Members of a culture use language to communicate their thoughts, beliefs, attitudes, and values with one another, and thereby reinforce their collective sense of cultural identity (Whorf, 1952). Consequently, the language you speak (English, Spanish, Mandarin, Urdu), the words you choose (proper, slang, profane), and the grammar you use (formal, informal) all announce to others: “This is who I am! This is my cultural heritage!”

Each language reflects distinct sets of cultural beliefs and values. However, a large group of people within a particular culture who speak the same language may (over time) develop their own variations on that language, known as dialects (Gleason, 1989). Dialects may include unique phrases, words, and pronunciations (such as accents). Dialects reflect the shared history, experiences, and knowledge of people who live in a particular geographic region (the American Midwest or the Deep South), share a common socioeconomic status (urban working class or upper-middle-class suburban), or possess a common ethnic or religious ancestry (Irish English or Yiddish English) (Chen & Starosta, 1998).

People often judge those who use dialects similar to their own as ingroupers and are thus inclined to make positive judgments about them (Delia, 1972; Lev-Ari & Keysar, 2010). As Chapter 4 discusses, this is a cultural influence; ingroupers are people you perceive to be culturally similar to yourself. In a parallel fashion, people tend to judge those with dissimilar dialects as outgroupers (people who are culturally dissimilar to you) and make negative judgments about them. Keep this tendency in mind when you’re speaking with people who don’t share your dialect, and resist the temptation to make negative judgments about them. For additional ideas on managing ingroup or outgroup perceptions, see Chapter 4.