Comments on: Linguistic discrimination at work

By: Pepe

Pepe — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 12:28:42 +0000

I see you’re talking about linguistic discrimination only in one way, that is, you only talk about being discriminated for speaking with not enough profficiency a major language. The case is really interesting, although I think when one person goes to live to another territory has to learn the language/s of that territory. I don’t like, for example, the people that have lived for a long time in my city (Barcelona) and have not even tried to learn catalan.
I think it would be interesting to discuss as well the discrimination for being native-speaker of one language. I know people that are perfectly proficient in spanish but have some kind of catalan accent (but just accent, so there’s no communicative problem) and have been discriminated for that. Or the linguistic prejudices and discriminations that exist for speaking minority languages. “He speaks galician… what a boor” or “you can work here but please never speak basque to our customers”. PS:Sorry for my english!

By: Ingrid Piller

Ingrid Piller — Sun, 21 Nov 2010 12:56:39 +0000

Without knowing anything about the details of your case, there is certainly evidence that the "your English isn't good enough" argument is sometimes used as a cloak for racial discrimination; see, e.g., Racism Without Racists or Multilingualism and Social Exclusion. Best wishes!

By: Mary

Mary — Sun, 21 Nov 2010 11:24:42 +0000

My managers discriminated against me because I do not speak like the native as my english language is my second language and reprimanded me, “You should never been given the job, you will never be acceptable” refering to my English.
“What about your english, is that not an incapability?”
HR and me often sniggered at your English”
They then used their substandard work for me to correct and then cite that as my incapabilities for an eventual dismissal.
They then plotted my dismissal.
Dont you think that is racial discrimination?

By: Zak

Zak — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 23:49:07 +0000

I work for a premium German Auto manufacturer and I work mainly with international colleagues and use English most of the time. My boss cannot speak good English and has told me I have no future in the company without perfect German. I think My case is more Xenophobia than language discrimination? Interestingly we sell over over 80% of our cars to non German speaking people and most of them speak English.

By: xiaoxiao

xiaoxiao — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 10:30:02 +0000

This reminds me of a report years ago about some talk show hosts in CCTV (China Central Television) who failed to pass the the highest level of standard mandarine test and were said to be leaving CCTV. They finally managed to stay, partly because they were quite popular with the audience, but in the meantime they had received sort of warning notice from their employer. We might argue that talk show hosts, unlike news anchors, needn’t speak perfect manderine because their primary task is to get the guests and the audience to be engaged in communication. It seems that linguistic discrimination at work exists not only in bilingual context but also in some professions which usually deem the standard pronunciation of a language as a prerequsite.