A2: Accents

USA Today reports on the increase in immigrants opting to take accent modification classes. Judy Ravin, president of the Ann Arbor-based Accent Reduction Institute, comments, “We’re doing business like gangbusters.” A growing number of universities are offering accent modification programs – Ravin’s businesss has had contracts with UM’s School of Business and College of Engineering. But accent reduction is controversial. Andrés Tapia, chief diversity officer at Chicago-based Hewitt Associates, argues that in a global economy, “the accent of your employee might be more comprehensible than yours, to a growing number of your consumers.” [Source]