S amantha Jackson will present an in-person research seminar on Nov1.
Title: Take my word for it: Evaluations of scri pted interview responses
Abstract: With its need for
a larger labour force and its well-known multicultural identity\, Canada h
as become a popular destination for economic immigrants. However\, the labo
ur market outcomes and experiences of newcomers to Canada are markedly wors
e compared to those of their similarly educated and similarly skilled Canad
ian-born counterparts. One explanation given for the immigrant wage gap is
low official language proficiency (Picot & Sweetman 2012).
In this tal
k\, I’ll review a verbal guise experiment which investigated attitudes towa
rds local and extra-local English accents. Scripted responses to interview
questions from women from Canada\, China\, England\, Germany\, India\, Jama
ica\, and Nigeria were audio-recorded. They were then rated and commented o
n by 96 human resources students from 9 post-secondary institutions in sout
hern Ontario. Despite the content and vocabulary of responses being control
led for\, evaluators showed significant bias towards Canadian English voice
s in the ratings and commentary\, and an accent hierarchy emerged. I will c
ontextualize these results with reference to the concepts of standard langu
age ideology (Lippi-Green 2012)\, linguistic assimilation\, and “aural empl
oyability”\, i.e.\, “the ability to be heard as employable” (Ramjattan 2023
:160)\, and discuss how these findings directly contradict Canada’s Multicu
lturalism Act.