Dialect and Identification in Persuasive Messages

Using northern college students as subjects, this experiment attempted to examine the effects of regional identification in responses to speeches relevant and irrelevant to regional norms. For a moderately-toned speech opposing integration of southern colleges, a southern dialect enhanced judgements of competence without weakening judgements of trustworthiness in comparison with responses to the same speech in a northern dialect. For the other speech, opposing government aid to needy college students, the northern dialect received higher rating on trustworthiness and much higher ratings on competence than did the southern dialect. These results were interpreted to indicate that on the irrelevant topic the northern dialect predisposed the subjects to be less critical than the southern dialect did. On the relevant topic, the southern dialect, combined with the surprisingly moderate stand taken, predisposed the subjects to credit the speaker with greater competence than the northern dialect did.