Reactions to Anglo- and Hispanic-American-accented speakers: Affect, identity, persuasion, and the English-only controversy

Language & Communication, Vol. 15, No. 2, pp. 107-120, 1995 Copyright © 1995 Elsevier Science Ltd Printed in Great Britain. All rights reserved 0271-5309/95 $9.50 + 0.00

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0271-5309(94)00019-0 REACTIONS TO ANGLO- AND HISPANIC-AMERICANACCENTED SPEAKERS: AFFECT, IDENTITY, PERSUASION, AND THE ENGLISH-ONLY CONTROVERSY HOWARD GILES, ANGIE WILLIAMS, DIANE M. M A C K I E and FRANCINE ROSSELLI

For 30 years, researchers across the disciplines have engaged the study of 'language attitudes', one important aspect of which--the so-called 'speaker evaluation paradigm' (Ryan et al., 1982)--has examined how we come to form impressions of others based on different speech styles (see Bradac, 1990; Giles and Coupland, 1992, for recent reviews). A ubiquitous finding, worldwide, has been prestige-accented speakers are upgraded on traits of socioeconomic success (e.g. intelligence, ambition) relative to their nonstandard-speaking counterparts. Given that ethnic minority dialects and accents can often be classified sociolinguistically as nonstandard--although they themselves are often treated hierarchically (Kalin and Rayko, 1980)--they suffer the same evaluative fate in being downgraded on competence-related dimensions. Our focus, in this study, is on prestige and ethnic minority accented speakers in the context of southern California, and specifically, on reactions to Anglo- and Hispanic-accented varieties of Engfish.' Not surprisingly given the foregoing, previous work in different geographical locations of the United States has found speakers of Anglo-American varieties to be viewed as more competent than speakers of Hispanic varieties (e.g. Bradac and Wisegarver, 1984; Carranza, 1982). Hence, and utilizing Zahn and Hopper's (1985) 'Speech Evaluation Instrument' which comprises a tri-factorial judgmental structure of so-called 'superiority', 'attractiveness', and 'dynamism', our initial baseline prediction for Anglo-American listenerjudges was: HI: Anglo-accented speakers will be evaluated more favorably on traits of superiority than Hispanic-accented speakers.

In a recent critique of the speaker evaluation literature, Cargile et al. (1994) discussed the fact that investigations within this paradigm have been designed in a kind of affective vacuum. Although affect has been inherent in the adoption of certain personality attributions used as dependent variables (e.g. likeability), and is becoming increasingly recognized as a crucial facet of both interpersonal and mass communication (e.g. Dillard and Wilson, 1993; Gallois, 1993a, b), the moods of listener-judges have never before been captured and documented. One important objective of the current study is to begin to explore this 'new' dimension of language attitudes empirically. Work on stereotyping of ethnic minorities in The Netherlands has shown Correspondence relating to this paper should be addressed to Howard Giles, Department of Communication, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-4020, U.S.A. 107

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that certain outgroup (immigrant) labels invoke different emotional sets amongst majority group members (Dijker, 1987). Therefore, the unfavorable social meanings attached to certain socially disadvantaged and low-prestige minority groups may be translated into negative moods among majority group members when representative voices of the former are encountered. Given that the salience of one's social identity is often situationally determined (e.g. C16ment and Noels, 1992), Cargile et al. also argued that feelings of ingroup identity and pride could be affected when decoding the voices of members of different ethnic groups. In the present context, we surmized that ethnic and national identity were likely to be isomorphic for our sample of Anglo-American students. Reasoning that listening to another Anglo speaker on audiotape should not realistically depress one's mood nor enhance one's sense of national identity, we predicted on the basis of intergroup social comparison processes (Tajfel, 1978) that listening to a relevant ethnic minority (outgroup) member would lead to the following: H2: Listening to a Hispanic- rather than an Anglo-accented speaker will induce judges to experience a negative mood tone which will be accompanied by a heightened sense of national (i.e. 'American') identity.

