English as-a-first-language Canadian study subjects were less trusting of statements in English spoken with a foreign accent, unless the speaker sounded confident about their assertion.

以英语为第一语言的加拿大研究对象不太信任带有外国口音的英语陈述，除非表达者听起来对自己的论断充满信心。

撰文播音：露西·黄（Lucy Huang）

翻译：曹淼

审校：郭晓

About 1.5 billion people speak English around the world. But for more than 1.1 billion of them, English is their second language—often with a noticeable accent.

全世界大约有15亿人说英语。但对其中超过11亿人来说，英语并非他们的母语，因而他们说英语时常带有明显的口音。

“Your accent really reveals a lot about who you are and your identity. It will tell people what your native language is, be able to tell you probably where you come from.” Marc Pell, a communications professor at McGill University in Montreal. And according to Pell, one reaction to a different accent can be a bias against that person.  

“你的口音其实真的很大程度上反映了你是谁以及你的身份。它会告诉人们你的母语是什么，以及你可能来自什么地方。”蒙特利尔的麦吉尔大学传播学教授马克·佩尔如是说。佩尔还提到，对于不同口音的一种反应可能是对说话者的偏见。

“Previous research that has been done elsewhere showed that people who have an accent tend to be trusted less, simply because they have an accent. But the idea that we would have a bias against anyone who sort of doesn’t sound like us I think probably relates to some sort of evolutionary or long-standing suspicion we have of outsiders or strangers. So this might be sort of an ingrained response that we have to the accent.

“之前在其他地区做的研究表明，有口音的人更不容易被信任，只是因为他们说话有口音。但我认为，我们之所以会对一个说话听起来与我们有所不同的人产生偏见，可能与我们对于陌生人和外来者的某种怀疑有关，而这种怀疑可能是在进化中产生的或者是长期就存在的。所以这可能是我们对口音的一种根深蒂固的反应。”

But accents aren’t the only thing we listen for when we have to decide if we trust another person. Tone of voice also plays a role. Pell and his team wanted to know if people would trust a confident tone, even if it came from someone with an accent.

但是，口音并非决定是否信任他人的唯一因素。语调也在判断中起了作用。佩尔和他的团队想知道，人们是否会相信一个说话语调自信的人，即便他说话伴随口音。

The researchers had Canadian English speakers listen to different versions of people saying neutral statements like “she has access to the building” while they were getting a brain scan in an MRI machine. Subjects heard someone say it with a confident neutral tone with a Canadian English accent, an Australian accent or a French accent. Participants also heard the sentence with the three accents spoken in a doubtful or neutral tone.

研究人员让说加拿大英语的人听不同口音版本的中性语句，比如“她可以进入大楼”，同时通过核磁共振成像仪对他们进行脑部扫描。他们听到的是语调自信而中立的话语，并且分别带有加拿大口音、澳大利亚口音和法国口音。同时，参与者也会听到带有这三种口音，但语调怀疑或中立的句子。

The MRI scans showed that the participants had to use more brain power to decide if they could trust the statements said with the non-native accents. When the study participants heard the Australian or French accents, blood flow increased to the temporal lobe, part of the brain that we use to process sound.

核磁共振扫描显示，参与者必须使用更多的脑力来决定他们是否可以相信那些非母语口音的陈述。当他们听到澳大利亚口音或法国口音时，血流会涌向颞叶，即我们用来处理声音的大脑部分。

“They seem to have to analyze that perhaps more intensively or, or for a longer period of time to make this decision about whether they truly believed the speaker.”

“他们似乎不得不更仔细地分析，或者花更长时间来决定他们是否真的相信表述者。”

The work is in the journal NeuroImage. 

这项研究发表在《神经图像》（NeuroImage）杂志上。

When asked, the participants reported not trusting either Australian or French accents—except for when the statements were said confidently. Seems that confidence speaks for itself.

而当实验对象被询问时，他们表示他们既不相信澳大利亚口音也不相信法国口音——除非是充满自信的表达。似乎自信可以为自己代言。