The many permutations of spoken English have called for an interrogation into the notions of 'standard English' and 'native accents'. Despite their problematic nature, these terms remain commonly used, and familiarity with 'standard', inner-circle varieties of English is typical among L2 English speakers, differences in education and language…

This study examined Americans' attitudes toward standard American English (SAE) and nine, non-Anglo foreign accents: Arabic, Farsi, French, German, Hindi, Hispanic, Mandarin, Russian, and Vietnamese. Compared to SAE speakers, all foreign-accented speakers were rated as harder to understand, more likely to be categorised as foreign (rather than…

Although Article 15 of the Iranian constitution endorses non-Persian Languages, speakers of these minority languages are latently obligated to speak Persian, the majority language, in most social settings. Consequently, these Iranian L2 speakers of Persian give rise to certain attitudes towards their accented speech, particularly from speakers of…

Foreign-accented speakers are generally regarded as less educated, less reliable and less interesting than native speakers and tend to be associated with cultural stereotypes of their country of origin. This discrimination against foreign accents has, however, been discussed mainly using accented English in English-speaking countries. This study…