Despite the fact that very few investigations have explored mood, it is clear that (main effect) predictions of the kind proferred above could be modified by what the speaker actually has to say (see Houck and Bowers, 1969; Markel and Roblin, 1965)--the content of the message. Indeed, Giles and Johnson (1986) showed that when a topic was ethnically uninvolving, bilingual Welsh listener-judges would use the accent of a speaker (English or Welsh) on audiotape as a potent cue for social evaluation. However, when the same speaker was heard to propound a particular point of view on the topic of Welsh bilingualism--a core issue in the identities of these participants--accent had far less of an effect on impression formation than the rhetorical position (pro- or anti-bilingualism) he was heard to advocate. Given that surprisingly little work has been accomplished to date on what is said in language attitude studies, another objective of the current study is to continue the empirical scrutiny of verbal content. Moreover, we have seriously questioned elsewhere the methodological assumption----expressed explicitly in most studies of this genre--that message content can be controlled out by way of so-called 'neutral' topics across different sociolinguistic conditions (e.g. Giles and Coupland, 1991). The topic chosen for this study was the English-only Movement (hereafter EoM), an issue particularly relevant for the southern Californian sample we were utilizing. The State of California contains the highest proportion of Spanish speakers, namely 4.7 million of the country's 11.5 million Hispanic population (according to the 1990 Census figures; see also Coulmas, 1990). At the same time, there are many groups (e.g.U.S. English, English First, and English Plus) campaigning for a constitutional amendment to make English the official language of California, and indeed the United States. U.S. English, for example, is estimated to have 350,000 supporters, among them notable politicians and media personalities. While this is a contemporary issue often reactively framed in response to the perceived growing threat of non-white (particularly Mexican) immigration and the increasing vitality of Spanish (see Woolard, 1989, for a broader interpretive analysis), such movements have sprung up many times in the past, particularly when non-WASP immigration levels were on the increase (see Marshall, 1986). For instance, in 1903, 39 States had constitutional amendments restricting levels of bilingual education (San Miguel, 1986). While support for bilingual education nullified such legislation in the civil rights era, recent events have produced a backlash. For example, and surprisingly so given the city's image as liberal and diversitysensitive, San Francisco voters in 1983 endorsed Proposition 'O' to promote the use of only

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English in that city. Later, in 1986, Proposition 63--making English the official language of California--was supported by 73% of the ballot. Nearly two dozen other States have voted likewise. EoM supporters claim that English is implicitly the official language of the country anyway. They argue that any encouragement of bilingualism is an implicit discouragement of English and works against a valued sense of national unity. Assimilation, acculturation, and advancement for minorities are claimed to be blocked by bilingual legislation which gives the impression that English is not necessary for socioeconomic success. Furthermore, it is argued that providing ballot papers in languages other than English is not only expensive, but encourages the voting of the politically ignorant and of ethnic voting blocks (see Imhoff, 1990, for a fuller discussion of these kinds of arguments). Those opposed to the EoM, however, claim it is only through bilingual education that nonEnglish speakers can develop sufficient academic skills to achieve success. They argue that if sole concentration is placed on language in early education, then by the time children are linguistically proficient in English, they will be a long way behind in their academic program. In addition, they point to data which show that language shift towards English is occurring among immigrant minorities within a few generations anyway, and that it is being encouraged as well as preferred within the home (see Padilla et al., 1991, for a full discussion of this side of the coin). The EoM issue is, of course, extremely complex and special journal issues have been devoted to it (e.g. Cazden and Snow, 1990; Fishman, 1986). Space and contextual appropriacy preclude us from providing a fuller analysis or evaluation of the arguments here. Suffice it to say, for our purposes, that hearing another Anglo or a Hispanic-accented speaker defend EoM issues on the one hand, or refute them on the other, would be an involving topic in our setting. Apart from the expectation that a Hispanic who argued against the EoM might be seen as most threatening for Anglo judges in terms of national identity and affective tone, we had no robust theoretical perspective from which to make directional predictions. Hence, we preferred to proffer the following: RQ 1: In what ways, if any, will attributions of superiority, mood, and expressed national identity interact with speaker's accent and rhetorical position on the EoM?

Very few studies in this language attitudes tradition have examined the persuasiveness of speakers' messages (see, however, Giles, 1973; Gibbons et aL, 1992). Of particular relevance to this issue is a study conducted by Powesland and Giles (1975) who varied both speaker's accent prestige (standard middle class vs regional lower status) and his expressed political stance (supporting vs opposing the Trade Unions movement). Attributional theorists would predict that someone speaking against the position of their own group would be seen as more sincere, credible, and convincing than someone who merely reflected what was construed as their own party's beliefs (Eagly et al., 1978, 1981; Koeske and Crano, 1968; Walster et al., 1966). In England, where this study was carried out, Trade Union support would be expected to be espoused by the working class, whereas antithetical feelings would be stereotypically associated with the middle class. In accord with this, Powesland and Giles found that standardaccented speakers incurred more attitude change towards their position when they argued for the Trade Union movement rather than against it. Conversely, nonstandard-accented speakers were more successful in changing attitudes when they argued against Trade Unions than for them.

