Most people agree that discrimination is bad, this means we shouldn’t mock somebody else’s accent. It is rude, it is offensive, it enforces prejudice, racism, xenophobia, and classism. “But I’m not mocking all the Russians as a group when I make some joke in which I use a fake Russian accent,” some will say. “I’m not insulting anybody, I just made a joke, it is harmless,” they will say. Unfortunately, this is often not how people whose accent was imitated will feel about it. Somebody can perceive suck jokes as offensive. In the worst case scenario it is possible for people to develop anxiety and feelings of insecurity about speaking if others commonly joke about their pronunciation. People can internalize the stigma about their own accents to the point where they hate the way they speak.
What “Talking Properly” Even Means
Basic human decency, politeness, and kindness aren’t the only reasons why people should abstain from mocking somebody else’s accent. From a scientific point of view, there can be no such thing as the “correct way how to speak.” Once you learn the basics about linguistics, it becomes impossible to say, “My way of speaking is correct, yours is wrong, but I won’t mock you only because I’m a kind person who feels sorry for you.”
Linguistics can be either descriptive or prescriptive. A century ago most linguists supported a prescriptive approach—they considered themselves the experts who will decide how to speak correctly, and the rubes should follow their guidelines. Linguists used to be bigoted, privileged, wealthy, white men who considered their own language superior to that of the masses, believing that:
- Languages of European origin are superior to languages spoken by people of color; for example, “English is superior to Māori language.”
- Sociolects spoken by the upper class are superior to the language spoken by the proletariat. Note: In sociolinguistics, a sociolect is a form of language (non-standard dialect, restricted register) or a set of lexical items used by a socioeconomic class, a profession, an age group or other social group.
- Dialects spoken in some regions are superior and more prestigious than dialects spoken in other regions. For example, “Received Pronunciation, commonly called the ‘BBC English,’ is superior to the Scottish English.”
Here is a movie fragment, which features a caricature of such a bigoted linguist. Unfortunately, it’s somewhat accurate, because linguists really used to believe such nonsense.
Such beliefs are clearly bigoted and prejudiced, they are racist, classist, and discriminatory, they arbitrarily divide people into the articulate and the barbarians. Once linguists got over their bigotry, their job became descriptive—instead of telling people how they ought to speak, linguists started researching and documenting how people actually speak, without making value judgments or trying to establish normative rules. This means accepting that no language, dialect, regional variation, sociolect, or accent can be superior to another one—all the prestige associated with some languages is an imaginary social construct. Moreover, nobody should arrogantly proclaim that they have no accent—General American English and Received Pronunciation are also accents.
A descriptive approach is also why you see dictionaries regularly updated the way they are: the moment people invent some new word and start widely using it, it is legitimate. For example, in 2019 Merriam-Webster added to the dictionary 533 new words and new meanings, including the singular “they” that I have been using for years by now.
Of course, some degree of homogeneity is beneficial for languages. If each person spoke differently and used their own unique writing system, communication would become much harder. This is why at schools children are taught “the correct” way how to speak or write, the standard. But this standard variety of some language is merely something people agreed upon for the sake of improved communication, it is not inherently better or more correct. Or maybe “agreed upon” was the wrong phrase here. Some centuries ago rich white men with money and access to the printing presses wrote down their own way of speaking as the “right” way, thus abandoning everybody else to the realm of non-standard. Having some standard, however arbitrary, is useful for practical purposes like facilitating communication on a global scale, but this doesn’t mean that variation should be belittled, patronized, and wiped out.
Remember: Some years ago people decided that “whatever the upper classes in economically prosperous regions are speaking” should be declared as “the standard language.” Standard pronunciation is NOT intrinsically better or more correct.
Bullying others to speak your way is something you should not do. Can you understand what the other person said? Great, that means their accent is perfectly fine. Don’t behave like the bigoted professor in this movie fragment.
What Is Linguistic Discrimination and Why it Is a Problem
Humanity’s past attempts at imposing linguistic homogeneity were very wrong, and we should stop it—nobody with a non-standard language should face derision or criticism. Linguistic discrimination (also called glottophobia) is the unfair treatment of an individual based solely on their use of language (their native language, accent, vocabulary, modality, or syntax).
