CBC | As a newcomer to Canada, should I try to lose my accent?
According to Dr. Marc Pell, a professor at McGill University's school of communication sciences and disorders, people who speak with an accent are perceived as less trustworthy than those without an accent. "If you have an accent, any type of accent, according to the people that are rating and judging the person, they will consider you less believable," he explained.
his can be mitigated if the accented speaker speaks with confidence, but Pell acknowledges that these subconscious biases can have consequences on people's lives. "In terms of our jobs or employment opportunities, access to justice, whether it be, you know, being stopped by a police car because you're speeding or whatever, we're constantly being assessed in terms of whether we're believable," he said.
