The Linguist

Chartered Institute of Linguists WINTER 2025 The Linguist 17 FEATURES for the speaking bands. Teachers focus on formulaic coherence markers such as 'even rhythm', 'limited first-language influence' and 'controlled intonation'. Students who hit these targets can study abroad; students who meet content expectations but keep the local cadence are told their ideas are not 'coming through' and they need more time. 3 Workshops that prescribe prestige accents. In Nigerian staff development sessions, training materials still present RP as a professional ideal. Trainers are careful to say that Nigerian English is legitimate, but then model 'meeting-ready vowels' and ask participants to practise. The message is mixed: your English is fine in literature and at home; your English is risky when you chair a board or lecture undergraduates. That division persists even in departments that celebrate Nigerian English as a global literary resource. Prestige on the page does not guarantee prestige in the room. Workshop slides ask personnel to avoid 'regional features' in staff meetings. Junior colleagues report reserving RP for ceremonies and boards, and switching back to Nigerian English in informal teaching. The split encodes a hierarchy: prestige gatherings deserve prestige accents. Etiquette that turns preferences into policy. Departmental memos rarely say 'sound Global North'; they say 'speak clearly to mixed audiences' or 'avoid slang in large lectures'. Yet the sound of clarity is prefigured by the listener. A chair who hears clarity as a particular rhythm will give feedback that steers colleagues towards that rhythm. Over time, the preference becomes a requirement. This pattern appears in conference programmes too. Panels promising 'accessible language' often point to a narrow range of accents. What about intelligibility? Some readers will object that accent matters because listeners need to understand. That is true, but incomplete. Intelligibility is not a fixed property but a relation between listeners, expectations, contexts and shared knowledge. Research in World Englishes shows that higher exposure to diverse Englishes increases comprehension. 4 Rosina Lippi-Green calls the belief that accent signals competence and character a "language ideology". 5 Research shows that listeners, when primed to expect a 'foreign' accent, report comprehension issues even when the voice is a native variety. 6 The point is not to romanticise difficulty – we need to design talks that help audiences to follow. The goal is not to blame listeners or to keep speakers locked into a single way of sounding. It is to promote a fairer way of hearing different accents; to reduce accent as a condition of visibility and advancement. Over time, interventions would signal three changes. First, the language of evaluation should shift, with more comments about claims and evidence, and fewer about voice quality. Second, Q&A sessions should make room for wider participation, especially from students who currently stay quiet while speakers with prestige accents dominate the early part of the discussion. Third, coaching markets should recalibrate. If candidates see that content matters more than cadence, they will spend less time on vowel drills and more on analytics. There is no single remedy. The pressures that produce accent hierarchy are commercial, institutional and personal. Testing markets, editorial practices and recruitment practices are intertwined. Yet the first step is modest and available to every department: turn the microphone towards our own listening. Ask what kind of voice we imagine when we hear the word 'clear'. Ask when we decide that a fast cadence signals uncertainty. Ask why we repeat some answers in our own accents and let others stand. Authority in global academia should be decided by what is said, not by how closely a voice matches a prestige sound. Notes 1 Derrida, J (1976) Of Grammatology, trans. Spivak, GC, Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press 2 Flores, N and Rosa, J (2015) 'Undoing Appropriateness'. In Language in Society, 44,4 3 IELTS Partners, 'Speaking Band Descriptors', official rubric; ETS, 'TOEFL iBT Speaking Scoring Guides', official rubric, various editions 4 Jenkins, J (2000) The Phonology of English as an International Language, Oxford: OUP; Smith, LE and Nelson, CL (1985) 'International Intelligibility of English'. In World Englishes, 4,3 5 Lippi-Green, R (1997) English with an Accent: Language, ideology, and discrimination in the United States, London and New York: Routledge 6 Rubin, D (1992) 'Nonlanguage Factors Affecting Undergraduates' Judgments of Nonnative English-Speaking Teaching Assistants'. In Research in Higher Education, 33,4 © SHUTTERSTOCK

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