Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development

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Americans’ attitudes toward foreign accents:

evaluative hierarchies and underlying processes

Marko Dragojevic & Sean Goatley-Soan

To cite this article: Marko Dragojevic & Sean Goatley-Soan (2022) Americans’ attitudes toward
foreign accents: evaluative hierarchies and underlying processes, Journal of Multilingual and
Multicultural Development, 43:2, 167-181, DOI: 10.1080/01434632.2020.1735402

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/01434632.2020.1735402

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Published online: 27 Feb 2020.

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JOURNAL OF MULTILINGUAL AND MULTICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT
2022, VOL. 43, NO. 2, 167–181
https://doi.org/10.1080/01434632.2020.1735402

Americans’ attitudes toward foreign accents: evaluative

hierarchies and underlying processes
Marko Dragojevic and Sean Goatley-Soan
Department of Communication, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, USA

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

This study examined Americans’ attitudes toward standard American Received 29 December 2019
English (SAE) and nine, non-Anglo foreign accents: Arabic, Farsi, French, Accepted 18 February 2020
German, Hindi, Hispanic, Mandarin, Russian, and Vietnamese. Compared
KEYWORDS
to SAE speakers, all foreign-accented speakers were rated as harder to Language attitudes; foreign
understand, more likely to be categorised as foreign (rather than accent; social categorisation;
American), and attributed less status and solidarity. However, not all stereotypes; intergroup;
foreign accents were equally denigrated on status and solidarity traits. processing fluency;
Instead, an evaluative hierarchy emerged, with speakers of some metacognition
varieties (e.g. French, German) consistently rated more favourably than
speakers of others (e.g. Arabic, Farsi, Vietnamese). This variation in
language attitudes was associated with variation in social categorisation
– i.e. the higher the percentage of nonstigmatized foreign
categorizations (i.e. Anglosphere, Western Europe) for a given foreign
variety, the more favourably speakers of that variety were rated – and
listeners’ processing fluency – i.e. the easier speakers of a given foreign
variety were to understand, the more favourably they were rated.

In the United States, foreign-accented speakers are typically rated less favourably than native, stan-
dard-accented speakers on both status- and solidarity-related traits (Fuertes et al. 2012); similar eva-
luative downgrading has been documented in other countries as well (see Giles and Watson 2013).
However, not all foreign accents are equally denigrated. Instead, evaluative hierarchies frequently
emerge, with speakers of some varieties faring better than others (Garrett 2010). Although such vari-
ation has been documented in a number of studies both in the US (e.g. Bayard et al. 2001; Goatley-
Soan and Baldwin 2018; Lindemann 2005) and elsewhere (e.g. Ball 1983; Coupland and Bishop 2007;
Giles 1970), extant research on this topic is limited in several respects. First, most studies have exam-
ined people’s attitudes toward only a few foreign accents at a time, making comparisons across a
wide range of varieties difficult. Second, studies that have included a wider range of varieties have
typically relied on accent labels (e.g. French accent) – rather than verbal stimuli – to elicit evaluations
(e.g. Coupland and Bishop 2007; Lindemann 2005). However, attitudes elicited using the two
methods are not isomorphic (Giles 1970), in part because listeners are not always accurate at iden-
tifying speakers’ specific national and regional background based on speech alone (Lindemann
2003). Consequently, attitudes elicited using accent labels may not accurately capture how listeners
react to speakers of those varieties in more naturalistic settings, where explicit information about
speakers’ background may not be provided. Third, and perhaps most important, although past
studies have advanced compelling explanations for why evaluative hierarchies may emerge, direct

CONTACT Marko Dragojevic marko.dragojevic@uky.edu

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed https://doi.org/10.1080/01434632.2020.1735402
© 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
168 M. DRAGOJEVIC AND S. GOATLEY-SOAN

empirical evidence supporting those claims has rarely been offered (for an overview, see Garrett
2010).
With this in mind, the goal of the present study was twofold. First, we sought to systematically
document Americans’ attitudes toward standard American English (SAE) and a wide range of
foreign accents in a single study, using verbal stimuli. Second, we wanted to examine if, and most
important why, different foreign varieties elicit different evaluative reactions.

Attitudes toward foreign-accented speech

Language attitudes refer to the evaluations people assign to speakers of different language varieties
(e.g. accents, dialects). Those evaluations are organised along two primary dimensions: status,
reflecting judgments about speakers’ competence, and solidarity, reflecting judgments about speak-
ers’ warmth (Fiske, Cuddy, and Glick 2007; Ryan 1983). Foreign-accented speakers tend to attract
less favourable ratings on both dimensions, relative to native, standard-accented speakers (Giles
and Watson 2013). Extant theorising identifies two processes underlying language attitudes: social
categorisation/stereotyping and processing fluency.

