I recognize that taking cultural sensitivity advice from Little Britain is a very bad idea. Still, there is a valuable lesson to be learned from Weight Watchers Counsellor Marjorie Dawes. Not surprisingly, it has very little to do with fashion.
These Little Britain sketches are illustrating something pretty problematic. In a 1992 study (Rubin), students listened to a taped lecture recorded by an English speaker with a regional Ohio accent (same as the students) and they were shown a picture of the lecturer. Half of the students were shown a picture of a white instructor and the other half were shown a picture of an Asian instructor. Students who saw the picture of the Asian instructor believed that they had heard an accented lecturer. They performed worse on a task measuring their comprehension of the lecture.
In a nutshell, students listened to an instructor, and if they thought she was Asian, they had a harder time understanding her. Even though the lecturer’s voice was actually a white woman speaking with the same regional accent as theirs. If they thought she was white, no problem. Wow our brains are stupid sometimes.
So, if you have an ‘accent’ compared to the people around you, the next time you find yourself misunderstood you may not be at fault.
If you’re the listener and you’re having a hard time understanding someone, excuse yourself, run to the bathroom and take a quick look in the mirror. Really look at yourself. If you see any trace of Marjorie Dawes there, then I suggest you change your attitude.
And your eyeshadow.
Rubin, 1992. Nonlanguage Factors Affecting Undergraduates’ Judgments of Nonnative English-SpeakingTeaching AssistantsAuthor(s): Donald L. RubinSource: Research in Higher Education, Vol. 33, No. 4 (Aug., 1992), pp. 511-531Published by: SpringerStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40196047 .