Search results

This paper argues that accent modification acts as a mechanism that (re)produces workplace accentism, which is a set of ideologies and practices positioning some English accents as inherently superior/inferior to others in the context of work and careers.

This conceptual paper draws on existing literature mainly from critical sociolinguistic and labor studies to support its central argument.

Through acting as a skill, a technology and a commodified service, accent modification naturalizes linguistic hierarchies, which are racist, classist and colonial constructions, and reinforces the structural status quo in different contexts.

In order to move away from accent modification as a means to enhance oral communication at work, organizational attempts at fostering mutual intelligibility and undoing the role of accent in workplace communication are necessary.

Contrary to research that presents accentism as a purely interpersonal issue, the paper explores how accentism is institutionalized and is connected to linguistic profiling.

This paper introduces the concept of transracial aesthetic labour to understand why and how an international teaching assistant (ITA) vocally changes meanings of his racial identity.

The paper uses a narrative analysis to detail instances of transracial aesthetic labour.

For the ITA, this labour involved orally distancing from or aligning with particular Indian stereotypes for specific contexts.

Transracial aesthetic labour may occur in other industries that deem race an integral part of sounding right or looking good for the job.

The findings highlight the need for ITAs and universities to rethink the meaning of transracial to combat racist perceptions of ITAs' speech.

The paper advances the aesthetic labour literature by exploring how race is vocally performed for this labour and introducing ITAs as aesthetic labourers.

Expertise in English language teaching (ELT) is determined by being a white native speaker of English. Therefore, ELT is a type of aesthetic labour because workers are expected to look and sound a particular way. As nonwhite teachers cannot perform this labour, they may experience employment discrimination in the form of racial microaggressions, which are everyday racial slights. The purpose of this paper is to investigate what types of microaggressions inform several nonwhite teachers that they cannot perform aesthetic labour in private language schools in Toronto, Canada.

The paper utilizes a critical race methodology in which several nonwhite teachers told stories of racial microaggressions.

The teachers were told that they lacked the right aesthetic through microaggressions involving employers being confused about their names, questioning their language backgrounds, and citing customer preferences.

Future research must find out whether nonwhite teachers experience discrimination throughout Canada. Other studies must investigate how intersecting identity markers affect teachers’ employment prospects.

To prevent the discrimination of nonwhite teachers (in Canada), increased regulation is needed. The international ELT industry also needs to fight against the ideology that English is a white language.

There is little literature that examines language/racial discrimination in the Canadian ELT industry and how this discrimination is articulated to teachers.