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The present design allows a direct parallel with the Powesland and Giles study conducted, of course, with a different topic and in a different intergroup context. Hence, the final prediction, based on associations between group membership and expected group interest and ideology, was: H3: Anglo-accented speakers arguing against EoM would be more persuasive than similarly sounding others who argued against it. Conversely, Hispanic-accented speakers would be more persuasive when arguing f o r the EoM than against it.

There is a growing literature on how recipients of persuasive communications cognitively and affectively process such appeals (e.g. Chaiken, 1987; Petty and Cacioppo, 1986; see Eagly and Chaiken, 1993, for a review) and this has included, more recently, intergroup contexts where ingroup-outgroup considerations are paramount (Mackie et al., 1990, 1992). While we might anticipate that perceived incongruency between speaker's perceived group membership (via accent) and message (on the EoM) might cause systematic (rather than superficial) processing of the message, it is also feasible that an ethnic ingroup member might be more persuasive p e r se than an ethnic outgroup member--one whose views (whatever they might be) may discounted (cf. Mackie, 1987; Mackie et al., 1990). (In line with the persuasion literature, systematic processing is operationalized (here) as the relative predominance of favorable thoughts and feelings that recipients later report to have been provoked by message content or message source; Chaiken, 1987.) Given these (and other) competing possibilities, we proffer only the following research question: RQ2: To what extent will a speaker's ethnic accent and rhetorical position on the EoM affect the way messages are reportedly processed?

In the study to be described below, we adopted the procedure whereby respondents received a persuasive message aimed at changing their attitudes towards the EoM issue (see Mackie et al., 1992). In other words, those initially in favor of the EoM were provided with a message against it, whereas those initially against this view were provided a message in favor of it. In a 2 × 2 factorial design, respondents listened to a counter-attitudinal message concerning the EoM presented by the same bidialectal speaker in either an Anglo- or Hispanic-American accent. For the dependent measures, standard Likert-type rating scales were used to tap trait attributions about the speaker, mood and the recipients' feelings of national identity. In addition, and in line with recent explorations of respondents' cognitive responding to speakers and their messages in this research area (see Gibbons et al., 1992; Giles et al., 1992), we also required respondents, retrospectively, to list their own thoughts and feelings during message exposure. This allowed us another means of assessing respondents' moods and also some indication of how they were processing the messages. As the foregoing three Hypotheses and two Research Questions attest, we anticipate our independent variables to have some specified and some unspecified effects on: trait attributions about the speakers; recipients' mood and national identities; attitudes held about the EoM; and processing of the message. Method Preparatory work

Various steps were undertaken to ensure that our independent and dependent variables were satisfactory. First, we wished to develop an adequate measure of the target issue. Towards this end, 52 westcoast undergraduates were asked to complete a six-item 'social issues' questionnaire. Three of these items assessed respondents' attitudes towards the EoM, while the