Social categorisation and stereotyping

Language attitudes are a function of social categorisation processes (Ryan 1983). Accent variation is
systematically linked to social variation; as a result, accents become cues to speakers’ social identities
(e.g. nationality) (Lippi-Green 2012). Listeners are aware of these associations from a young age and
use speakers’ accents to infer which social group(s) speakers belong to (Kinzler, Shutts, and Correll
2010). In the US, people tend to equate native US accents with an American identity and foreign
accents with a foreign identity (see ideology of nativeness: Shuck 2004). Due to this ideological
link between accent and nationality, American listeners tend to categorise SAE speakers as American
and foreign-accented speakers as foreign (i.e. not American), regardless of the latter’s actual immi-
gration status (see perpetual foreigner stereotype: Kim et al. 2011).
Once a speaker is categorised, stereotypes associated with the salient social category automatically
become activated and influence listeners’ evaluations of speakers. Status stereotypes are primarily
based on perceptions of socioeconomic position: Socioeconomically dominant groups tend to be
associated with more positive status stereotypes than socioeconomically subordinate groups
(Fiske, Cuddy, and Glick 2007; Ryan 1983; Woolard 1985). Solidarity stereotypes are primarily
based on ingroup favouritism and perceptions of intergroup competition: Ingroups tend to be associ-
ated with more positive solidarity stereotypes than outgroups (Ryan 1983), especially if the latter are
perceived as competitive (Fiske, Cuddy, and Glick 2007).
Americans’ status and solidarity stereotypes toward the national ingroup (i.e. other Americans)
tend to be more positive, on average, than their stereotypes toward national outgroups (i.e.
foreigners) (Lee and Fiske 2006; Lippi-Green 2012; Zou and Cheryan 2017). Americans tend to
associate the national ingroup with higher socioeconomic status than (most) national outgroups
(Lee and Fiske 2006). As a result, foreign-accented speakers are typically rated lower on status-
related traits than SAE speakers (Fuertes et al. 2012; Lippi-Green 2012). Moreover, foreigners, by
definition, constitute outgroup members to other Americans and are often perceived as competitive.
Consequently, foreign-accented speakers also tend to be rated lower on solidarity-related traits, rela-
tive to SAE speakers (Fuertes et al. 2012; Lippi-Green 2012). These associations are frequently
reinforced through media portrayals (Dobrow and Gidney 1998; Dragojevic et al. 2016; Lippi-
Green 2012), educational practices (see Lippi-Green 2012), and pervasive language ideologies (Mil-
roy and Milroy 2012; Shuck 2004), which systematically devalue (most) foreign-accented speakers
relative to native, standard-accented speakers (for a discussion, see Dragojevic, Giles, and Watson
2013).
 JOURNAL OF MULTILINGUAL AND MULTICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT 169

Processing fluency
Language attitudes are also a function of listeners’ processing fluency (Dovidio and Gluszek 2012).
Processing fluency refers to the ease or difficulty listeners experience processing a person’s speech.
According to the fluency principle of language attitudes (Dragojevic in press; Dragojevic et al.
2017), the harder a person’s speech is to process, the more negatively they tend to be evaluated,
especially on status-related traits. This effect emerges even after controlling for the effects of social
categorisation and stereotyping on speaker evaluations (Dragojevic and Giles 2016).
Two mechanisms are responsible for this effect. First, people have various naïve theories that
directly link their experience of processing fluency to their inferences about speakers’ status and soli-
darity (Alter and Oppenheimer 2009; Schwarz 2015). Among these is the belief that the responsibil-
ity for clear and effective communication falls primarily on the sender (Lippi-Green 2012).
Consequently, when a speaker’s message is difficult to understand, listeners tend to blame the
speaker and attribute the difficulty to the speaker’s lack of competence and/or goodwill to commu-
nicate more clearly, which promotes lower status and solidarity ratings, respectively (Dragojevic and
Giles 2016). Second, processing fluency is hedonically marked: High fluency elicits positive affect,
whereas high disfluency elicits negative affect (Winkielman et al. 2003). This fluency-induced affec-
tive reaction can, in turn, bias listeners’ evaluations of speakers (Clore and Huntsinger 2007; Schwarz
2012). Specifically, reduced fluency elicits more negative affect (e.g. frustration, annoyance), which,
in turn, promotes more negative speaker evaluations (Roessel et al. 2019). These two mechanisms are
complementary and operate in parallel. Both lead to the same outcome: The harder a person’s speech
is to process, the more negatively they tend to be evaluated.
Various factors can influence the ease with which listeners process a person’s speech, including
the person’s accent (Lev-Ari and Keysar 2010), environmental factors (Dragojevic and Giles
2016), and listener characteristics (Gass and Varonis 1984). In general, the more a person’s accent
differs from listeners’ own accent, the harder that person’s speech is to process (Cristia et al. 2012).
Consequently, Americans tend to experience more difficulty processing foreign- than SAE-accented
speech (Lev-Ari and Keysar 2010; Munro and Derwing 1995). In turn, this increased communicative
difficulty and the negative affective reaction that accompanies it can both negatively bias listeners’
evaluations of foreign-accented speakers (Dragojevic et al. 2017).

Evaluative hierarchies
The preceding section suggests that the reason foreign-accented speakers tend to be evaluated less
favourably than native, standard-accented speakers, is because the former tend to be categorised
as belonging to more negatively-stereotyped groups and their speech is more difficult to understand.
However, not all foreign accents attract equally negative evaluations. In the US, Anglo foreign
accents (e.g. British) tend to be rated relatively favourably – and sometimes as favourably as SAE
– particularly on the status dimension (Bayard et al. 2001; Lindemann 2005; Stewart, Ryan, and
Giles 1985). Although non-Anglo accents typically elicit more negative evaluations, not all are
equally denigrated. Rather, non-Anglo foreign accents associated with Western European countries
generally attract more favourable ratings than non-Anglo foreign accents associated with other parts
of the world (Lindemann 2005; Lippi-Green 2012). We contend that this variation can emerge due to
variation in social categorisation – i.e. different foreign accents may engender different categoriz-
ations and activate different stereotypes – and variation in listeners’ processing fluency – i.e. different
foreign accents may disrupt listeners’ processing fluency to varying degrees.

