# data[].attributes.body
Since learning about Cockney Rhyming Slang as part of my group's Linguistic Profiling Media Summary, I've seen it in multiple places - most memorably in this meme and in Russell Brand's stand up special on Netflix. The top text of the meme reads, "'ave a Butchers," which means "have a look." The connection between the two statements lies in the phrase, "Butcher's Hook," and in the syntax of rhyming slang which replaces a word (look) with part of a phrase (Butcher's) that rhymes with the word being replaced. The Cockney dialect is spoken around East London. It would be difficult for someone unfamiliar with the dialect to be able to understand what is being said here.
Domains: Speaking, Listening

# data[].attributes.body
In the Linguistic Profiling Media Summary assignment, my group considered Ray Winstone, and the way that his Cockney Dialect was described in the comments section on Youtube. We found that many of the commenters (and people in general) associate speaking the Cockney Dialect with lower levels of education.
Domains: Speaking

# data[].attributes.headline
Language and Capital: Language Choice, Linguistic Capital, and Symbolic Domination in the European Union

# data[].attributes.subject
Language and Capital: Language Choice, Linguistic Capital, and Symbolic Domination in the European Union

# data[].attributes.body
In class we discussed the different types of capital and the impact of language on capital. This artifact discusses the symbolic power that comes with speaking an, "official" language in the EU, and the unwillingness of member states to grant other languages recognition. The author, Eugene Loos states that speaking languages that are considered valuable affords the speaker significant power in society.
Domains: Speaking, Writing

# data[].attributes.headline
Discussion: Connection Between Class, Language, Culture

# data[].attributes.subject
Discussion: Connection Between Class, Language, Culture

# data[].attributes.body
This discussion was in regards to how parents of public schools used language to communicate their opinions in a dispute over public school districting in Brooklyn. Parents were quoted as using language to protest, threaten, and inquire. This dispute also illustrates the impact of having social capital on how one is able to communicate.
Domains: Speaking Listening

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Module 6 Discussion - Connection Between Class, Language, Literature

# data[].attributes.headline
Response to Journey of an International Student

# data[].attributes.subject
Response to Journey of an International Student

# data[].attributes.body
I read about Exel, and considered how his experience in school differs from mine because of him being an ELL. I found that his background as an ELL and immigrant caused much stress on him that isn't present for native speakers. His experience reading and writing in school were vastly different than what I'm used to because the difference in language acted as a barrier.
Domains: Reading Writing

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Response to Journey of an International Student

# data[].attributes.body
This discussion asked us to express and justify our opinions regarding if speakers of nonstandard or local dialects should be put in ESOL programs. I said yes because it's important that they be fluent in the standard dialect in order to maximize the ability to speak, read, and write. Responses from the class were pretty divided on this topic.
Domains: Reading Writing Speaking

# data[].attributes.body
We were asked to discuss challenges associated with speaking African American English presented in two articles. Signifying as a Scaffold discussed the impact of past experiences on interpretation of novels. The articles introduced signifying, which is a way of speaking particular to AAVE
Domains: Speaking, Listening, Reading

# data[].attributes.body
My group discussed fairness in assessment of the SAT by examining SAT Practice Test 8 and the technical manual used to write the test. We found that language was largely neutral as was the goal stated in the technical manual, but the lack of accommodations for speakers of nonstandard dialects may be a source of bias. We discussed how language might influence reading and writing on assessments.
Domains: Reading Writing

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
SAT 5 Standardized Assessment Analysis Group Summary

# data[].attributes.headline
Code Switching: Raheem Sterling and Usain Bolt

# data[].attributes.subject
Code Switching: Raheem Sterling and Usain Bolt

# data[].attributes.body
Raheem Sterling is an English soccer player who was born in Jamaica. He typically speaks with a standard British Accent. When he was speaking on the phone with Usain Bolt, he code switched to a jamaican accent so that he could better communicate with Bolt. I captured some of the comments in the attached document.
Domains: Speaking Listening