Here are some examples of linguistic discrimination:
- Automatically forming judgments about another person’s wealth, education, social status, character or other traits based on a difference in use of language.
- Discriminating a person in any way (denial of employment, housing, etc.) because of their language.
- Treating some accent differently than others, for example, English transcripts of some regional accent are often written phonetically and spelt out orthographically in a non-standard way, thus suggesting that somebody is not talking properly, that they are somehow incorrect, and speaking abnormally.
- Criticizing, mocking, and making fun of some accent.
More often than not, people at the receiving end of linguistic discrimination already come from an underprivileged background. They are often people of color who were born in poor families. A child born in the rich part of the world in a wealthy family is statistically much more likely to learn the standard pronunciation of their native language. Thus mocking somebody else’s accent can coincide with xenophobia and racial violence.
Telling other people to “just learn the standard language” isn’t a solution either. When a person learns their second language (or second dialect of the same language), they usually keep many of the sounds and speech rules from their native language. This is what gives a person an accent. Changing your accent is extremely hard. Even among professional actors many struggle with imitating some other accent. University professors who are linguists and polyglots tend to do even worse than actors. I have a master’s degree in German philology, and many of my professors taught courses in their second languages. The overwhelming majority of them had accents that betrayed their native languages. Of course, I do know some people who have learned to successfully mimic a different accent, but such people are very rare.
What About Comedy? Can I Mimic Some Accent for a Joke?
I hope at this point you agree with me that glottophobia is bad and people shouldn’t mock somebody else’s accent. But where do we draw the line between mocking versus harmless fun? As usually, it’s complicated.
Here is an audio recording of how I sound when I’m speaking English.
As you can probably tell by now, I am not a native English speaker. In case you cannot recognize my accent, my native language is Latvian. I’m a polyglot, I speak six languages and I have a master’s degree in linguistics, yet I’m still not capable of mimicking either General American English or Received Pronunciation.
If you wanted to mimic my Latvian accent for a joke, you would have to twist how I actually speak. In English there are some sounds that don’t exist in Latvian. If you wanted to imitate a fake Latvian accent, you would probably substitute these sounds for something else. For example, “w” sound, as in, for example, white, always, away, doesn’t exist in Latvian. You could say the “v” sound instead. “R” sound is also very different in Latvian, so you would probably substitute the English “r” sound with its Latvian equivalent. Same goes for “th” sound.
The problem is that your fake Latvian accent would end up sounding extremely different from how native Latvian speakers actually speak English. All fake accents that are used for jokes portray something completely imaginary. They tend to be so ridiculously exaggerated that somebody might perceive as mockery what you intended to be a harmless joke. And you cannot just say that failing to appreciate your joke is other people’s fault due to not having a sense of humor, because there are harmful real-life consequences—people who often have their accents criticized can lose self-confidence or feel like they are being treated as inferior.
The safest option is obviously not to make jokes about other people’s accents. But I won’t say that such jokes are always harmful, often enough they are funny and doesn’t offend anybody. Here are some basic guidelines:
- Pick your target carefully. Joking about Received Pronunciation is generally safe. People who speak this dialect usually can appreciate a joke about themselves and they aren’t an underprivileged minority. Some accents, for example European ones, are socially perceived as classy or desirable anyway, so people who have those accents are less likely to feel insecure about having them. Joking about the dialect of some already discriminated racial or ethnic minority, on the other hand, is not appropriate—accents that are usually associated with the working class (for example African American, Latino, Asian, African) are already stigmatized.
- If you make a written joke, don’t change spelling so that words are written phonetically and spelt out orthographically in a non-standard way. You don’t do weird spelling for your own accent, so don’t try it for other people’s accents either.
- Don’t introduce stupid and weird grammar mistakes that non-native English speakers wouldn’t even make. Distinctive vocabulary and grammar is fine only as long as it is correct, for example, Welsh English has some unusual grammatical constructions, and using those is fine while mimicking a Welsh accent. But if you want to mimic a German or French accent while speaking English, don’t introduce dumb grammar mistakes. Assuming that people who speak English as a second language must be inarticulate or unaware about English grammar laws is problematic.