Variation in social categorisation

First, evaluative hierarchies can emerge due to variation in social categorisation. Beyond
identifying foreign-accented speakers as foreign, listeners also frequently perceptually subdivide
170 M. DRAGOJEVIC AND S. GOATLEY-SOAN

foreign-accented speakers into more specific social categories based on speakers’ perceived
region (e.g. Asia, Europe) and/or country of origin (e.g. China, France) (e.g. Lindemann 2003).
As a result, speakers of different foreign varieties may be categorised as belonging to different foreign
groups.
Although Americans’ status and solidarity stereotypes toward foreigners tend to be more negative
than their stereotypes toward the national ingroup, not all foreign groups are associated with equally
negative stereotypes. Instead, some national outgroups are stigmatised – associated with more nega-
tive stereotypes – whereas others are nonstigmatized – associated with less negative stereotypes
(Gluszek and Dovidio 2010). In the US, nonstigmatized foreign groups include people from other
core Anglosphere countries – i.e. those where English is the native language of the majority (e.g.
Canada, United Kingdom) – and Western European countries (e.g. France, Netherlands); Ameri-
cans’ status and solidarity stereotypes toward these groups tend to be less negative than their stereo-
types toward other foreign groups (Gluszek and Dovidio 2010; Lee and Fiske 2006; Lippi-Green
2012). Considering the antecedents of status and solidarity stereotypes described earlier (Fiske,
Cuddy, and Glick 2007), this is not surprising. Anglosphere and Western European countries con-
stitute some of the world’s strongest economies and tend to be associated with a high developmental
index and standard of living, all of which promote relatively positive status stereotypes. These
countries also tend to be noncompetitive American allies, often sharing strong historical, cultural,
and, in some cases, linguistic ties with the US, all of which promote relatively positive solidarity
stereotypes. These positive stereotypes are further reinforced through predominantly favourable por-
trayals of these groups in the media (see Lippi-Green 2012). Given these connotations, foreign-
accented speakers categorised as belonging to these nonstigmatized foreign groups (i.e. Anglosphere,
Western Europe) are likely to garner more favourable status and solidarity ratings among American
listeners than foreign-accented speakers categorised as belonging to stigmatised foreign groups. Con-
sistent with this claim, Lindemann (2005) examined Americans’ attitudes toward different foreign
accents using language labels (e.g. English spoken in France) and found that Americans rated the
English spoken in Anglosphere and Western European countries more favourably on both status-
and solidarity-related traits than the English spoken in all other foreign countries (e.g. China,
India), suggesting that their stereotypes toward the former are more positive than their stereotypes
toward the latter.
Although listeners can and do perceptually subdivide foreign-accented speakers into more
specific foreign categories, they are only moderately accurate at correctly identifying the specific
region and country foreign-accented speakers come from, based on speech alone. For instance, Lin-
demann (2003) found that only 8% of American listeners correctly identified Korean-accented Eng-
lish speakers as Korean based on speech alone; most misidentified them as belonging to other foreign
groups, both stigmatised (e.g. Chinese, Indian, Latino) and nonstigmatized (e.g. French, German).
As a result, there is likely to be considerable variation in terms of how any given foreign-accented
speaker is categorised. Some listeners may categorise the speaker as belonging to stigmatised foreign
groups, which should activate relatively negative stereotypes and promote more negative evaluations.
Other listeners may categorise the same speaker as belonging to nonstimgatized foreign groups,
which should activate relatively positive stereotypes and promote more positive evaluations. In
other words, the same speaker is likely to garner different evaluations depending on how they are
categorised (McKenzie 2008; Yook and Lindemann 2013).
How favourably a given foreign-accented speaker is evaluated on average (i.e. across listeners)
should depend on the proportion of listeners who categorise them as belonging to nonstigmatized
foreign groups: The higher the proportion of nonstigmatized foreign categorizations for a given
speaker, the more favourably, on average, they should be rated. In turn, to the extent that speakers
of some foreign varieties are more likely to be categorised as belonging to nonstigmatized foreign
groups than speakers of other foreign varieties, then an evaluative hierarchy should emerge. Specifi-
cally, the higher the proportion of nonstigmatized foreign categorizations for a given foreign variety,
the more favourably, on average, speakers of that variety should be rated.
 JOURNAL OF MULTILINGUAL AND MULTICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT 171

Variation in processing fluency

Second, evaluative hierarchies can emerge due to variation in listeners’ processing fluency. Although
foreign-accented speech is generally more difficult to process than native-accented speech (Lev-Ari
and Keysar 2010), not all foreign accents are likely to disrupt listeners’ processing fluency to the same
degree. For instance, speech produced in accents that are phonologically more similar to one’s own is
likely to be easier to process than speech produced in accents that are phonologically less similar to
one’s own (Cristia et al. 2012). Related, speech produced in accents listeners have previously been
exposed to is likely to be easier to process than speech produced in accents listeners have never
(or rarely) been exposed to (Gass and Varonis 1984). Although such antecedents are beyond the
scope of the present study, it is reasonable to assume that, for any given group of listeners, speakers
of some foreign varieties may be easier to understand than speakers of other foreign varieties. Speak-
ers who are easier to understand should be evaluated more favourably than speakers who are harder
to understand. Thus, to the extent that listeners’ processing fluency varies across different foreign
varieties, then an evaluative hierarchy should emerge: The easier speakers of a given foreign variety
are to understand, the more favourably, on average, they should be rated.