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others concerned capital punishment, abortion, and the ecology. Using five-point scales anchored with 1 'totally acceptable' and 5 'totally unacceptable', respondents indicated the degree to which they endorsed each of the following: making English the official language of the U.S.; providing bilingual education for immigrants; and the provision of public services in languages other than English. Responses to these three items were averaged to form a single index of initial attitude. Thus, respondents with an index less than 3 expressed an initial attitude favoring the EoM, whereas those with an index greater than 3 expressed opposition to this issue. Internal reliability for this measure was satisfactory (Cronbach alpha = 0.80) and respondents expressed sufficient heterogeneity on the issue so that respondents favoring the EoM and those opposing it were equally represented in the experimental cells. Second, we wished to ensure that our pro- and con-EoM messages were equally persuasive. Our two messages (see Appendix) were created by surveying political and pressure group materials as well as academic publications. Each message contained an equal number of arguments in favor of or against the EoM. In a pretest, 42 respondents rated the two messages in written form on three dimensions and found them to be equally strong (t = 1.69, p < 0.1), persuasive (t = 1.52, p < 0.14), and believable (t = 1.26, p < 0.22). In addition, a second sample of 20 respondents in Britain--who knew nothing of this 'foreign' issue and were avowedly unbiased themselves towards it--also judged the written passages as equal in strength (t = 1.29, p < 0.21), persuasiveness (t = 1.60, p < 0.13), and believability (t = 1.18, p < 0.26). Third, we wished to be assured that our ethnic accent manipulation was successful. We adopted the 'matched-guise' technique (Lambert, 1967) where the same, genuinely bidialectal speaker read the two persuasive passages in the target accents. Considerable attention was paid to issues of control such that the speaker maintained the same paralinguistic features and expressed personality across conditions. After about two dozen potential stimulus speakers had been auditioned, we selected the candidate who convinced pilot listeners, blind to our procedural intents, that he was Anglo and Hispanic in the corresponding conditions and who was willing to undertake the many hours of training and 'takes' for us to adhere to the methodological rigor ideal to the matched-guise technique. Our speaker first produced practice Anglo and Hispanic passages on an ethnic-irrelevant topic, viz. 'whales'. One week following the initial attitude assessment, the 52 respondents who had completed the social issues questionnaire reported to the campus Language Learning Laboratory for an ostensibly different experiment. Respondents heard the audiotaped practice message delivered with either an Anglo or a Hispanic accent by our matched-guise speaker. Respondents were then asked to write a brief paragraph about their impressions of the speaker's background, including his possible ethnicity. Seventy-nine percent of respondents in the Hispanic condition judged him to be Latino, Spanish, Hispanic, or Mexican, 14% (four respondents) guessed that he was from some other country (Iran, India, France, Greece), and 7% (two respondents) did not note ethnicity. In the Anglo condition, 61% categorized the source as white or Caucasian, 11% (three respondents)judged him to be Asian, 14% (four respondents) thought he sounded Latino or Spanish, and 14% did not comment. The fact that the overwhelming majority of respondents in both conditions correctly categorized the source's accent as Hispanic or Anglo suggested the success of our matched-guise speaker. On the basis of this experience, we trained the speaker on the actual EoM passages. Subsequently, we asked a different 39 Anglo respondents to listen to one or other of the four stimulus tapes. In the Anglo conditions, 17/17 respondents reported his ethnicity as Anglo or Caucasian. In

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the Hispanic conditions, 10/10 reported the speaker to be a Hispanic or Chicano in the proEoM condition, and in the anti-EoM condition, 7/12 reported him as Hispanic or Chicano; the remainder labeled him Middle Eastern, Russian, Indian, or Italian. On the basis of these results, we were confident that the speaker was perceived authentically using the respective accents, and that the great majority of (admittedly sociolinguistically naive) respondents would see him as intended.

The main study Respondents and materials Respondents were 83 (22 male and 61 female) westcoast Anglo undergraduates who participated in return for partial credit in introductory communication courses. They were randomly assigned in approximately equal numbers to the cells of a 2 (Hispanic- or Angloaccented speaker) x 2 (pro-EoM or anti-EoM counter-attitudinal message) between subjects factorial. The materials and their pre-testing were described above. Procedure All pre-testing and experimental procedures were conducted by a foreign, British-Englishaccented (female) investigator to avoid any potential contamination that might arise from use of a local Anglo- or Hispanic-American-accented research worker. Initial attitude assessment. The same 'social issues' procedure used in the pre-test was employed to obtain an index of respondents' initial attitudes towards the target issue (from the three key items described above). This index was later used to ensure respondents received a counter-attitudinal message. Presentation of message. One week following the initial attitude assessment, respondents reported to the campus's Language Learning Laboratory for an ostensibly unrelated experiment. At-this time, respondents listened to an audio presentation concerning the EoM. All respondents received a counter-attitudinal message. Thus, respondents initially favoring the EoM (M = 2.25) listened to the anti-EoM message, whereas respondents initially opposing the EoM (M = 3.53) listened to the pro-EoM message. In addition, respondents heard the message delivered with either an Anglo or a Hispanic accent. Having listened to the message, respondents were required to complete the questionnaire described next. Respondents were then fully debriefed as to the nature of the study and invited to contact one of the investigators if they wished to discuss the matter further. Dependent measures A questionnaire--where all rating items were five-point scales--was devised to tap the following dimensions and in the following order: (a) Mood. Ratings on three bipolar items were elicited: angry-calm; relaxed-tense; and happy-sad. (b) Attitudes towards the EoM. These were assessed by averaging across the same three key items described above. (c) Message processing. Respondents were requested to write down their thoughts--and subsequently on a separate sheet their feelings--regarding the speaker and the content of the

