{
  "title": "Presenting in English in Zurich: does accent distort the assessment of a message?",
  "url": "https://www.shr.swiss/blog/presenter-en-anglais-a-zurich-accent-et-evaluation-du-message-en",
  "language": "en",
  "datePublished": "2025-08-22",
  "publisher": {
    "name": "SHR — Swiss Human Resources",
    "url": "https://www.shr.swiss",
    "address": "Esplanade de Pont-Rouge 9A, 1212 Lancy, Suisse"
  },
  "summary": "A presentation that is easy to follow may seem more credible. In a multilingual environment, that impression needs to be distinguished from the quality of the arguments.",
  "section": "Research",
  "topic": "Public Speaking & Impact",
  "place": {
    "name": "Zurich",
    "region": "Zurich",
    "country": "CH"
  },
  "keyPoints": [
    {
      "heading": "What the literature establishes",
      "point": "Shiri Lev-Ari and Boaz Keysar (2010, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology) asked participants to assess the truthfulness of statements read in English by native or non-native speakers."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Processing ease as a misleading cue",
      "point": "Rolf Reber and Norbert Schwarz (1999, Consciousness and Cognition) showed that the visual ease of reading a statement could alter judgments of its truth."
    },
    {
      "heading": "The premature conclusion",
      "point": "Concluding that speakers should eliminate their accent would turn a finding about listeners’ judgments into a prescription for presenters."
    },
    {
      "heading": "What these experiments do not reproduce",
      "point": "Assessing short statements is not the same as examining an investment recommendation, an insurance risk or a technology project."
    },
    {
      "heading": "A practical check in Zurich",
      "point": "Within SHR’s “Public Speaking & impact” programme, a proposed exercise for Zurich teams would have two separate, randomly assigned groups assess a recorded presentation and its anonymised transcript, using the same rubric covering the recommendation, evidence and limitations."
    }
  ],
  "sources": [
    {
      "authors": "Keysar",
      "year": "2010",
      "source": "Journal of Experimental Social Psychology"
    },
    {
      "authors": "Schwarz",
      "year": "1999",
      "source": "Consciousness and Cognition"
    }
  ],
  "wordCount": 437,
  "image": "https://www.shr.swiss/img/blog-Training-Public-Speaking-Impact-Zurich-presenter-en-anglais-a-zurich-accent-et-evaluation-du-message-en.jpg?v=4",
  "translations": {
    "fr": "https://www.shr.swiss/blog/presenter-en-anglais-a-zurich-accent-et-evaluation-du-message",
    "en": "https://www.shr.swiss/blog/presenter-en-anglais-a-zurich-accent-et-evaluation-du-message-en",
    "de": "https://www.shr.swiss/blog/presenter-en-anglais-a-zurich-accent-et-evaluation-du-message-de",
    "it": "https://www.shr.swiss/blog/presenter-en-anglais-a-zurich-accent-et-evaluation-du-message-it"
  },
  "relatedPages": {
    "programme": "https://www.shr.swiss/formation/public-speaking/zurich",
    "city": "https://www.shr.swiss/formations-ville/zurich",
    "blog": "https://www.shr.swiss/blog"
  },
  "citationPolicy": "Citation autorisée avec mention « SHR — Swiss Human Resources » et lien vers l'article."
}