The present study

The present study examined Americans’ attitudes toward SAE and nine non-Anglo foreign accents: Ara-
bic, Farsi, French, German, Hindi, Hispanic, Mandarin, Russian, and Vietnamese. Our selection of
foreign accents was based on two considerations. First, we compiled a list of foreign accents that Amer-
icans are likely to encounter in their day-to-day lives, based on recent immigration and language use
statistics (Ryan 2013). Second, we selected from this initial list a geographically diverse subset of accents.
We expected American listeners to predominantly categorise SAE speakers as American and
foreign-accented speakers as foreign (Shuck 2004) and to experience more difficulty processing
foreign-accented speech than SAE speech (Cristia et al. 2012). Consistent with the preceding ration-
ale, these differences in social categorisation and listeners’ processing fluency should both promote
lower attributions of status and solidarity to foreign-accented speakers relative to SAE speakers.
Based on this, the following predictions were made:
H1: SAE speakers are more likely to be categorized as American than foreign-accented speakers.

H2: SAE speech will be easier to understand than foreign-accented speech.

H3a–b: SAE speakers will be attributed more (a) status and (b) solidarity than foreign-accented speakers.

We were also interested in whether speakers of different foreign varieties would attract different sta-
tus and solidarity ratings – that is, whether an evaluative hierarchy would emerge. First, speakers of
different foreign varieties may be categorised as belonging to different foreign groups, thereby acti-
vating different stereotypes. If the proportion of nonstigmatized foreign categorizations (i.e. Anglo-
sphere, Western Europe) varies across different foreign varieties, then an evaluative hierarchy should
emerge: The higher the percentage of nonstigmatized foreign categorisation for a given foreign var-
iety, the more favourably, on average, speakers of that variety should be rated. Second, not all foreign
accents may disrupt listeners’ processing fluency to the same degree. If listeners’ processing fluency
varies across different foreign varieties, then an evaluative hierarchy should emerge: The higher lis-
teners’ processing fluency for a given foreign variety, the more favourably, on average, speakers of
that variety should be rated.
Given that we were unsure whether different foreign varieties would engender different patterns
of categorisation or whether listeners’ fluency would vary for different foreign varieties, we made no a
priori predictions about how speakers of different foreign varieties would be evaluated relative to one
another. Instead, we posed the following research questions:
RQ1: Will the percentage of nonstigmatized foreign categorizations vary across different foreign accents?
172 M. DRAGOJEVIC AND S. GOATLEY-SOAN

RQ2: Will listeners’ processing fluency vary across different foreign accents?

RQ3a–b: Will speakers of different foreign accents be evaluated differently on (a) status and (b) solidarity traits.

To the extent than an evaluative hierarchy does emerge (RQ3) and the percentage of nonstigmatized
foreign categorizations (RQ1) and/or listeners’ processing fluency varies across different foreign var-
ieties (RQ2), then these constructs should be related. Specifically:
H4a–b: The higher the percentage of nonstigmatized foreign categorizations for a given foreign variety, the more
favorably, on average, speakers of that variety will be rated on (a) status and (b) solidarity traits.

H5a–b: The higher listeners’ processing fluency for a given foreign variety, the more favorably, on average, speak-
ers of that variety will be rated on (a) status and (b) solidarity traits.

Method
Participants
Participants were 267 US residents recruited through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk). Subjects
were paid $5 for participating in the study, which took approximately 45 min to complete. One sub-
ject who indicated being a foreign national, three subjects whose native language was not English,
and nine subjects who provided nonsense responses to the open-ended categorisation question
for all speakers – suggesting low attention to the survey – were excluded from all analyses. The
final sample consisted of 254 American nationals, all of whom were native English speakers. They
(48.4% women) ranged in age from 20 to 66 (M = 36.64, SD = 10.43) and reported their ethnicity
as White (80.7%), African-American (10.2%), Hispanic (7.9%), Asian-American (5.9%), Native
American (2.0%), and other (0.4%).

Voice stimuli
The present study utilised the verbal-guise technique, in which audio recordings of different varieties
are produced by different speakers (see Garrett 2010). Voice stimuli were obtained from the Speech
Accent Archive, an online repository (http://accent.gmu.edu) hosted by George Mason University,
which contains audio recordings of hundreds of speakers from all over the world reading the
same, short, English-language passage in their habitual accent (Weinberger 2017). For each of the
ten accents, two male and two female speakers were identified, yielding 40 recordings in total (for
a full list of speakers, see Supplemental Material). We included both male and female speakers so
that we could generalise across speaker gender. We also included multiple speakers of each gen-
der/variety combination so that we could generalise across speakers. All recordings were normalised
at 70 dB. The mean age of speakers across the ten accent clusters was comparable (range: 23.3–26.2
years old), as was the average length of recordings (range: 22–30.8 s).

Procedure
The study was introduced to participants as being concerned with how people evaluate personalities
based on limited information, such as their voice; no additional contextual information was pro-
vided. The was conducted entirely online. Participants first completed a sound check to verify
that their computer audio was working properly. They were then randomly assigned to listen to
20 of the 40 recordings, such that each participant heard one male and one female speaker of
each of the ten varieties, in random order. Each recording began playing automatically and partici-
pants could not continue to the next page until the recording ended. After listening to each record-
ing, participants rated the speaker they had just heard on status and solidarity traits, processing
fluency, and indicated where they thought the speaker was from. Having listened to and rated all
 JOURNAL OF MULTILINGUAL AND MULTICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT 173

speakers, participants provided standard demographic information, as well as completed other scales
that were not of interest in the present study.

