When Accent Does Not Match Expectations: A Dynamic Perspective of L2 Speaker Evaluations in a French Interview Context

Résumé

Selon la théorie de la violation des attentes, les candidats peuvent être surclassés ou déclassés lorsque leur accent ne correspond pas aux attentes de l'employeur. Se focalisant sur l'emploi de candidates français langue seconde (L2) au Québec, cette étude a exploré la façon dont les attentes peuvent influencer les évaluations d'entrevue. Les participants comprenaient 60 évaluateurs Québécois et 6 candidates postulant à un poste de serveuse ou de pizzaiolo, présentées par leurs CV comme locutrices natives ou L2 de français. Les évaluateurs ont écouté les entretiens dans des scénarios congruents et incongrus. Ils ont évalué l'employabilité des candidates d'abord sur des CV puis deux fois après des questions d'entretien. Les scénarios congruents et incongrus ont révélé des évaluations similaires, où l'employabilité de la candidate pizzaiolo français L2 s'est améliorée après avoir été initialement déclassée. Les implications sont discutées quant au réajustement des perceptions suite à des biais de première impression.

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