Discrimination is the process of making unfair or prejudicial distinctions between people based on the groups, classes, or other categories to which they belong or are perceived to belong, such as race, gender, age, religion, physical attractiveness or sexual orientation. Discrimination typically leads to groups being unfairly treated on the basis of perceived statues based on ethnic, racial, gender or religious categories. It involves depriving members of one group of opportunities or privileges that are available to members of another group.
Sexual harassment is a type of harassment involving the use of explicit or implicit sexual overtones, including the unwelcome and inappropriate promises of rewards in exchange for sexual favors. Sexual harassment can be physical and/or verbal. Sexual harassment includes a range of actions from verbal transgressions to sexual abuse or assault. Harassment can occur in many different social settings such as the workplace, the home, school, or religious institutions. Harassers or victims can be of any gender.
In sociolinguistics, an accent is a way of pronouncing a language that is distinctive to a country, area, social class, or individual. An accent may be identified with the locality in which its speakers reside, the socioeconomic status of its speakers, their ethnicity, their caste or social class, or influence from their first language.
Diversity training is any program designed to facilitate positive intergroup interaction, reduce prejudice and discrimination, and generally teach individuals who are different from others how to work together effectively.
Pregnancy discrimination is a type of employment discrimination that occurs when expectant women are fired, not hired, or otherwise discriminated against due to their pregnancy or intention to become pregnant. Common forms of pregnancy discrimination include not being hired due to visible pregnancy or likelihood of becoming pregnant, being fired after informing an employer of one's pregnancy, being fired after maternity leave, and receiving a pay dock due to pregnancy. Pregnancy discrimination may also take the form of denying reasonable accommodations to workers based on pregnancy, childbirth, and related medical conditions. Pregnancy discrimination has also been examined to have an indirect relationship with the decline of a mother's physical and mental health. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women prohibits dismissal on the grounds of maternity or pregnancy and ensures right to maternity leave or comparable social benefits. The Maternity Protection Convention C 183 proclaims adequate protection for pregnancy as well. Though women have some protection in the United States because of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978, it has not completely curbed the incidence of pregnancy discrimination. The Equal Rights Amendment could ensure more robust sex equality ensuring that women and men could both work and have children at the same time.
Employment discrimination is a form of illegal discrimination in the workplace based on legally protected characteristics. In the U.S., federal anti-discrimination law prohibits discrimination by employers against employees based on age, race, gender, sex, religion, national origin, and physical or mental disability. State and local laws often protect additional characteristics such as marital status, veteran status and caregiver/familial status. Earnings differentials or occupational differentiation—where differences in pay come from differences in qualifications or responsibilities—should not be confused with employment discrimination. Discrimination can be intended and involve disparate treatment of a group or be unintended, yet create disparate impact for a group.
Accent reduction, also known as accent modification or accent neutralization, is a systematic approach for learning or adopting a new speech accent. It is the process of learning the sound system and melodic intonation of a language so the non-native speaker can communicate with clarity.
Language politics is the way language and linguistic differences between peoples are dealt with in the political arena. This could manifest as government recognition, as well as how language is treated in official capacities.
Inland Northern (American) English, also known in American linguistics as the Inland North or Great Lakes dialect, is an American English dialect spoken primarily by White Americans in a geographic band reaching from the major urban areas of Upstate New York westward along the Erie Canal and through much of the U.S. Great Lakes region. The most distinctive Inland Northern accents are spoken in Chicago, Milwaukee, Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo, Rochester, and Syracuse. The dialect can be heard as far west as eastern Iowa and even among certain demographics in the Twin Cities, Minnesota. Some of its features have also infiltrated a geographic corridor from Chicago southwest along historic Route 66 into St. Louis, Missouri; today, the corridor shows a mixture of both Inland North and Midland American accents. Linguists often characterize the western Great Lakes region's dialect separately as North-Central American English.
Employment discrimination law in the United States derives from the common law, and is codified in numerous state, federal, and local laws. These laws prohibit discrimination based on certain characteristics or "protected categories." The United States Constitution also prohibits discrimination by federal and state governments against their public employees. Discrimination in the private sector is not directly constrained by the Constitution, but has become subject to a growing body of federal and state law, including the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Federal law prohibits discrimination in a number of areas, including recruiting, hiring, job evaluations, promotion policies, training, compensation and disciplinary action. State laws often extend protection to additional categories or employers.
