Perceived Accent Discrimination: Psychosocial Consequences and Perceived Legitimacy

Abstract

Prior research has documented that nonstandard ways of speaking can be subject to discrimination, and that nonstandard speakers are aware of the biases toward their accents. However, few studies have investigated the consequences of this for the stigmatized speaker. The objectives of this study are to explore how perceived legitimacy of discrimination moderates the relationship between perceived accent discrimination and the following two variables: (a) situated francophone identity and (b) French language confidence. Participants were nonnative (n = 113) and native (n = 225) speakers of French who completed questionnaires assessing the above constructs. Moderated regression analyses revealed that language discrimination is significantly and negatively related to language confidence. For native speakers from a high vitality region, legitimacy was found to moderate the relation between language discrimination and identity. When discrimination was perceived to be less legitimate, the relation between perceived discrimination and situated identity was positive.