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message. After examination of these responses by the authors to ascertain meaningful categories, the content of these responses was coded by two independent, trained coders (interrater reliability across codings was 0.88, with disagreements resolved by one of the authors). Items coded were: positive and negative comments about the message content, and positive and negative comments about the speaker and his manner and style of speaking. Also of relevance here is the fact that 81% of respondents in the Hispanic-accented conditions commented on his Hispanic ethnic heritage and 55% commented on his Hispanic accent. Across the Anglo-accented conditions, only 54% of respondents mentioned his Anglo heritage and just 6% commented on his Anglo accent. This once again, considering the nonstandard and standard accents as the marked and unmarked forms, respectively, indicates that the accents were judged as intended. (d) Personality attributions. The 30-item Zahn and Hopper (1985) 'speech evaluation' questionnaire comprising the dimensions of 'superiority' (12 items), 'attractiveness' (11 items), and 'dynamism' (7 items) was then administered. Internal reliabilities for these items (Cronbach's alpha) were, respectively: 0.91, 0.95, and 0.89. 2

(e) National identity. Elaborating Giles and Johnson's (1987) measure, the following eight items were devised to tap national identity. On five-point rating scales, respondents were asked to agree or disagree with the following: My American identity is important; I enjoy being American; I like being an American; I feel secure being an American; I use American English; I consider my American identity important; I think the use of American English is important; I think children should learn American English. A principal components analysis indicated that the three language items formed a second factor (eigenvalue = 0.93; 10% variance) and a primary 'identity' factor on which the remaining five items loaded (eigenvalue = 4.98; 55% variance). Results and discussion

We will begin by describing and discussing the results in ways that relate specifically to the Hypotheses. First, respondents' responses to the Speech Evaluation Instrument were averaged across relevant items to form indices for three subscales: superiority, attractiveness, and dynamism (Zahn and Hopper, 1985). These three indices were entered as a repeated measure in a 2 (Anglo- or Hispanic-accent) × 2 (pro- or anti-EoM message) between-subjects ANOVA with initial attitudes on the English-only Movement as a covariate. Responses on the three scales differed depending on the source of the message F(2,158) = 6.71, p < 0.01, and the message itself F(2,158) = 7.70, p < 0.007. To examine these effects further, separate analyses were performed on each of the three subscales. However, only the superiority scale produced significant findings. With initial attitudes controlled (as these influenced respondents' attitudes on this subscale), the Anglo-accented speaker received higher superiority ratings (M = 2.84) than the Hispanic source (M = 3.64), F(1,78) = 14.63, p < 0.0003. In other words, H1 was clearly supported but there was no interaction with the EoM message (as was, however, alluded to in RQ 1). Second, we turn to data on affective tone and national identity. Appropriate ANOVAs on the three mood scales indicated statistical significance only for the happiness scale. Initial attitudes on the issue influenced how happy respondents felt and, with these controlled, analysis revealed a main effect for message position (F(1,78) = 4.69, p < 0.03), and a