# data[].attributes.body
Joey Bada$$ is known for writing songs about what he sees wrong with society. Music is a channel that we often see used to distribute social messages. In many cases, dialect and language used in the song is decided by who the song is meant to influence, and who can understand the song.
"Rule one: this microphone's a weapon"
Domains: Listening Speaking

# data[].attributes.headline
An Opinion: "Let's stop talking About the 30 Million Word Gap"

# data[].attributes.subject
An Opinion: "Let's stop talking About the 30 Million Word Gap"

# data[].attributes.body
This artifact offers a critique on conclusions drawn from discussion of the "30 Million Word Gap." Anya Kamenetz, the guest on the talk show believes that Hart and Risley's results regarding the implications of wealth on language acquisition should not be taken too seriously because of flaws in the study.
Domains: Listening, Speaking

# data[].attributes.body
We discussed why preserving languages may be important, and how people that are attempting to preserve languages are going about doing it. This artifact is a project undertaken by GoCompare in an attempt to preserve at least a part of as many endangered languages as possible. The site consists of recordings of people in different languages saying the phrase, "A different language is a different vision of life."
Domains: Speaking, Listening

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Within the next eighty years, 50% of the world's languages could be extinct. Listen to recordings of some of the world's most endangered languages: https://www.gocompare.com/travel-insurance/endangered-languages/ via @GoCompare

# data[].attributes.headline
Fairness: Guidelines for the Assessment of English Language Learners

# data[].attributes.subject
Fairness: Guidelines for the Assessment of English Language Learners

# data[].attributes.body
We discussed fairness in assessment with regards to language and ELL's in great depth. This artifacts offers guidelines to best assess ELL's academic proficiency with minimal bias against language or dialect. It's very important to eliminate language/dialect bias from assessments. The problem isn't a simple one to solve, but the existence of guides like this are steps in the right direction.
Domains: Listening Speaking Reading Writing

# data[].attributes.headline
Linguistic Profiling: Is Your Diction Grounds for Discrimination?

# data[].attributes.subject
Linguistic Profiling: Is Your Diction Grounds for Discrimination?

# data[].attributes.body
We started off the semester by discussing linguistic profiling. We looked at John Baugh's social experiments of calling real estate agencies with different dialects and noting the responses. This artifact discusses something similar - how may your dialect affect the listener's perception of you during a job interview?
Domains: Speaking Listening

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Is Your Diction Grounds for Discrimination? - Careercast.com Diversity Network

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
You know how it goes when you're looking for a job: You email out a lot of resumes and wait to hear back. A few days later, you're still waiting. After about a week, you start calling the companies where you applied, asking each one if they got your resume, if the position is still open, and when they're going to call you in for an interview.

# data[].attributes.headline
Linguistic Adoration: Does Your Accent Make You Sound Smarter?

# data[].attributes.subject
Linguistic Adoration: Does Your Accent Make You Sound Smarter?

# data[].attributes.body
In class, we discussed linguistic adoration several times. Certain dialects are certainly associated with higher levels of education - this artifacts discusses the impact of dialect on the listener's perception of a speaker.
Domains: Speaking, Listening

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
They say you should always dress for success, but should that extend to the way you speak?

We're not adverse to dressing appropriately to make a good impression at work or for a social engagement, even if it means wearing clothes we wouldn't normally choose to put on. Is changing your accent to get ahead any different?

There are some famous names who have done it: Margaret Thatcher swapped her Lincolnshire accent for a posher one, adopting the standard 'received pronunciation' (or RP), which at the time was thought to be more in keeping with a position of political power.

More recently, Tony Blair and George Osborne took their own accents in the opposite direction, introducing more working class "mockney" inflections in their upper class speech, in an attempt to enhance their perceived approachability. With such obvious changes to their accents, they were roundly mocked for lacking authenticity.

A standard dialect is simply one local variety of a language which has become most publicly accepted in social institutions such as the media, the law and government. In many Anglophone countries, the dialect spoken by most of the population is considered to be standard, such as Standard American or Standard Australian English. In the UK, however, the so-called standard - known as RP or the Queen's English - is spoken natively by less than 3%. Yet, it's unreasonable to suppose most Britons are speaking their own language incorrectly.

