its not what you say

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Page 1: Its Not What You Say

It's Not What You Say...This article was originally published on the Acclaro blog.

Category: Global Trends...but how you say it, apparently. If you have a foreign accent, it is harder for native speakers to

understand what you are saying and they are less likely to find what the person says as truthful,

researchers found in a study (pdf) conducted by the University of Chicago last month, with

funding from the National Science Foundation.

“They misattribute the difficulty of understanding the speech to the truthfulness of the

statements," explained Boaz Keysar, a Professor of Psychology at the University of Chicago and

an expert on communication. 

   

Photo credit: timparkinson

How did they find this out?

American participants were asked to judge the truthfulness of trivia statements by native or

non-native speakers of English, such as, “A giraffe can go without water longer than a camel

can.” The purpose was to test the impact of accent on credibility. 

To minimize the effect on simply prejudice, researchers told listeners that the information in the

statements was prepared for the speakers, and was not based on the speakers’ own knowledge.

Despite knowing the speakers were reciting from a script, the participants judged as less truthful

the statements coming from people with foreign accents.

Page 1: It's Not What You Say... Copyright © Acclaro 2012

Page 2: Its Not What You Say

On a truthfulness scale prepared for the experiment, the participants gave native speakers a

score of 7.5, people with mild accents a score of 6.95 and people with heavy accents a score of

6.84. The severity of a person’s accent also affected the score; statements made by speakers

with heavier accents were rated as less truthful than those with milder accents.

In another experiment, researchers told the subjects about the study to see if awareness

reduces the impact. It did have some effect: participants rated statements with mild accent just

as truthful as statements by native speakers, but they still rated heavily accented statements as

less truthful.

We always knew that accent is a big factor that influences people’s perception of foreigners in a

society, but its insidious impact on credibility is a new finding, a researcher noted.

Non-native job seekers, eyewitnesses, reporters or people taking calls in foreign call centers are

some of the people to which this new insight might apply. If they have a moderate to heavy

accent, they'll have a harder time being perceived as truthful, concluded Shiri Lev-Ari, lead

author of "Why Don’t We Believe Non-native Speakers? The Influence of Accent on Credibility."

About Acclaro: Acclaro is an international translation and localization company that helps the world’s leading brands succeed across cultures. We translate websites, marketing campaigns, documents and software to give clients an authentic voice in key language markets.

North America: 1-866-468-5106 Worldwide: +1-914-468-0222 www.acclaro.com [email protected]

Page 2: It's Not What You Say... Copyright © Acclaro 2012