- Don’t include stigmas, prejudices or nasty stereotypes about the group of people whose accent you are imitating, that’s degrading and condescending. A joke shouldn’t intend to make some accent sound unrefined, crude, uncouth.
Personally, I am more comfortable with some kinds of jokes than others. Consider, for example, this video.
I wouldn’t criticize or condemn a comedian who makes a joke about how Donald Trump speaks. Here we have a man who is speaking in his native language, who was born in a wealthy family, who had a chance to get good education, he even has a team of speech writers who could instruct him about how to pronounce the word “origins.” Besides, he made a choice to run for presidency, a job that requires good speaking skills. Simultaneously, I wouldn’t like hearing similar jokes about some non-native English speaker mispronouncing words. Nor would I like jokes about somebody who was born in poverty and never had a chance to learn some standard dialect.
Conclusions
Don’t be arrogant: your language isn’t any better than somebody else’s. Don’t discriminate other people because of how they speak. Don’t be rude, and don’t offend other people. Keep in mind that majority of people cannot change their accent. They are stuck with whatever they grew up with. Even some actors struggle with changing their accent. The overwhelming majority of polyglots and linguistics professors cannot do it. It’s unreasonable to expect Joe Average to learn to speak with some different accent. Of course, some people speak in certain ways, because they haven’t had much education. But keep in mind that in many regions university (and sometimes even school) isn’t accessible to children born in poor families. Nobody can be blamed for the fact that their parents couldn’t afford university bills. On top of that, people with regional accents shouldn’t even be expected to want to get rid of their accent. A person can cherish their accent, because it’s something that ties them with their family and home. Differences should be celebrated and treasured.
My goal with this article wasn’t convincing you to adopt my attitude about what is or isn’t rude or insulting and where the boundaries between funny versus offensive should be drawn. Frankly, I myself remain unsure about whether my own preferences are optimal. Who knows, maybe I’m too sensitive or too inattentive to other people’s insecurities. I know people who are happy to hear jokes about their accent. I also know people who feel extremely anxious, self conscious, and insecure about their speech only because others have made some “harmless jokes” about how they speak. My goal was to incite you think about this problem. Humanity would benefit is we all paid more attention to what we do and thought about how to avoid accidentally hurting or offending somebody else.
Are you seriously saying it is okay to mock or mimic the president of your country? So respect plays no part in your thinking.
Why should some person deserve more respect than everybody else merely because they happen to have a fancy job title?
No Peter, she is saying it is okay to mock Donald Trump. That is fine with me. First, he is no longer the president of my country. Second, he was a bully who mocked everybody, including disabled people and immigrants. He does not deserve respect as he gave no respect.
Hello there! Could I please get some insight from you?
Me and my girlfriend recently got into an argument about my use of an accent in quoting a professor of mine. The quote was a situation where the professor was saying a joke, so it may have been interpreted as using the accent as a joke.
My girlfriend said it is racist to use an accent when quoting someone. I am under the impression that it is not unless it is meant to mock, and I have tried to find information online but most is in regards to mocking the accent. I believe it is respectful to use the accent when quoting as it is more accurate, and accurate mimicry is flattering, or so I thought. I would just like some insight here as you seem extremely knowledgeable.
Thanks,
Ethan
Also curious about this… I naturally slightly impersonate people when I’m quoting them. I don’t even think about doing it until I’ve already started doing it. It’s never mocking or joking, it’s just pure slight imitation. Someone recently told me it was “maybe offensive,” which was surprising because I didn’t even imitate an accent, I just put on my pseudo deep voice as I was verbatim quoting a man. Albeit he is a black man, but again I barely imitated him. It in no way was mockery. I’m very close to this man, I speak to him very openly and honestly every day. It was objectively not an offensive situation. It’s not a matter of me wondering if it was “maybe” offensive or not. In my gut, I knew then and know now that it wasn’t offensive.
