Alienated By Accument

“Alienated by Accent” The manner in which a person speaks is more than just a complex order of certain intonations and slang words, it is a representation of the historical, cultural, and ethnic background of an individual. Infants learn language from their parents who learned it from their parents who learned it from their parents on and on all the way to the ancient ancestors of those infants; meaning that each person carries with their words a cultural identity that is unique to them but also shared by people of similar roots; we call this shared cultural identity a dialect. I was born in the South to a southern family with southern values and a distinct southern accent. In my elementary years I attended schools made up of a majority of
This assertion is supported by Wolfram’s statement that “people’s intelligence, capability, and character are often judged on the basis of a sentence, a few phrases, or even a single word. Studies show that children as young as 3 to 5 years of age show strong preferences—and prejudices—based on dialect variations among speakers.” (Wolfram). This evidence brings attention to the serious implications of dialect discrimination and the intolerant nature of an environment that ignores these hostile assumptions based on one’s accent. While many people will deny claims of dialect discrimination having any serious effect on people, we can see that “Matters of fairness, which Americans value, lie at the core of linguistic profiling. As with racial profiling, linguistic profiling can have devastating consequences for the US residents who are perceived to speak with an undesirable accent or dialect.” (Baugh). The very nature of any form of discrimination sees to it that a minority group (whether racial, lingual, religious, etc.) is dealt with unfairly and underrepresented to ensure that the ignorance that allows for discrimination to blossom continues; and that is no different with dialect
“[Linguistic] profiling is a skill that too often is used to discriminate and diminish the [speaker’s] chance at the American dream of a house or equal opportunity in the job market.” (Rice). A society allows for the facilitation of dialect discrimination in the form of jokes and assumptions is the same society that will allow people to be treated as less than humans based on their accents. People are always going to have opinions about other people, but those opinions should be formed after truly meeting people and discovering the true content of their character rather than the mainstream ideas about people from a certain region or those with a certain accent; however, “In studying [linguistic profiling] through hundreds of test phone calls, Dr. John Baugh Ph. D, has found that many people made racist, snap judgements about callers with diverse dialects.” (Rice). This discovery supports the argument that dialect discrimination is a real threat to the quality of life of people who speak with accents seen as alien or unfavorable by those around