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significant interaction between speaker's accent and message position (F(1,78) = 5.15, p < 0.03). Respondents felt happier after hearing the anti-EoM message (M = 2.08), than after hearing the pro-English exclusivity message (M = 2.50). Decomposition of the interaction indicated that this effect was due to the conditions in which respondents heard the Angloaccented speaker. Respondents were happier when the Anglo source argued against (M = 1.86) rather than for (M = 2.62) English exclusivity. Respondents' happiness was not affected by heating either message from the Latino source (M (pro) = 2.35, M (anti) = 2.37). Responses on the items relevant to each of the two national identity factors were averaged and these indices were examined in a 2 (Anglo- or Hispanic-accent) x 2 (pro- or anti-EoM message) A N O V A with initial attitudes on the issue as a covariate. With prior attitude controlled, this analysis revealed that scores on the language scale were higher (M = 4.50, where 5 = extreme pride in and use of English) than scores on the identity scale (M = 4.16), F(1,79) = 25.80, p < 0.0001. In addition, respondents' scores on both scales were higher after hearing the anti-English-only message (M = 4.58) than after the pro-English-only message (M = 4.13), F(1,78) = 5.18, p < 0.03. Because the interaction between the source and the message factors was marginal, F(1,78) = 2.42, p < 0.10), the impact of messages delivered by the Anglo- and Hispanic-accented speakers on the identity and language scales were analyzed separately. Response patterns for the Anglo speaker mirrored the overall results, with both identity and language scores higher (M = 4.59) after an anti-English-only message than after a message supportive of English exclusivity (M = 3.97), F(1,45) = 8.48, p < 0.006. In contrast, scores on the two scales were equally high whether the Hispanic source presented a pro-EoM (M = 4.33) or anti-EoM (M = 4.55) message, F(1,33) < 1. These findings do not support H2; that is, listening to Hispanic-accented speakers did not induce a negative mood nor a heightened sense of American identity. Nonetheless, clearly mood and identity shifts did occur as an interactive response to speaker's accent and his expressed position on the EoM and in ways pertinent to RQ 1. Listening to an ingroup speaker espouse multilingually diverse views was clearly enervating for these respondents and uplifting for their sense of American identity. Hispanic-accented speakers, on the other hand, appeared to evince no significant effects along these affective dimensions for our Anglo respondents. Third, we now examine the attitude change findings. Responses to the three attitude items relevant to the EoM issue were averaged to provide a single index of acceptance or rejection of the issue. This index was analyzed in a 2 (Anglo- or Hispanic-accent) x 2 (pro- or anti-EoM message) x 2 (pre-test vs post-test attitudes) mixed model A N O V A with repeated measures on the third factor. This analysis revealed significant interactions between speaker's accent and the repeated measure, F(1,79) = 8.49, p < 0.005, and between message position and the repeated measure, F(1,79) = 15.10, p < 0.0002. Both of these effects were subsumed by a marginally significant interaction involving all three factors, F(1,79) = 3.47, p < 0.07. To understand the nature of this interaction better, analyses were carried out on messages presented by the Anglo- and Hispanic-accented speaker separately. Respondents listening to the Anglo-accented speaker showed significant attitude change from pre-test to post-test, F(1,45) = 12.44, p < 0.001. However the presence of a significant interaction F(1,45) = 5.95, p < 0.02) revealed different patterns of attitude change depending on whether the source presented a pro- or anti-EoM message. When the source argued against English exclusivity, he was successful in reducing support for the issue, F(1,20) = 15.95, p <

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0.0007 (see Fig. 1). Arguments in favor of English exclusivity left respondents' attitudes unchanged, however, F(1,25) = 1.06, n.s. Respondents listening to the Hispanic-accented speaker also showed differential attitude change depending on whether they heard a pro- or anti-EoM message, F(1,34) = 9.33, p < 0.004. In this case, the Hispanic-accented speaker who argued in favor of English exclusivity produced significant attitude change towards the advocated position, F(1,19) = 8.29, p < 0.01 (see Fig. 1). In contrast, when the source argued against English exclusivity, he produced no attitude change, F(1,15) = 2.28, n.s. These data then provide resounding support for H3 in that Anglo-accented speakers were persuasive when they propounded an anti-EoM stance, whereas Hispanic-accented speakers were persuasive when they were rhetorically pro-EoM. Interestingly, the speakers were not at all influential when they produced messages believed congruent with their social group membership. Fourth, data relevant to processing of the message are reported next. Analysis of the

thoughts attending the messages and the speaker did not produce any really significant nor compelling findings, whereas analysis of the feelings did. When respondents' negative

Anti EoM

0') 0,) "10

S.5

• -...._...~

.__= 2.5

ro EoM

_.,=

Pre Test

Post Test

ANGLO SOURCE

3.5

"0

Anti EoM . ~-----__.____

3 2.5

1.5 Pre Test

Post Test

HISPANIC S O U R C E Fig. 1. Attitude c h a n g e as a function o f m e s s a g e type a n d ethic accent.

