Stereotyped accent judgements in forensic contexts: listener perceptions of social traits and types of behaviour

Paver, A, Wright, D ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2300-5915, Braber, N ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2611-1190 and Pautz, N ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5366-5925, 2025. Stereotyped accent judgements in forensic contexts: listener perceptions of social traits and types of behaviour. Frontiers in Communication, 9: 1462013. ISSN 2297-900X

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Abstract

This paper reports the findings from a multidisciplinary and cross-institutional Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) funded project called ‘Improving Voice Identification Procedures’ (IVIP). People harbour stereotypes about particular accents, and those judgements may be brought with them into the legal domain. Considering the potential consequences of accent judgements by witnesses and jurors, this study examines the relationship between ratings for characteristics and the likelihood of acting in certain criminal and non-criminal ways. 180 participants completed an accent judgement task, rating 10 regionally-accented British voices on a range of traits and behaviours using a wider variety of accents, behaviours and criminal offences than previous research. Results indicate that evaluations of perceived characteristics based on accent translate into evaluations of likely behaviours. Non-standard UK regional accents are generally perceived more negatively than a standard one, but not universally; non-English accents elicited more positive trait and behaviour ratings than English accents. Furthermore, although accents evaluated as low-status were generally more likely to behave criminally according to listeners, this varied according to the type of crime. The discussion explores the forensic implications of the relationships between perceived status and criminality, as well as discussing the significance of perceptions of perpetrators of sexual offences when compared to other offence types. We emphasise the need for nuanced understanding of how accents are evaluated when it comes to different crime types.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	Frontiers in Communication
Creators:	Paver, A., Wright, D., Braber, N. and Pautz, N.
Publisher:	Frontiers Media
Date:	15 January 2025
Volume:	9
ISSN:	2297-900X
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.3389/fcomm.2024.1462013 DOI 2270099 Other
Rights:	© 2025 Paver, Wright, Braber and Pautz. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
Divisions:	Schools > School of Arts and Humanities
Record created by:	Melissa Cornwell
Date Added:	15 Nov 2024 15:50
Last Modified:	15 Jan 2025 15:42
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/52581

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