Stratified Voices: Accent, Fluency, and Belonging in Jordanian Graduate EFL Education

Abstract

In Jordanian universities, English increasingly functions not only as a medium of instruction but also as a marker of cultural legitimacy and professional credibility. This study explores how accent, fluency, and performative competence shape students’ participation and sense of belonging in English as a Foreign Language graduate program. The analysis draws on semi-structured interviews and reflective narratives from twenty-four students enrolled in EFL-related graduate programs at two Jordanian universities. Students who entered university from urban and privately schooled backgrounds often described English fluency as an ordinary part of their educational experience, one that readily translated into academic confidence and professional recognition. By contrast, participants from public-school and rural contexts frequently reported monitoring their speech closely, worried that accent or pronunciation would expose them to judgment. Their accounts also reveal how classroom practices and institutional expectations quietly privilege native-like pronunciation and cosmopolitan communicative styles. Across these narratives, English emerges not as a neutral skill but as a cultural resource unevenly distributed across educational trajectories. Interpreted through the lenses of intersectionality, linguistic capital, and postcolonial critique, the findings suggest that English-medium higher education may reproduce existing inequalities unless pedagogical and policy reforms place greater emphasis on intelligibility, communicative competence, and linguistic inclusion.