8 Mar

So, I heard something rather disturbing in my sociolinguistics class today. A study was conducted at an American college in which students were seated in a room and played a taped recording of a lecture segment delivered by an average white, middle-aged, female lecturer. While listening, they were given a photograph of the lecturer to look at (the actual woman speaking, I believe). They were then asked to comment on the clarity of the lecture, how well they could understand her, etc. Next, they were shown a photograph of a Chinese lecturer who was also female and about middle-aged. Although the exact same tape was played for both pictures, the students reported that they found the Chinese lecturer harder to understand! It wasn’t an overwhelming majority or anything, but there was a noticeable decrease in the level of perceived understanding on the part of the students. It’s disappointing that people will let their stereotypes carry so far as to be outright unfair to the group stereotyped even when no difference exists.

Weather-wise it was such a horrible day so I just darted home after class. I did some reading and puttering around until dinner. I had a brief presentation for my court cultures class to prepare but since I’ve done so much reading on the material, I wasn’t too worried. I chatted with Gregg and Liane for a bit until I heard Skype ringing and talked to my sister for a while. She got a job offer from Glaxo! Congrats Sach!! After I finished chatting with her, I worked some more on my presentation then went to bed. Cheers!