Language Discrimination and Communication Apprehension: The Mediating Role of Shame

AbstractLanguage serves as a foundation for social hierarchies, often resulting in discriminatory acts against individuals from specific language groups. Encountering such discriminatory acts might impact the language-related behaviours among students, including their communication apprehension. The paper examines the effects of language discrimination on shame and communication apprehension of students. Methodologically, this study relies on surveys with undergraduate engineering students in India (N=412, 18 to 21 years, 83% males). The results indicate that language discrimination was not uniform across different socio-demographic groups; i.e., students from English-medium school education experienced significantly lower levels of language discrimination compared to vernacular-medium education. Family income and domicile status, too, are associated with language discrimination. Furthermore, when students encounter language discrimination, it leads to a perception of shame, which eventually leads to a heightened level of communication apprehension. This study highlights the socio-demographic angle of language discrimination along with its detrimental impacts on students’ communication.