21/08/2020
According to the accent prestige theory, people use a speaker’s accent as a cue to make certain judgments about the speaker’s characteristics (Giles, 1970; Fuertes, Potere, & Ramirez, 2002). The judgments formed are divided into two categories: the category of status dimension consisting of characteristics that classify the speaker in relation to perceived status, intelligence, education, social class and success; and the category of solidarity dimension which includes friendliness, kindness, and trustworthiness (Fuertes, Potere, & Ramirez, 2002). People who have a non-standard accent will give higher ratings to standard-accented speakers for the status dimension, but will give higher ratings to those who speak with an accent similar to their own for the solidarity dimension (Fuertes, Potere, & Ramirez, 2002). The status and solidarity dimensions mediate judgments about the social class and ethnicity that the accent implies, which involves prejudice based on accents that involve positive and negative stereotypes (Foon, 2001).
