clarity, and better understandability’” (Matsuda 1991:1345,
citing from Kahakua, Findings of Fact).
3. Willingness to allow the media to set its own standards on the
basis of personal preferences, even when those preferences
necessarily involve language focused discrimination (claiming
authority): “the judge credited the testimony of speech
experts that ... Standard American English should be used by
radio broadcasters” (Kahakua, ibid.).“The agency stated that the appellant’s voice was not
suitable for broadcast purposes ... Appellant’s voice was
described as having a definite Western Ukrainian accent. As in
the United States, where national network news is broadcast in
‘television accent’ rather than the regional accents sometimes
heard on local broadcasts” (Staruch, ibid.).
4. Lack of concern with established facts about language
structure and use, or with consistent, non-prejudicial
evaluation of language skills (disinformation): “[An external
review found him] ... ‘not persuasive’; his pronunciation as
‘often incorrect’, delivery ‘dull’ and ‘sounding strange to the
listener’” (ibid.).
“I [expert witness, a ‘speech consultant’] urgently
recommend he seek professional help in striving to lessen this
handicap ... Pidgin can be controlled. And if an individual is
totally committed to improving, professional help on a long-
term basis can produce results” (Kahakua 1989: Excerpts of
the Record: 31, as cited by Matsuda 1991:1366, original
emphasis).There must be a better way to approach these cases, and in fact, Matsuda
proposed a process that would be fair to employers and employees both,
one by which every position can be evaluated in four steps (Matsuda 1991:
1369). My recasting of Matsuda’s four-step process takes more linguistic
factors into consideration: