The effect of dialect and ethnicity on communicator effectiveness

Eighty English‐Canadian subjects listened to a taped persuasive communication attributed to either an English‐Canadian or a French‐Canadian source and read with either an English‐Canadian or a French‐Canadian dialect. Both the speaker's dialect and the source's ethnicity affected the audience's reaction to the message. French‐Canadian subjects responded more favourably to a communication read with an English‐Canadian dialect than one read with a French‐Canadian dialect and responded more favourably to a communication attributed to an English‐Canadian source than one attributed to a French‐Canadian source. Furthermore, French‐Canadian sources were evaluated less stereotypically when communications attributed to them were read with an English‐Canadian dialect than when read with a French‐Canadian dialect. Methodological and theoretical implications of these results are discussed.