Accents, dialects, and attitudes

How do we perceive individuals with a foreign accent or a regional dialect? And how do these individuals experience speaking with such linguistic variation? This project seeks to answer these questions.

Speaking with a foreign accent or regional dialect can serve as a marker of "otherness", influencing how individuals are perceived by others. Indeed, we tend to categorize others into social groups, which can lead to prejudice and negative attitudes towards those perceived as belonging to an "out-group."

Research has shown that speakers with different accents or dialects often encounter both positive and negative attitudes. Negative attitudes, in turn, can result in discrimination, which affects the individual's social integration and well-being. Despite this, the understanding of attitudes towards speakers with foreign accents or regional dialects and their own experiences remains limited in Sweden.

In our project, we explore these issues from two perspectives: the listener's perspective and the speaker's perspective.