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comments about the speakers were subtracted from their positive comments to form an overall index of speaker favorability, respondents liked the Anglo speaker less (M = -0.43) than the Hispanic-accented speaker (M = 0.17), F(1, 78) = 7.59, p < 0.007. However, respondents made more positive comments about the Anglo-accented speaker's manner and style of speaking (M = 0.23) than about the Hispanic-accented speaker's, F(1, 78) = 7.01, p < 0.01. Finally, the change respondents showed towards the position advocated in the message was regressed on message position (dummy coded where pro-EoM = 0 and anti-EoM = 1), the valenced indices of responses to message content and to the speaker, comments about the speaker's speech, the superiority, attractiveness, and dynamism scales of the Speech Evaluation Instrument, and the identity and language subscales of the national identity measure for the Anglo- and Hispanic-accented speakers separately. For the Anglo speaker, message position significantly predicted attitude change (beta = 0.50), F(8,38) = 6.73, p < 0.01, with greater change resulting from the anti-EoM conditions. In addition, the overall favorability of comments about message content predicted acceptance of the advocated position (beta = 0.47), F(8,38) = 9.87, p < 0.003. This finding is consistent with the idea that respondents systematically processed message content in this condition. For the Latino source, there were no significant effects. These findings are, of course, pertinent to RQ2 in that respondents were processing messages from the Anglo-accented speaker differently than messages from the Hispanicaccented speaker--and this, despite the finding that Anglo-accented speakers were liked less than their Hispanic-accented counterparts. This processing constituted favorable elaborations of the anti-EoM message, and led to significant attitude change in this condition. Such a process did not eventuate in the persuasive, pro-EoM Hispanic-accented condition. It would be interesting to know by what mediating means this latter attitude change was promoted. In sum, we have found that Anglo respondents' feelings of happiness and national identity were facilitated when ethnically similar-sounding speakers argued against English exclusivity. Clearly, in future research we need to invoke more sophisticated measures of mood tone and across a far wider range of emotive states as well as consider more refined multidimensional structures of national identity. It will be an intriguing endeavor to determine which forms of situated language use--message content, accent, and other linguistic features--adopted by ingroup and outgroup speakers induce what kinds of affective reactions and mood states. Relatedly, it will be interesting to see whether these mood and identity changes have any potent behavioral spill-over effects in significant applied contexts. For instance, it could well be---our current findings notwithstanding--that findings which show less cooperative behavior in response to nonstandard dialect speakers (see Giles and Farrar, 1979) were not so much mediated by negative stereotypes associated with their speakers' competences but, at least in part, influenced by a negative mood set triggered by speech patterns. The frequent downgrading of Hispanic voices relative to Anglo-accented speakers in previous research was once again seen here. Nonetheless, it was interesting to find that when we move to respondents' own spontaneous views the Hispanic-accented speaker was found more likeable. As it happens, the language attitudes literature not infrequently finds nonstandard accented voices being associated with traits of social attractiveness (Giles and Powesland, 1975). Obviously, in future work, it would be ideal to seek collaborators who can specify more precisely, as well as manipulate in concert, the linguistic features differentiating the accent conditions for different Hispanic groups. Being Cuban- or Mexican-accented will

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have quite different social meanings in Florida and California, for example. Another obvious limitation of the present study--besides the fact that we had no Hispanic listener-judges--was the focus on only male speakers as targets and our inability to examine the interaction of this with listener-judges' gender (see Luhman, 1990). Furthermore, it would be useful to determine when particular kinds of target speakers become classified as meaningfully 'ingroup' or 'outgroup'. In other words, it would be important to know which combination of accents (e.g. Anglo, Hispanic) and message contents (e.g. pro- and anti-EoM) allow different forms of social identification under different circumstances. There has been little empirical research on attitudes towards the EoM p e r se. Our data suggest that such attitudes are malleable and very susceptible to modification, at least in the short term, depending on the speech style of the persuasive party. The applied implications for those involved on both sides of this societally critical issue (and doubtless others) are selfevident. Clearly, accent has a potent, and probably under-appreciated, role to play here and especially w h e n - - a s maybe the case h e r e - - t h e persuader positively violates expectations (see Burgoon and Miller, 1985). However, in future, we need more data which allow us some degree of empirical certainty as regards what issues are stereotypically associated and dissociated with ethic groups (and doubtless subgroups within them). Finally, one exciting prospect for future work is to design theoretically driven attitude change studies in the speaker evaluation paradigm which examine explicitly and in detail the mediating mechanisms involved in persuasive attempts. All these caveats notwithstanding, and as we argued at the outset, this study is the first not only to investigate affective reactions and national identity as dependent variables in the language attitudes domain, but is also unique in integrating into a persuasive paradigm. Acknowledgements--The authors are grateful to Les Gees, Heather Bortfeld, Joe Valacso, and Jake Harwood for their