Linguistic insecurity comprises feelings of anxiety, self-consciousness, or lack of confidence in the mind of a speaker surrounding their use of language. Often, this anxiety comes from speakers' belief that their speech does not conform to the perceived standard and/or the style of language expected by the speakers' interlocutor(s). Linguistic insecurity is situationally induced and is often based on a feeling of inadequacy regarding personal performance in certain contexts, rather than a fixed attribute of an individual. This insecurity can lead to stylistic, and phonetic shifts away from an affected speaker's default speech variety; these shifts may be performed consciously on the part of the speaker, or may be reflective of an unconscious effort to conform to a more prestigious or context-appropriate variety or style of speech. Linguistic insecurity is linked to the perception of speech varieties in any community, and so may vary based on socioeconomic class and gender. It is also especially pertinent in multilingual societies.
Malta has two official languages: Maltese and English. Maltese is the national language. Until 1934, Italian was also an official language in Malta, and in the 19th and 20th centuries there was a linguistic and political debate known as the Language Question about the roles of these three languages. The Maltese population is generally able to converse in languages which are not native to the country, particularly English and Italian. They can also somewhat understand Darija.
National origin is the nation where a person was born, or where that person's ancestors came from. It also includes the diaspora of multi-ethnic states and societies that have a shared sense of common identity identical to that of a nation while being made up of several component ethnic groups. National origin can be the same, different from, or a combination of a person's national identity, which is the nation with which a person subjectively identifies with; in some cases, such as children born to expatriates, temporary residents or diplomatic and consular staff, a person may not identify with the nation in which they were born. National origin and national identity which can be tied to each other should also be distinguished from a person's nationality or citizenship which is a legal status in which a sovereign state recognizes someone as belonging to their country.
Split labor market theory was proposed by sociologist Edna Bonacich in the early 1970s as an attempt to explain racial/ethnic tensions and labor market segmentation by race/ethnicity in terms of social structure and political power rather than individual-level prejudice. Bonacich argues that ethnic antagonism emerges from a split labor market, where two or more racially/ethnically distinct groups of workers vie for the same jobs, and where the total cost to the employer of hiring workers from one group is significantly lower than the cost of hiring from the other group. Employers prefer to hire cheaper workers and will do so absent active opposition from higher-priced workers, creating an antagonism between higher- and lower-priced groups. Differences in the price of labor are sociological and political in nature, not a matter of personal preference, so that, e.g., native, unionized workers, who enjoy full political rights will demand higher wages and be more likely to resist employer prerogatives than undocumented immigrant, non-union workers from poorer countries. According to Bonacich, likely outcomes of a split labor market include not only antagonism but, depending on the political power of higher-priced workers, a caste-like system where lower-priced workers are restricted to specific occupations, or total exclusion of the lower-priced group from the labor market.
Linguistic discrimination is unfair treatment of people which is based on their use of language and the characteristics of their speech, including their first language, their accent, the perceived size of their vocabulary, their modality, and their syntax. For example, an Occitan speaker in France will probably be treated differently from a French speaker. Based on a difference in use of language, a person may automatically form judgments about another person's wealth, education, social status, character or other traits, which may lead to discrimination. This article will explore the prejudice behind linguistic discrimination, its origin and history, its impact, and a look into linguistics across varying countries.
Discrimination comprises "base or the basis of class or category without regard to individual merit, especially to show prejudice on the basis of ethnicity, gender, or a similar social factor". This term is used to highlight the difference in treatment between members of different groups when one group is intentionally singled out and treated worse, or not given the same opportunities. Attitudes toward minorities have been marked by discrimination in the history of the United States. Many forms of discrimination have come to be recognized in American society, particularly on the basis of national origin, race and ethnicity, non-English languages, religion, gender, and sexual orientation.
Linguistic profiling is the practice of identifying the social characteristics of an individual based on auditory cues, in particular dialect and accent. The theory was first developed by Professor John Baugh to explain discriminatory practices in the housing market based on the auditory redlining of prospective clientele by housing administrators. Linguistic profiling extends to issues of legal proceedings, employment opportunities, and education. The theory is frequently described as the auditory equivalent of racial profiling. The bulk of the research and evidence in support of the theory pertain to racial and ethnic distinctions, though its applicability holds within racial or ethnic groups, perceived gender and sexual orientation, and in distinguishing location of geographic origin.
The Miami accent is an evolving American English accent or sociolect spoken in South Florida, particularly in Miami-Dade county, originating from central Miami. The Miami accent is most prevalent in American-born Hispanic youth who live in the Greater Miami area.
Second-generation gender bias refers to practices that may appear neutral or non-sexist, in that they apply to everyone, but which discriminate against women because they reflect the values of the men who created or developed the setting, usually a workplace. It is contrasted with first-generation bias, which is deliberate, usually involving intentional exclusion.
Menopause in the workplace is a social and human resources campaigning issue in which people work to raise awareness of the impact menopause symptoms can have on attendance and performance in the workplace.