Linguist and author Rosina Lippi-Green refers to this as "the standard language ideology", where many people believe the dialect with the highest social prestige is also the only correct and valid form of the language. In fact, all dialects and accents are linguistically valid.

Some professionals whose regional accents are deemed non-standard by their employers, like these trainee teachers from the north of England, can find themselves under pressure to tone down their native accents to improve their job and progression prospects.

There are some workplaces, such as call centres, that even offer accent training programmes for their staff. Some promote regional accents that are widely seen as more trustworthy, calming or pleasant, such as Scottish English or Southern American. Today, it is not as simple as moving your speech patterns up the social ladder to boost your career prospects.
How far is too far?
But when we examine the reasons why anyone would consider changing their accent, we uncover a raft of biases that shouldn't necessarily be reinforced.

First, it's not exactly easy to put on a new accent for work and take it off when home like you would a new suit, even if you're a highly trained actor.

No doubt, we find some accents more entertaining or more amusing than others. But accents aren't just purely about how we speak - they are one of the most distinctive cues for where we come from. They immediately mark out who we are and they form a core part of our identity. Entire stereotypes have built up around different accents - New Yorkers are rude, British RP speakers are educated, Yorkshire speakers are trustworthy, Southern Americans are pleasant, and Birmingham speakers, depending on who you ask, either sound melodic or like criminals. Accents can be funny things... until they're not.

Whether you're from Birmingham or Brooklyn, working class or the upper crust, a second language speaker or native-born, accents say a lot more about someone than you might expect.

Studies have shown it can take just 30 milliseconds of speech - enough to say "hello" - for listeners to identify a person's ethnic or cultural background as being different from their own and make snap judgements about the kind of person they might be, whether positive or negative.

Thanks to this kind of bias, accents can be a shortcut that allows us to "linguistically profile" others based on the stereotypes of their regional backgrounds, class, gender or ethnicity. Without even realising, we can use this to discriminate. This can make it hard for marginalised and minority speakers to find a job, gain an education, or even in find a home.

Since the 1960s, research has reinforced how listeners can attribute all kinds of unrelated personal traits to a speaker - from height, physical attractiveness, social status, intelligence, education, good character, sociability, even criminality - just based on how they sound. Like in Baugh's test, experiments present subjects with different "guises" or accents performed by the same person. Listeners invariably respond differently when faced with different accents, even if the person speaking hasn't changed. In the real world, these biases can have far-reaching repercussions for those who speak with a socially stigmatised accent.

It's thanks to these language attitudes that for some, an accent becomes a source of cultural pride, but for others, a secret source of shame. But these attitudes about the way we sound are so pervasive that even non-standard speakers may judge their own dialects and accents just as harshly as others do, perpetuating the erroneous belief that their native speech is "incorrect" and needs to change.

In one test, subjects were shown two different pictures, one of a Caucasian person and one of an Asian person. The same audio of a native speaker talking in standard American English was played as participants looked at each image.

Subjects had significantly more trouble understanding the speech when looking at the Asian "speaker". Some even went so far as to identify a non-existent foreign accent, showing how social biases bleed into our cognitive interpretations of language. So, it's clear there are other social factors that play into how job candidates and employees are judged, even if you end up sounding posher than the Queen.

But practically speaking, if you look the part and find it necessary and productive to lose a stigmatised accent it's possible to do successfully on an individual level. Many people have, but at what cost? Rather than advising people to change a core part of their identity, it's important that all of us become more aware of our hidden linguistic prejudices. On a wider community level, for many, changing an accent isn't a viable solution to dealing with discrimination in the workplace. In the long run, tweaking how we sound to improve our career prospects? It just doesn't work.
Chi Luu is a computational linguist and contributor to JSTOR Daily's Lingua Obscura column.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Does your accent make you sound smarter?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
They say you should always dress for success, but should that extend to the way you speak? We're not adverse to dressing appropriately to make a good impression at work or for a social engagement, even if it means wearing clothes we wouldn't normally choose to put on.