various contributionsto this research. NOTES Although our bidialectalstimulus speaker actually used a Mexican-accentedvariety given his ethnic origins, many Anglo-Americansare not able to be so sociolinguisticallyspecific as to label it thus. The more generic 'Hispanic' label was adopted as a consequence. 2Given that the 'superiority' factor only emerged significantlydifferentacross conditions,we provide the items for this factor only: literate-illiterate; educated-uneducated; upper-lower class; rich-poor; intelligent-unintelligent; white-blue collar; clear-unclear; complete-incomplete; fluent~lisfluent; organized-disorganized; experiencedinexperienced;advantaged-disadvantaged. REFERENCES BRADAC, J. J. 1990Languageattitudesand impressionformation.In Giles,H. and Robinson.W. P. (Eds), Handbook of Language and Social Psychology. Wiley, Chichester. BRADAC, J. J. and WlSEGARVER,R. 1984Ascribedstatus, lexicaldiversity,and accent: determinantsof perceived status, solidarity,and control of speech style. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 3, 239-255. BURGOON, M. and MILLER, G. R. 1985 An expectancyinterpretationof languageand persuasion.In Giles, H. and St. Clair, R. N. (Eds), Recent Advances in Language, Communication and Social Psychology. Erlbaum,London. CARGILE, A. C., GILES, H., RYAN, E. B. and BRADAC, J. J. 1994 Language attitudes as a social process: a conceptual model and new directions.Language & Communication 14, 211-236. CARRANZA, M. A. 1982 Attitudinalresearch on Hispaniclanguagevarieties. In Ryan, B. B. and Giles, H. (Eds), Attitudes Towards Language Variation: Social and Applied Issues. Arnold, London.

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Appendix Pro-EoM passage I agree with campaigns to make English the official language of the U.S.A. I find the recent invasion of immigrants really worrying because they don't make any effort to learn English and fit in with our culture. So I think the use of English should be enforced, in education as well as for social services and so on. Most people don't realize that organizations that oppose 'English-only' are funded by communists. Language diversity is a real threat to national unity. That's why I would support a constitutional amendment that made English the official language, then that would motivate immigrants to learn English, Besides, it would benefit them in the long run since it would help them become more successful and productive members of American society. You can't succeed here without speaking English. It's important to encourage immigrants to learn English as quickly as possible. Anybody who decides to come here and then maintains their own native language rather than transferring to English is showing some kind of ethnic identity that's unhealthy for the U.S.A. in the long run. Basically, it represents a disloyalty to the U.S.A. People who defend bilingual education don't realize that they support a policy that blocks assimilation, acculturation and advancement. English is necessary for success, it's the glue that binds the melting pot together. Without it, the U.S.A. might splinter into a million ethnic fragments. The 'English-only' movement is important, it reminds all of us that the U.S.A. is an English-speaking country and that's our common bond. Those who oppose this are ardent socialists.

Anti-EoM passage I disagree with campaigns to make English the official language of the U.S.A. For a start, there' s no need to enforce the use of English. Evidence shows that immigrants are highly motivated to learn English and that there are huge waiting lists for English learning programs in major U.S. cities. Movements like the 'English-only' movement and 'U.S. English' are anti-Hispanic. Most of the people who support them don't realize that these movements receive funding from racist right-wing organizations. The citizens of the U.S. come from many diverse backgrounds and this diversity adds to the richness of American culture. It's important to encourage immigrants to maintain their ethnic language, not only for the maintenance of ethnic pride but also because it is intellectually stimulating and is good for

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foreign relations. That's why I think bilingual education is really important, if a constitutional amendment was passed it would be the first step towards dismantling bilingual education, abolishing bilingual social services and so on. It is essential to realize that the ability to speak English is not a guarantee of success or advancement. Most Hispanics who speak English fluently are still oppressed. It is by embracing bilingualism that we can create a really harmonious and integrated society. The idea of the melting pot, to me, is just another expression for acculturation. The 'English-only' movement is an insult to American tolerance and an insult to America's multicultural history. Native Americans and Mexican Americans have an historic right to maintain their languages. In reality, the 'English-only' movement is just a cover for prejudice.