Hating one's own speech

[Steve Bialostok]

This isn't research per se, but if you watch the film American Tongues (from the 80s but still quite good), there is one explicit example of "linguistic insecurity" (nice term, Galey, copyright it now!). In it, a white woman feels inferior due to her Brooklyn accent; she goes through speech training (to speech pathologist, Dennis Becker)  to “correct” her pronunciation. In a lighter scene, a group of young women from New Orleans claim they could attract men more easily if they didn’t speak with their "accents." 

There is also a scene where a woman describes ending a relationship with Yale graduate because as they drove south toward his home in Georgia (to meet his parents), he suddenly began using what she called “hillbilly talk.” By the time they reached his hometown, she got a flight back to New Haven. She says something like, "I didn't want all those southern babies growing inside of me with their 'you alls'.

Steve