I think some people are becoming so eager to call things out that they deem offensive when they actually haven’t a clue. The endless labeling this, that, wrong, right, etc. is ironically limiting collaboration and progress. When I asked them how it was offensive they said, “idk.” It should come from an educational place, not from a place of needing to prove morally superiority.
Would love to hear more thoughts on this.
There is a difference between funny jokes, playful teasing, and affectionate speech versus verbal abuse, and mockery. Speaker’s intention is not the only determining factor on where to draw a line between these two. How some words are perceived by the person about whom you are talking also makes a difference. In general, when interacting in person, if somebody states that they dislike something, it is better to listen to them.
Consider, for example, nicknames. What is perceived as an affectionate nickname by one person can be perceived as an insult by somebody else. For example, personally, I would hate it if a person I was dating wanted us to call each other “Babe” or “Daddy.” In such a situation I should not need to provide a rational, well explained argument so that my date can judge for themselves whether my demand is justified. Instead, “please don’t call me ‘Daddy,’ I don’t like it” should be enough. And if they refused to heed my request and doubled down on how they meant no harm, how it is affectionate, and whatnot, well, they shouldn’t be surprised if I chose to treat them coldly and there was no next date. (For the record, in my native language there are no equivalent translations for “daddy” or “babe,” and all the direct translations are used exclusively to refer to family members. Thus we get incest and pedophilia connotations. Basically, imagine calling your sex partner “father” or “infant” rather than “daddy” or “baby.” My native language influences how I think, and that’s how I perceive these words. Of course, lack of certain words in Latvian language does not influence how some words are used in English. If other people want to call their sex partners “Daddy” or whatever, I could not care less. That’s none of my business. But I would get grumpy if a date insisted upon calling me that despite my stated preferences.)
We live in a free world where free speech exists. You are free to use the N-word or call somebody “an asshole.” Just like you can also imitate other people’s accents or voices, and make jokes about their height, weight, or name. Some people will be happy to socialize with you regardless of your choices. Some might like whatever you are doing. It depends. People like different things. But you can also expect others to treat you coldly and perceive you as a jerk after you choose to disregard their stated preferences. Or they might resign and accept you as a lost cause who just lacks empathy, emotional intelligence, or just plain intelligence to avoid being intentionally offensive.
Often we cannot predict in advance what will offend somebody. For example, some person from Eastern Europe who knows only some English after being forced to attend a several months long English course by their employer won’t know about American racial slurs. The chances are they won’t know even about the most offensive one (N-word). Or somebody who is not Asian and tries to use chopsticks for the first time won’t know that placing your chopsticks vertically in your bowl is considered offensive. Often we cannot even predict that our new friend hates nicknames or jokes about their name. Or any attempts to mimic their accent or voice.
If people point out that there is a problem, in such situations the proper answer would be, “I am sorry, I did not know that this can be a problem, I did not mean to offend anybody, I will keep this in mind, and I won’t do this thing again in the future.” The jerkass answer would be, “Even after being told that this is a problem, I will intentionally continue said behavior, because I know better how you should feel about something.”
Telling other people how they should feel about something is shitty. Their feelings are real and valid. Which brings us to the standard run-of-the-mill victim blaming at its finest—the people who feel offended are too sensitive and must be blamed for their own reaction to some potentially insulting words, and people who point out these issues are just arrogant jerks who want to feel morally superior over everybody else. And the person who intentionally disregards people’s stated preferences is the only good person who did the right thing.
Personally, I would consider it offensive if somebody tried to imitate my voice or accent, because I would perceive that as hinting that my voice is not just normal voice but that there’s something wrong with how I speak. But fine, for the sake of an argument, let’s assume that the person who got offended does, indeed, have self-esteem issues, they dislike their own voice or accent, they are too sensitive, maybe they might even benefit from therapy due to whatever mental health issues they might have. So what? How does that render their feelings any less real? How does that make it any less rude for you to lecture them on how they ought to feel about something? How does that justify intentional rudeness after you double down on some behavior that makes another person feel bad/hurt/offended?
