I thought Matsuda’s research and draw from the Deaf community an interesting interpretation of ‘accent’ but it works well to me. However, I think its worth remembering that different mental and learning disabilities are often characterized by differentiated “accents” like speech patterns. A few non-educated examples would be Tourretts Syndrome, or stuttering. Although the differences between linguists and speech therapists were brought up, I think it could be a useful lens to view accent-bias and discrimination through, and possibly a way to help gain some Title VII-based wins, as it may be harder for employers to explain away a bias against a learning disability. Or maybe it is very simple and excusable, as with linguistic accents, I don’t know.

The concluding stories of Americans speaking with their regionally and culturally influenced accents hit rather emotionally, especially with the intersectional story of Liz Fulton. I really liked the sentence “It is a joy of our heritage, not a shame, that in our mixing of language and sound we were ever inventive and changeable” (p 1407) which can be applied to a lot of America’s cultural diversity.