Measures
Participants’ language attitudes were assessed by having them rate each speaker on 4 status (i.e. com-
petent, intelligent, educated, smart) and 4 solidarity traits (i.e. warm, friendly, nice, pleasant), using
7-point scales (1 = not at all; 7 = very). For each speaker, the four status items were averaged to form
the status scale (αs = .95–.96) and the four solidarity items were averaged to form the solidarity scale
(αs = .95–.97). Processing fluency was assessed using a single item that asked listeners to indicate
how easy the speaker was to understand, using a 7-point scale (1 = not at all; 7 = very). Social categ-
orisation was assessed via a single, open-ended question, which asked participants to indicate where
they though the speaker was from.

Results
Data preparation and coding
Speaker gender was not of theoretical interest in the present study and was included solely for pur-
poses of generalizability. Consequently, participants’ ratings of speaker fluency, status, and solidarity
were averaged across the male and female speaker for each variety. Means and standard deviations
appear in Table 1.
Coding of listeners’ responses to the open-ended categorisation question proceeded in three
phases. In Phase I, participants’ responses were coded as ‘American’ if they indicated the speaker
was from the US; all other responses were coded as ‘foreign’. In Phase II, responses coded as foreign
in the previous phase were further classified into one of eight mutually exclusive categories: Anglo-
sphere (e.g. Australia, United Kingdom), Western Europe (e.g. France, Germany), other Europe (e.g.
Poland, Russia), Latin/South America (e.g. Argentina, Mexico), Middle East (e.g. Iran, Saudi Arabia),
South Asia (e.g. India, Pakistan), East/Southeast Asia (e.g. China, Japan), and other (for the full list of
countries included in each category, see Supplemental Material). In Phase III, foreign responses
classified as Anglosphere or Western Europe in Phase II were coded as ‘nonstigmatized’; all other
foreign responses were coded as ‘stigmatized’. For each variety, the percentage of responses falling
within each category appears in Table 1. Analyses pertaining to the effects of social categorisation
on language attitudes were based on respondents’ perceptions of where speakers were from, rather
than where speakers were actually from.

Language attitudes
Status
A repeated measures ANOVA1 indicated that status ratings varied as a function of speakers’ accents,
F(9,2277) = 131.38, p < .001, h2p = .34. Consistent with H3a, listeners attributed more status to SAE
speakers (M = 5.69) than foreign-accented speakers (M = 4.80), F(1,253) = 299.16, p < .001, h2p
= .54. However, not all foreign accents were equally denigrated (see Table 1). Regarding RQ3a,
post-hoc comparisons (Bonferroni correction) showed that German-accented speakers were attrib-
uted more status than Hindi-, Russian-, and French-accented speakers, all of whom were attributed
more status than Vietnamese-, Farsi-, and Mandarin-accented speakers. Arabic-accented speakers
were attributed less status than all other groups. No other differences were significant.

Solidarity
A repeated measures ANOVA indicated that solidarity ratings also varied as a function of speakers’
accents, F(9,2277) = 46.98, p < .001, h2p = .16. Consistent with H3b, SAE speakers were attributed
 174
M. DRAGOJEVIC AND S. GOATLEY-SOAN
Table 1. Effects of accent on dependent measures.
Accent
Measure SAE Hispanic French German Russian Arabic Farsi Hindi Mandarin Vietnamese
Status 5.69a 4.70d 4.93c 5.41b 5.02c 4.36e 4.56d 5.08c 4.55d 4.63d
(.87) (.97) (.95) (.89) (.92) (1.10) (1.04) (1.00) (1.07) (1.04)
[1] [6] [5] [2] [4] [10] [8] [3] [9] [7]
Solidarity 5.32a 4.74de 5.05b 4.97bc 4.70de 4.64ef 4.39g 4.63ef 4.82cd 4.46fg
(.99) (.99) (.99) (.93) (1.05) (1.06) (1.07) (1.08) (1.04) (1.02)
[1] [5] [2] [3] [6] [7] [10] [8] [4] [9]
Processing Fluency 6.78a 4.93d 4.98d 5.69b 5.18c 4.19f 4.66e 5.05cd 4.33f 4.23f
(.63) (1.02) (1.00) (.94) (1.02) (1.15) (1.06) (1.09) (1.23) (1.17)
[1] [6] [5] [2] [3] [10] [7] [4] [8] [9]
Categorisation (%)
American 94.3* 5.1 3.3 8.7 5.9 2.2 3.3 2.2 2.6 2.8
Foreign 5.7 94.9 96.7 91.3 94.1 97.8 96.7 97.8 97.4 97.2
Nonstigmatized 3.9 7.9 31.3 39.2 22.8 6.9 14.0 4.3 7.1 12.4
Anglosphere 3.5 1.4 1.6 12.8 5.5 0.6 2.0 0.4 0.2 3.9
Western Europe 0.4 6.5 29.7* 26.4* 17.3 6.3 12.0 3.9 6.9 8.5
Stigmatised 1.8 87.0 65.4 52.1 71.3 90.9 82.7 93.5 90.3 84.8
Latin/S. Amer. 0.4 38.4* 12.2 3.3 11.0 13.2 17.1 3.0 8.5 7.1
Europe (other) 0.4 15.0 16.5 20.9 41.3* 21.9 26.0 3.9 10.0 13.6
Middle East 0.2 5.9 6.7 4.1 4.5 14.6* 6.1* 4.1 5.3 5.3
South Asia 0 12.6 13.8 14.4 6.5 23.2 12.8 78.5* 12.4 6.9
East/SE Asia 0.4 9.4 11.4 5.9 5.9 14.2 15.6 3.5 49.6* 46.7*
Other 0.4 5.7 4.8 3.5 2.1 3.8 5.1 0.5 4.5 5.2
Notes: Varieties are ordered geographically, from West to East. For status, solidarity, and processing fluency, means appear first, followed by standard deviations in parentheses, and the rank order of the
mean in brackets. Within a given row, means that do not share a common subscript are significantly different, p < .05 (Bonferroni correction). For categorisation, values represent the percentage of
speakers of a given variety categorised a particular way. Underlined values represent aggregates of all values one heading level immediately lower in the same column. Asterisks* indicate correct
regional categorizations for a given variety.
 JOURNAL OF MULTILINGUAL AND MULTICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT 175

