67-79. [access here]
Dixon, J. A., Mahoney, B., & Cocks, R. (2002). Accents of guilt? Effects of regional accent, race, and crime type on attributions of guilt. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 21(2), 162-168. [access here]