Do we discriminate based on accents?

New research suggests people often face discrimination because of the way they sound, and that even a person's dialect can influence the way they're perceived by others.

Fred Astaire may seem a little eager throwing away a relationship over something as slight as pronunciation...

But a study out of the University of Manchester earlier this month looking at regional dialects in Britain found that a person's accent does influence how they're perceived by others.

While Canada may not have as many regional accents as Britain, there are still many ways English is spoken -- and some are more valued than others.

The bottom line is that all language arguments ultimately become social ones, cultural ones, political ones, ethnic ones...David Crystal, linguist

To look at the broader implications of accent-based discrimination, we were joined by two guests:

- Molly Babel is an Assistant Professor of Linguistics at The University of British Columbia. We reached her in Tokyo.

- David Crystal is a British linguist and academic. We reached him in Holyhead, North Wales

Have you ever experienced "accentism"?

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This segment was produced by The Current's Sarah Grant, Catherine Kalbfleisch and Wanyee Li.