Do You Speak Science? Dialect and its Role in Research Training

Mastery of communication skills is critical to success in research careers. In this article we report on a study that focuses on a potential barrier to research career success that is virtually unstudied in academic interventions in higher education, specifically the possible effects of using a non-standard variety of English spoken by the student or trainee, often known as 'dialect'. The term 'dialect' is often used as a blanket term denoting any variety of a given language that is associated with a specific region, ethnicity, or social status. More specific terms used in sociolinguistics are 'dialect' for regional varieties (Southern, Midwestern, Appalachian) and 'sociolect' for ethnic, cultural, and class-based varieties. Here, we examine how these varieties influence scientific communication (SciComm) in the academic research training environment as well as the related perceptions of both trainees and their mentors. As part of a larger study, we surveyed 124 mentor/trainee dyads over 4 time points; for the present analysis, we included only those dyads where trainees reported a language variety (n = 139 English speakers or bilingual, (n=16)) and related to perceived comfort within the research environment as reported by respondents endorsing a non-standard home variety of English compared to their counterparts. We found that those trainees raised speaking non-standard dialects or sociolects ('home dialect') were more likely to report discomfort in the research environment compared to their counterparts who were raised speaking Standard Academic English (SAE) (regardless of ethnicity or social class). The speakers of non-standard varieties were not necessarily using those varieties in the research environment. The number of trainees reporting discomfort was higher than the number of trainees identifying as belonging to a minority ethnic group or first-generation status. In the same study, we evaluated matched mentors' perceptions of trainee performance and motivation in SciComm activities and found that mentors (without knowing the trainee's self-reported dialect or sociolect) perceived higher barriers to mentoring non-standard variety speakers on 3 items. Given these preliminary findings, we suggest that language variety may play an important role in mentor-mentee interactions in the research environment and speculate that it could be a more sensitive indicator of trainee's perceived and actual discomfort in academia than race-ethnicity or first-generation status. We discuss implications for both mentors and trainees, as well as potential interventions.