more solidarity (M = 5.32) than foreign-accented speakers (M = 4.72), F(1,253) = 124.22, p < .001, h2p
= .33. However, not all foreign accents were equally denigrated (see Table 1). Regarding RQ3b, post-
hoc comparisons (Bonferroni correction) showed that French-and German-accented speakers were
attributed more solidarity than Hispanic-, Russian-, and Arabic-accented speakers, who in turn were
attributed more solidarity than Vietnamese- and Farsi-accented speakers. Hindi-accented speakers
were attributed less solidarity than French-, German-, and Mandarin-accented speakers, but more
solidarity than Farsi-accented speakers. Mandarin-accented speakers were attributed less solidarity
than French-accented speakers, but more solidarity than Arabic-, Hindi-, Vietnamese-, and Farsi-
accented speakers. No other differences were significant.

Social categorisation
Consistent with H1, SAE speakers were predominantly categorised as American (94.3%), whereas
foreign-accented speakers were predominantly categorised as foreign (91.3%–97.8%, depending on
the variety in question). Although listeners were highly reliable at distinguishing between native
and foreign-accented speech, they were only moderately accurate at correctly identifying
foreign-accented speakers’ specific region of origin (M = 36.8%, range = 6.1%–78.5%). Despite
this general inaccuracy, and with respect to RQ1, categorisation patterns were not random and
the percentage of nonstigmatized foreign categorizations varied across different foreign varieties
(see Table 1)
To test H4a–b, we computed correlations between the percentage of nonstigmatized foreign categ-
orizations for each foreign variety and the average status and solidarity ratings ascribed to speakers of
each variety. Consistent with predictions, the higher the percentage of nonstigmatized foreign categ-
orizations for a given foreign variety, the more favourably speakers of that variety were rated on both
status (r = .70, p = .02 one-tailed) and solidarity traits (r = .62, p = .04 one-tailed); see Figure 1.
Another way to assess the relationship between social categorisation and language attitudes is to
examine whether listeners assigned higher ratings to foreign-accented speakers they categorised as
belonging to nonstigmatized than stigmatised foreign groups. To do this, we calculated for each par-
ticipant the mean status and solidarity ratings they assigned to foreign-accented speakers they cate-
gorised as belonging to stigmatised and nonstigmatized foreign groups and compared these values.
As expected, listeners rated foreign-accented speakers they categorised as belonging to nonstigma-
tized foreign groups more favourably than those they categorised as belonging to stigmatised foreign
groups on both status (Mstigmatized = 4.72, Mnonstigmatized = 5.18, t(219) = −9.96, p < .001) and solidar-
ity traits (Mstigmatized = 4.68, Mnonstigmatized = 4.85, t(219) = −4.02, p < .001).2

Figure 1. Relationship between social categorisation and status ratings (left panel) and solidarity ratings (right panel) for different
foreign accents.
176 M. DRAGOJEVIC AND S. GOATLEY-SOAN

Processing fluency
A repeated measures ANOVA revealed that listeners’ processing fluency varied as a function of speak-
ers’ accents, F(9,2277) = 272.50, p < .001, h2p = .52. Consistent with H2, SAE speakers were easier to
understand (M = 6.78) than foreign-accented speakers (M = 4.80), F(1,253) = 1116.50, p < .001, h2p
= .82. However, not all foreign accents disrupted listeners’ processing fluency to the same degree
(see Table 1). With respect to RQ2, post-hoc comparisons (Bonferroni correction) showed that Ger-
man-accented speakers were easiest to understand, followed by Hindi-, French-, and Hispanic-
accented speakers, all of whom were easier to understand than Farsi-accented speakers, who in
turn were easier to understand than Mandarin-, Vietnamese-, and Arabic-accented speakers. Rus-
sian-accented speakers were more difficult to understand than German-accented speakers, but easier
to understand than all others except Hindi-accented speakers. No other differences were significant.
There are two ways to test H5a–b. The first is to compute a correlation of averages – i.e. the cor-
relation between the average fluency score and the average status and solidarity score assigned to
each foreign variety. The second is to compute an average correlation – i.e. to compute individual
correlations between relevant variables for each participant (n = 254) and to average these.3 Both
methods yielded the same pattern of results. Consistent with predictions, the higher listeners’ pro-
cessing fluency was for a given variety, the more favourably speakers of that variety were rated on
both status (correlation of averages: r = .93, p < .001, one-tailed; average correlation: r = .61, 95%
CI = .52, .68) and solidarity traits (correlation of averages: r = .52, p = .07 one-tailed; average corre-
lation: r = .31, 95% CI = .21, .42); see Figure 2.

Discussion
The present study examined Americans’ attitudes toward SAE and nine, non-Anglo foreign accents:
Arabic, Farsi, French, German, Hindi, Hispanic, Mandarin, Russian, and Vietnamese. Speakers of
different accents elicited different evaluations and this variation in language attitudes was associated
with variation in social categorisation and listeners’ processing fluency. To the best of our knowledge,
this is the first attempt to empirically document Americans’ attitudes toward such a wide range of
foreign accents in a single study, using verbal stimuli.

Attitudes toward foreign accents

SAE speakers were attributed more status and solidarity than all foreign-accented speakers. This
finding not only replicates past research showing that foreign-accented English speakers tend to

Figure 2. Relationship between listeners’ processing fluency and status ratings (left panel) and solidarity ratings (right panel) for
different foreign accents.
 JOURNAL OF MULTILINGUAL AND MULTICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT 177

be evaluatively downgraded relative to SAE speakers in the US (Fuertes et al. 2012), but also extends
it in several important ways. First, our results indicate that this evaluative downgrading extends to a
wide range of foreign accents, some of which have never been empirically examined before in the US
using verbal stimuli (e.g. Farsi, Vietnamese). Second, whereas past studies have typically relied on
undergraduate student samples, our study relied on an older, and arguably more diverse, sample
of Americans. The fact that the same evaluative downgrading emerged gives further credence to
the claim that this is a robust phenomenon, which cuts across different demographic groups.
Results of the present research also offer insight into why such evaluative downgrading occurs.
First, SAE speakers were predominantly categorised as American, whereas foreign-accented speakers
were predominantly categorised as foreign. This finding is consistent with past research showing that
American listeners are highly attuned to and reliable at distinguishing between native- and foreign-
accented speech (Kinzler, Shutts, and Correll 2010) and tend to equate the former with an American
identity and the latter with a foreign identity (Shuck 2004). Given that Americans’ status and soli-
darity stereotypes toward the national ingroup tend to be more favourable, on average, than their
stereotypes toward national outgroups (Lee and Fiske 2006; Lippi-Green 2012), this difference in cat-
egorisation promoted more negative ratings of foreign-accented speakers relative to SAE speakers.
Second, listeners experienced more difficulty processing foreign-accented speech than SAE speech,
which further exacerbated their evaluative downgrading of foreign-accented speakers relative to
SAE speakers (see Dragojevic et al. 2017).

Evaluative hierarchies
Although all foreign-accented speakers were rated less favourably than SAE speakers, not all foreign
varieties attracted equally negative evaluations. Rather, an evaluative hierarchy emerged, such that
speakers of some varieties (e.g. German, French) were consistently rated more favourably than
speakers of others (e.g. Arabic, Farsi, Vietnamese). Apart from showing that Americans’ attitudes
toward foreign-accented speakers are not homogenous, results of the present research also shed
light on why such variation emerges.
First, variation in listeners’ attitudes toward foreign-accented speakers was associated with vari-
ation in social categorisation. Beyond identifying foreign-accented speakers as foreign, listeners per-
ceptually subdivided foreign-accented speakers into more specific social categories, categorising
them in terms of their inferred region (e.g. Western Europe) or country of origin (e.g. France).
Indeed, although listeners could have simply indicated that foreign-accented speakers were from a
‘foreign country’ in response to the open-ended categorisation question that followed each speaker,
none did; instead, all listeners chose to list a specific foreign region or country for each speaker. This
finding is important because it suggests that, at least under some conditions, listeners are motivated
to avoid overly inclusive outgroup categories (e.g. foreigner) in favour of more specific ones (e.g.
Western European, French) when categorising foreign-accented speakers (cf. Lindemann 2003).
This preference is also evident in everyday discourse, where foreign-accented speakers are frequently
asked to specify their national origin (e.g. ‘Where are you from?’), even after their nonnative status
has been revealed (Lippi-Green 2012). One possible explanation for this trend is that listeners may
perceive lower-level (e.g. French) and mid-level foreign categories (e.g. Western European) as more
meaningful and informative than the superordinate one (i.e. foreigner). As noted earlier, Americans’
stereotypes toward different national outgroups are not homogenous; some national outgroups are
stigmatised and associated with more negative stereotypes, whereas others are nonstigmatized and
associated with less negative stereotypes (Lippi-Green 2012). Whereas lower- and mid-level foreign
categories account for these seemingly meaningful differences, the superordinate category does not;
as a result, listeners may prefer the former over the latter in an attempt to reduce uncertainty and
form more accurate impressions of speakers.
Despite listeners’ tendency to categorise foreign-accented speakers in terms of more specific
foreign categories, they were only moderately accurate at correctly identifying speakers’ region
178 M. DRAGOJEVIC AND S. GOATLEY-SOAN

