The sexiest accent in the world: Linguistic insecurity and prejudice in media coverage of the New Zealand accent

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dc.citation.issue1
dc.citation.volume64
dc.contributor.authorde Bres J
dc.contributor.authorNicholas SA
dc.date.available2021-06-30
dc.date.issued2021-06-30
dc.description.abstractIn 2019, New Zealanders collectively blushed at the news that an online survey had voted the New Zealand accent the sexiest in the world. Taking a critical metalinguistic perspective, this article examines how the New Zealand accent was represented in media coverage of the survey results. Examining written and televised news items reporting on the survey, we attend to explicit discourse, in the form of direct discussion about the accent, as well as implicit discourse, in the form of images and accent performances. The survey purported to reveal how the world sees the New Zealand accent, but the media coverage more strongly reveals how New Zealanders see themselves. Behind the apparently light-hearted joking about the sexiness or otherwise of the New Zealand accent, the results provide continued evidence of linguistic insecurity, alongside prejudice towards stigmatised social variation in accent. A survey investigating how 52 university students reacted to stylised New Zealand accents in the media coverage suggests that supposedly humorous accent performances are not so funny for those who are the subject of the joke.
dc.description.confidentialfalse
dc.format.extent15 - 32 (17)
dc.identifier.citationTe Reo, 2021, 64 (1), pp. 15 - 32 (17)
dc.identifier.elements-id445340
dc.identifier.harvestedMassey_Dark
dc.identifier.issn0494-8440
dc.languageEnglish
dc.publisherLinguistic Society of New Zealand
dc.relation.isPartOfTe Reo
dc.relation.urihttps://nzlingsoc.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/DeBres-Sally-Akevai_NZE-Ideology-FINAL-1.pdf
dc.rights©Te Reo – The Journal of the Linguistic Society of New Zealand
dc.subjectLinguistic Discrimination
dc.subjectNew Zealand English
dc.subject.anzsrc2003 Language Studies
dc.subject.anzsrc2004 Linguistics
dc.titleThe sexiest accent in the world: Linguistic insecurity and prejudice in media coverage of the New Zealand accent
dc.typeJournal article
pubs.notesNot known
pubs.organisational-group/Massey University
pubs.organisational-group/Massey University/College of Humanities and Social Sciences
pubs.organisational-group/Massey University/College of Humanities and Social Sciences/School of Humanities, Media & Creative Communication
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