A STUDY ON PERCEPTION OF STATUS DIMENSION BASED ON ACCENT OF NATIVE HILIGAYNON SPEAKERS

This study tried to determine the existence of accent bias in a local language, specifically the Hiligaynon language. It is anchored on the Accent Prestige Theory of Henry Giles which claimed that people use a speaker's accent in judging a speaker's characteristics. One of the two categories under this theory is the status dimension. It mediates judgements about social class and ethnicity that the accent implies, which involves prejudice based on accents that involve positive and negative stereotype. This study employed Ilonggo listeners and Ilonggo speakers from Surallah, South Cotabato. After all the data were subjected to appropriate statistical measures, the study revealed that 80.00% of the listeners used accent in judging a person's status. Majority of the listeners also used accent in judging the ethnicity of the speakers, the perceived economic status, educational attainment, the perceived level of intelligence, and the perceived language ability of the speakers. This study proved that accent bias does exist, and is used to perceived a speaker's status even in local language. This study can be used as a future reference to form a distinct statistical/analytic tool to asses bias and to further identify the underlying causes of these biases locally.