At the end of the day, some people are fine when others make jokes about their name, weight, height, accent, or voice. Or, in your case, people imitating their voice. Others loathe the same things. It is not that hard to avoid being a jerk and listening to your conversation partner in such situations, asking how they feel about something, and taking their preferences into consideration.
I enjoyed reading your article.
Question: I have a heavy southern accent from living in the South for most of my life. I have worked hard to have an expansive vocabulary and speak professionally.
I am college educated and very concise with my words. I don’t use southern lingo (y’all, y’uns, etc.) ever. People often make fun of my accent, even complete strangers. It comes across demeaning at times. I really would like to change my accent, but it’s almost impossible. Any advice you can provide would be much appreciated.
There exist courses that try to teach students to speak with a less pronounced accent. Depending on how much money you have, you can hire a private teacher, sign up for some course, or buy some video/audio course. If you have no money, you can look for free stuff on YouTube or pirate some video lessons. You can search for something with keywords like “American English accent training” or something similar.
Most people can make their accent less noticeable with some training. Only a few people can completely get rid of their native accent.
In my case, in each of the foreign languages I speak there are some sounds that I can hear but cannot pronounce. And then there’s also intonation, rhythm in sentences, etc. problems. It’s not simple.
Jodie, I was born of Dutch mother, Anglo-Indian father, spent most of my formative years in India. In my 20s I worked in the Middle East, tried to live in Holland and the UK but was blessed to settle in the US. My accent is about as confused as one can imagine.
Folks have laughed at my accent, my inflection and turn of phrase. Sure, I change how I might pronounce a word. Sometimes that’s with effort and sometimes just by virtue of the society I live in. But my accent is just a part of who I am. I’m more concerned about communicating.
I suggest you learn to laugh at yourself a bit more. If you’re bothered by people mocking your accent, you’re prob overly conscious over other things about yourself. Lighten up, don’t be a snow flake. Relish being you. Change your accent, your nose, the warts on your nose and the shrill in your laugh but don’t hurt yourself getting there. There’s prob much more to admire in you than you give yourself credit for.
When a couple of generations are tired of all this pc nonsense, the French will still be able to laugh at the British and the British will still mock the Americans and somewhere in time we’ll realize its just funning and no one’s trying to hurt anyone.
I am aware that this advice was intended as well-meaning, but it also comes across as somewhat insensitive. People cannot consciously control their emotions. If somebody feels upset about being told something, they cannot just magically make themselves stop feeling upset/anxious.
Very nice response. The fact is it’s a very insensitive world. Lighten up and get out in the world and enjoy yourself.
I wrote about a form of discrimination and systematic prejudice that sometimes results in people losing access to jobs or opportunities. This type of bigotry cannot be just shrugged off for the same reasons why people of color cannot just ignore racism. You do not care about bigotry? If so, then you missed an opportunity to stay silent.
Firstly, in general, nobody likes being told what to do. Secondly, when people who have experienced some type of discrimination talk about their experiences, the last thing they want is unsolicited advice about how we ought to suck it up and shut up. In such cases, by lecturing others about how they should feel or what they should do, you are contributing to making the world an even worse place than it already is.
So thank you for your hard work on attempting to make our already flawed world even worse! We all love some good old victim blaming! Your jerkassery is highly appreciated here. /sarcasm tag
Now, please, kindly fuck off. Lighten up, get out in the world, go fuck yourself, enjoy this little exchange of insults, and stop offering disgusting unsolicited advice. After all, as a person who enjoys lecturing other people about what they should do, you must be thrilled about me telling you what you ought to do as well.
Hello Jodie. I too have a detectable southern accent which I never paid it any mind until I relocated outside my birth state. Everywhere I would go it was one of the first subjects that people brought to my attention, and I find it so frustrating and offensive. People in general are just ignorant. I doubt these bias people have any knowledge of a second language, although I began learning Spanish as a child.
I think if you try making friends with foreigners…people who barely know English or it not being their first language, it can help you overcome the feeling of inferiority and being ostracized. Network with people with their own set of speech challenges such as those who have a stutter. As long as you understand each other,that is all that matters. Don’t waste your time with the bigots. Build your own support system.
