#46 Accent Bias - The Bias We Don't Talk About with Heather Hansen

Show notes

Within the first few seconds of hearing someone speak, we’ve already made a judgment about them, and most of us never notice we’ve done it.

In this episode, Frauke and Marie-Christine talk with Heather Hansen, Global Communications Specialist and founder of Global Speech Academy in Singapore, about why accent bias is still widely accepted at work, how it shapes who gets hired and promoted, and what each of us can do about it.

Heather has trained leaders on four continents, including at NASA. She has lived and worked in the US, Austria, Denmark and Singapore, and has experienced accent bias firsthand. She explains why it slips under the radar of most DEI policies and the law, and why “I don’t have an accent” is a myth: everyone has one.

In this episode, we explore:

• Why accent bias is called “the last acceptable form of discrimination,” and why it is rarely legally protected (France is a notable exception)
• The three dimensions of accent: intelligibility, comprehensibility and accentedness, and why understanding someone is not the same as judging them easy to understand
• Where our accent preferences come from, from childhood socialization to Disney villains and Hollywood casting
• How accents shift when we live internationally, and what an “international accent” signals to others
• Why adults find it hard to acquire new sounds after puberty
• Research from Accent Bias Britain on hiring and promotion, and why simple awareness measures can reduce bias
• How accent bias looks different around the world: regional hierarchies in German- and Danish-speaking countries, social class in the UK, race and ethnicity in the US, and a preference for American accents even in multicultural Singapore
• Whether it’s okay to ask someone about their accent
• Practical strategies for listeners: take responsibility for understanding, ask for rephrasing instead of repetition, and switch to writing when needed
• Practical strategies for speakers: build confidence and assertiveness, and redirect comments about your accent back to your message
• Why being multilingual doesn’t make us immune to accent bias

Key takeaway: Communication is a two-way responsibility. When we struggle to understand someone, the question isn’t “What’s wrong with their accent?” but “What can I do to understand better?”

About Heather Hansen: Heather is Founder of Singapore-based corporate training firm Global Speech Academy, where she helps global leaders speak with confidence and ensures their voices are valued. She is passionate about ending linguistic discrimination and has run award-winning accent bias awareness programs for NASA. Heather is author of Unmuted and is a PhD Candidate researching accent attitudes and status in MNCs.

Connect with Heather: 

Website: https://heatherhansen.com , https://globalspeechacademy.com 

LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/hansenheather

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