Professor Lucek said those who come from a working-class or disadvantaged background are often most affected by accent bias.
Accent bias
“I think there’s a bias against many-many accents in society,” he said.
“Within Dublin, you might think there are prejudices against a working-class accent. You also get this in towns anywhere you look - it’s not just Ireland.
“Anywhere you are there is a contextual hierarchy of favourable and less favourable accents, and it’s completely arbitrary.”
Professor Lucek said accents are often used to categorise people.
“I would try not to use a word like snobbery but it's definitely something that people do, sort of, possess,” he said.
“They want to differentiate between different groups of people and one of those ways is the way in which we use language.”
Career impacts
Professor Lucek said the way someone speaks can affect their career.
“This is the sort of thing I’ve learned doing research from both teenagers and adults is that there is a feeling at some point in your career that there’s going to be a differentiating factor,” he said.
“For teenagers that I spoke to, they said they knew right away from when they were going on transition year placements that kids from lower socio-economic areas had to change how they spoke at work.
“Or they had to change how they spoke in a job interview to arrange a job interview. Anecdotally, and through research I have found that can happen to people at any point in their careers.
He added that employers sometimes “disqualify” certain accents from accessing promotion opportunities.
Eradicating prejudice
Professor Lucek said accent prejudice is something that should not be tolerated.
“Personally speaking, I think it’s very wrong,” he said.
“It’s one of the areas where there’s no comeback from. There’s nothing you can say as an employee that violates your rights as a worker.”
“This is a growing trend in Europe, we’re trying to eradicate this prejudice. We could even go so far as to call it discrimination and get barristers and solicitors involved.”
He added that everyone has “likes and dislikes” when it comes to accents, but people should not hold other's accents against them.
Main image: Man pictured during a job interview. Credit: f01photos / Alamy Stock Photo