“People who speak this dialect usually can appreciate a joke about themselves and they aren’t an underprivileged minority”.
I’d say no, actually. I have a minority accent (American) for the country I live in (England). I am a British citizen. I have people frequently single me out in semi-hostile ways about my accent as if I don’t belong here, or they mimic it as if it’s funny to add a shitty nasal twang I don’t even have.
So I experience similar problems to you – they decide it’s amusing to parody my attempts at communication – but you think because I don’t have racial minority status I don’t get my feelings hurt? I have enough bullshit to deal with being queer-trans and perceived as a woman, so I don’t have many social self esteem spoons left over for being reminded I am in another way not like everybody around me.
Identity politics are complicated, but TLDR don’t make fun of how people talk, address the content of their sentences.
Context matters. A comedian on TV making a joke about Americans in general is different than somebody making a joke about your accent while they are talking with you in person. I never implied that the latter (parody of your attempts at communication in a personal conversation) is acceptable.
In a personal conversation it would also be appropriate to pay attention to the other person and adjust your words based on how they behave. Some people love jokes and are happy to hear jokes about themselves. Other people absolutely hate any kind of jokes about themselves. Thus a reasonable rule of thumb is to not joke about another person you know unless you are sure that they like it.
Thanks so much for this article! I’m working extremely hard to get rid of any remnants of my native accent to pass as a native speaker for personal reasons, so it really resonated with me. I went to a British-flavoured international high school, which was very big on multiculturalism and diversity, but for some reason it was completely socially acceptable to have teachers do skits where they imitated students and their accents for the sake of comedy. So if anyone ever makes fun of my accent I’ll refer them to your article!
As someone who grew up on stage and was very interested in different dialects, I imitate some accents frequently in a light-hearted way – never with disrespect. But I’m now wondering if “hamming it up at home” in this way is offensive and unenlightened. My kids are both very animated and expressive, too, and I’m hoping I didn’t steer them wrong by doing this.
Thank you for this excellent piece. I’m currently struggling with a group of middle school students who persist in mocking accents. We’ve discussed not mocking anyone, and the rest of the class is also tired of these “jokes.” They’ve gone from Aussie to East Indian to “gay.” Do you have any advice to help explain this to resistant 13 year-olds?
Thank you, it is very useful to read your article. I have noticed in the last weeks, since the War in Ukraine more evidence of language shaming/lampooning, however it may be called. Directed at German accents, Russian accents, Chinese accents. Probably people are angry deep down , resort to historical percieved ‘evilness’ attached to a country or culture historically , and label all peoplewho use this language , dialects included with this . It certainly doesn’t help tie people together and help them find ways to heal or, indeed, notice the others are also human, or find ways to end killing each other, or blaming each other. Again, thank you for your thinking and writing.
Coming across this article was helpful and it was a good read. I’m fascinated with accents and I often imitate what I here because of that fascination; I never considered that could be problematic. But I see how it absolutely can be. Also, I’ve been a part of improv groups and was surprised to hear that imitating accents is discouraged or at the very least work hard to use them respectfully and not as a mechanism for the joke. I see a lot of content creators who center accents around their comedy routines like Angela Johnson and more recently James He. Making fun of someone’s accen
Yes, It can be exceedingly hurtful. Some people like you don’t mean anything wrong; mocking accents depends on time and place. Also, because English is not my first language, I notice that my knowledge and opinions get devalued by others because of my accent. Unfortunately, this is not only my experience but the experience of many people, for English is not their first language.
Back in the 80’s Lupe tortilla restaurant in Houston had a menu that read,” Beeg sucker burrito, Cheekin Lupe and Geeeft card and so on. When I complained to the owner Stan Holt and told him I was offended he said I had a problem and was ashamed of my accent, not him. It took them 40 years but they must have finally realized it was rude, offensive, prejudicial and racist because they have removed that garbage.
Gus Munoz
I face this issue (I am british, in US) I keep getting mocked and bullying by one kid at my school. and he just wont stop. it gets me uncomfortable and anxious.