and country of origin, based on speech alone. For instance, German-accented speakers were correctly
categorised as Western European only 39.2% of the time and were frequently miscategorised as
belonging to other foreign groups, both stigmatised and nonstigmatized. Inspection of Table 1
shows that a similar trend emerged for other foreign accents as well. A notable exception to this
rule were Hindi-accented speakers, who were correctly categorised as South Asian 78.5% of the
time, perhaps due to Americans’ relatively higher familiarity with this variety and its distinctive pho-
nology (see Chand 2009).
Regardless of accuracy, social categorisation was consequential: Listeners attributed more status
and solidarity to foreign-accented speakers they categorised (correctly or incorrectly) as belonging to
nonstigmatized foreign groups (i.e. Anglosphere, Western Europe) than stigmatised foreign groups.
Given that speakers of some varieties were more likely to be categorised as belonging to nonstigma-
tized foreign groups than speakers of other foreign varieties, an evaluative hierarchy emerged.
Specifically, the higher the percentage of nonstigmatized foreign categorizations for a given foreign
variety, the more favourably, on average, speakers of that variety were rated on both status and soli-
darity traits. Stated differently, foreign accents that engendered more favourable speaker categoriz-
ations also attracted more favourable speaker evaluations. Taken together, these findings provide
strong support for the theoretical claim that social categorisation mediates the language attitudes
process (Ryan 1983) and underscore the importance of directly assessing social categorisation in
language attitude research (for similar calls, see Preston 1993).
Second, variation in listeners’ attitudes toward foreign-accented speakers was associated with
variation in listeners’ processing fluency. Although foreign-accented speech was more difficult to
understand than SAE speech, not all foreign accents disrupted listeners’ processing fluency to
the same degree. Whether these differences were a function of the phonological features of the
accents themselves, listeners’ familiarity with and past exposure to those accents, or both, remains
unclear and is an important direction for future research. Regardless of source, variation in listen-
ers’ processing fluency was consequential. Consistent with the fluency principle (Dragojevic in
press; Dragojevic et al. 2017), the easier speakers of a given foreign variety were to understand,
the more favourably they were rated on both status and solidarity traits. This relationship emerged
at both the aggregate and individual level and provides strong support for the theoretical claim that
language attitudes are, at least in part, a function of listeners’ processing fluency (Dovidio and
Gluszek 2012). Beyond their theoretical significance, these findings also have important practical
implications because they suggest that, in addition to changing listeners’ stereotypes toward differ-
ent ethnolinguistic groups, another way to attenuate the evaluative downgrading foreign-accented
speakers frequently face is to increase the ease with which listeners process foreign-accented speech
(see Dragojevic in press).
Although social categorisation and listeners’ processing fluency are conceptually distinct and each
has been shown to exert an effect on language attitudes independent of the other, it is interesting to
note that in the present study the two factors were positively correlated (r = .70, p < .05). Specifically,
the easier speakers of a given foreign variety were to understand, the more likely they were to be cate-
gorised as belonging to nonstigmatized foreign groups. This finding may be indicative of a causal
relationship between the two constructs. Listeners’ stereotypes about different foreign groups may
contain information about how comprehensible members of those groups are (see Shuck 2004).
For instance, Americans may stereotypically associate nonstigmatized foreign groups (i.e. Anglo-
sphere, Western Europe) with higher comprehensibility than stigmatised foreign groups. Conse-
quently, categorising a speaker as stigmatised may negatively bias listeners’ judgments about how
easy that speaker is to understand (see Rubin and Smith 1990). Similarly, when listeners experience
considerable difficulty understanding a foreign-accented speaker, they may be more inclined to cat-
egorise that speaker as belonging to a stigmatised than a nonstigmatized foreign group. More closely
examining the relationship between social categorisation and processing fluency – as well as the rela-
tive influence of each factor on language attitudes – remains an important direction for future
research.
 JOURNAL OF MULTILINGUAL AND MULTICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT 179

Limitations
This study has several limitations. First, we examined Americans’ attitudes toward only nine foreign
accents. Future studies should document Americans’ attitudes toward a wider range of foreign var-
ieties, both stigmatised and nonstigmatized (see Lippi-Green 2012). Second, as a way to ensure
experimental control, all speakers read the same, fictional passage of text. Given that message content
has been shown to influence speaker evaluations (e.g. Heaton and Nygaard 2011), future research
should examine whether a similar evaluative profile emerges for a wider range of messages. Third,
the speaker rating task in the present study was largely acontextual. Given that social context can
moderate language attitudes (e.g. Creber and Giles 1983), future studies should investigate whether
Americans’ attitudes toward different foreign accents vary across different social settings. Indeed, we
suspect that the evaluative downgrading of foreign-accented speakers observed in the present study
may become further accentuated in status-stressing contexts, such as school and work (see Giles and
Ryan 1982).

Conclusion
The present study examined Americans’ attitudes toward SAE and nine, non-Anglo foreign
accents. Although all foreign-accented speakers were attributed less status and solidarity than
SAE speakers, not all foreign accents were equally denigrated. Instead, an evaluative hierarchy
emerged, which was associated with variation in social categorisation and listeners’ processing
fluency. Specifically, foreign-accented speakers who were easier to understand and/or categorised
(correctly or incorrectly) as belonging to nonstigmatized foreign groups (i.e. Anglosphere, Western
Europe) tended to attract more favourable ratings than foreign-accented speakers who were more
difficult to understand and/or categorised (correctly or incorrectly) as belonging to stigmatised
foreign groups. Collectively, these findings provide strong support for the theoretical claim that
language attitudes are a function of both social categorisation processes and listeners’ processing
fluency.

Notes
1. For all repeated measures ANOVAs throughout this manuscript, Greenhouse-Geisser estimates were used
when the assumption of sphericity was violated. In all instances, this had no bearing on the significance of
results. Consequently, original degrees of freedom are reported throughout the manuscript for clarity and
consistency.
2. Thirty-four participants categorised all speakers as stigmatised or all speakers as nonstigmatized and were
excluded from these analyses.
3. With this method, Pearson correlation coefficients are first converted into Fisher’s z-scores (Fisher 1921), which
are used to calculate the average and confidence intervals, and then these values are converted back into Pearson
correlation coefficients.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Funding
This work was supported by a Research and Creative Activities Program (RCAP) grant from the College of Communi-
cation and Information at the University of Kentucky.

ORCID
Marko Dragojevic http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5387-9563
180 M. DRAGOJEVIC AND S. GOATLEY-SOAN

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