It may seem particularly harsh, however the research is clear: your English communication skills can determine your social status among clients and peers, and your appeal as a service provider.

Drawing on a series of recent studies in psychology in the US, the Netherlands, and the bilingual region of Catalonia, researchers have demonstrated that language errors can have significant negative effects on how those making the errors are perceived by others - even if you are a non-native speaker of English.

The results are sobering for any business or person offering professional services to international clients.

The presence of language errors in the speech or text you or your employees produce:

  • will significantly lower your perceived level of education, social status, and overall attractiveness.

  • will be perceived to indicate a lack of care.

  • will significantly lower the perceived quality and persuasiveness of the content of your communication.

  • depending on the nature of the language errors, will lose you potential clients, who will dismiss your message and the persuasiveness of it from the outset.

    In particular, see the following study:

    Mozafari, A., El-Alayli, A., Kunemund, A., & Fry, T. (2019). Impressions of businesses with language errors in print advertising: Do spelling and grammar influence the inclination to use a business?: Research and reviews. Current Psychology, 38(6), 1721-1727. doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-017-97350L

Of course, none of these negative perceptions would be true of you or your business.

These negative perceptions may even seem particularly harsh when applied to non-native speakers.

Sadly, the research is clear: when someone begins speaking with a strong foreign accent or uses English unconventionally, certain language biases are automatically triggered.

What triggers these effects?

Humans have a fundamental cognitive process called categorization. It is our way of quickly and automatically organizing and processing stimuli.

When we meet a new person, we automatically categorize them. The way we perceive people from different groups can be influenced by this process. A new individual can be classified as either young or old, athletic or not athletic, skilled or not skilled, and so forth.

For decades, research has been conducted on the three major cues that determine social categorization: race, age, and gender.

What about the way someone speaks?

This question was recently investigated by Lorenzoni and others (2022), who reported as follows:

“Recent studies have shown that infants use language to encode individuals in different groups according to the language they speak. For instance, Kinzler, Dupoux, and Spelke [(2010)] observed that 6-month-old infants prefer looking at speakers of their same native language than those who speak a different language. Other studies reported that 11- and 19-month-old infants when learning new information, look more frequently at members belonging to the same linguistic group than at people of a different linguistic group. These results with the language cue would be analogous to what has been observed with other cues, such as race and gender.
”
— Lorenzoni, A., Santesteban, M., Peressotti, F., Baus, C., & Navarrete, E. (2022). Language as a cue for social categorization in bilingual communities. PLoS One, 17(11) doi:https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0276334

In short, language-based biases that favour your own language and speech patterns begin to form in infancy.

Unfortunately, it is widely accepted from the research, that a speaker's foreign accent is known to immediately classify them as an out-group member, which activates stereotypes and stigmas associated with that group.

Multiple studies in the US have demonstrated that accent has a significant impact on interpersonal evaluations, employment opportunities, credibility, vocational competence, and social status.

The other side of the coin is also true. The association between a standard accent and higher social attractiveness, increased job opportunities, higher social status, higher intelligence, and more trustworthiness has also been proven.

Moreover, a large study of over 5,000 employers in the US revealed that US companies usually prefer to recruit applicants with standard American accents, directly or indirectly justifying their biases by citing concerns about comprehensibility, speech intelligibility, and interpersonal communication- competence as the potential impetus for such hiring practices (Deprez-Sims & Morris, 2010).

To sum up what we know from recent research:

  • Language errors, like cracks in the foundation, can erode the credibility and trust that businesses work so hard to build.

  • In the eyes of clients and peers, language errors and a strong foreign accent reflect negatively on the desirability of working with that person and lowers expectations as to the quality of service on offer.  

  • Being articulate in English is the cornerstone of building trust in your abilities as a professional service provider and the key to winning and keeping international clients.