Voices of America: Accent, Antidiscrimination Law, and a Jurisprudence for the Last Reconstruction

Every person who reads this Article has an accent.Your accent carries the story of who you are-who first held you and talked to you when you were a child, where you have lived, your age, the schools you attended, the languages you know, your ethnicity, whom you admire, your loyalties, your profession, your class position: traces of your life and identity are woven into your pronunciation, your phrasing, your choice of words.Your self is inseparable from your accent.'Someone who tells you they don't like the way you speak is quite likely telling you that they don't like you.Every person has an accent-even those who do not communicate with voice. 2 The deaf have an accent in the way they use American Sign Language.