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Language Attitudes
324 Language Attitudes
Language Attitudes J Edwards, St Francis Xavier University, Antigonish, NS, Canada ß 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
One grievous failing of Elizabeth’s was her occasional pretty and picturesque use of dialect words – those terrible marks of the beast to the truly genteel. Thomas Hardy (The mayor of Casterbridge, 1886) It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman hate or despise him. George Bernard Shaw (Pygmalion, 1912) The operative class, whose massacre of their mother tongue, however inhuman, could excite no astonishment. Thomas Hamilton (Men and manners in America, 1833)
Introduction The most basic theme in modern social psychology is the importance of perception. We do not react to the world on the basis of sensory input but, rather, in terms of what we perceive that input to mean. This is the foundation of all our social constructions, of all our individual and group relationships, and it is a foundation that reflects – in ongoing fashion – our accumulated social knowledge. Perception is the filter through which sensory data are strained, and the establishment and maintenance of this filter is culturally specific and – within social groupings – individualized to a greater or lesser extent. For example, because every individual has accumulated a unique set of experiences, each set of perceptual spectacles is itself special to some extent. At the same time, there are many social perceptions that group members hold in common: at one level, we can think of these as stereotypes, at another as culture itself. At a group level, the most important feature has to do with the acceptance of shared understanding. In a great many instances, this is the only sort of understanding to which we have access, and we sometimes fall prey to the idea that our understanding is, in fact, the only sort possible. Nonetheless, we are aware (occasionally, at least) of the relative nature of social knowledge when we realize that others do not sort out their world in quite the same way as we do. Perceptions operate in societies, most of which are stratified in various ways and in which – to put things bluntly – power and status are often able to translate social difference into social deficiency. Because language is one of the traditionally important social markers, it is not surprising that the study of attitudes has a central position in the social psychology
of language. Nor is it surprising that the results of this study shed some light on the generalities just mentioned. It is easy, for example, to demonstrate that great variation exists in terms of people’s reactions to (or evaluations of) different accents and dialects. The question, of course, is what to make of this variation.
The Basis of Judgment Social preferences and prejudices concerning language varieties are long-standing and of continuing potency. This is because views of language correspond to views of the social status of language users; in this sense, language (or dialect or accent) provides simple labels which evoke social stereotypes that go far beyond language itself. We can begin here by observing that even dictionary definitions of dialect and accent help to sustain the view that nonstandard language is less correct language. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED), for example, notes that dialect may be considered as ‘‘one of the subordinate forms or varieties of a language arising from local peculiarities of vocabulary, pronunciation, and idiom.’’ This definition is implicitly held by those for whom the term ‘dialect’ conjures up an image of some rustic, regional speech pattern; for such people, the ‘standard’ variety (see below) is not really a dialect at all; rather, they consider it as the ‘correct’ form from which all others diverge. On accent, the OED is not much better; it is, we find, a mode of utterance which ‘consists mainly in a prevailing quality of tone, or in a peculiar alteration of pitch, but may include mispronunciation of vowels or consonants, misplacing of stress, and misinflection of a sentence.’ But what is the basis for language attitudes and judgments? Three broad possibilities suggest themselves. Intrinsic Difference
One possibility is that language attitudes reflect intrinsic differences across and within language varieties themselves. That is, the reason for variety A being evaluated so much more favorably than variety B is simply that A is a linguistically superior form. Although this is a view that has had considerable historical support, and while it remains common at a popular level in virtually all linguistically stratified societies, linguists have convincingly demonstrated that to see languages or dialects in terms of innate superiority or inferiority is to profoundly misunderstand the nature of human language itself:
Language Attitudes 325 just as there is no linguistic reason for arguing that Gaelic is superior to Chinese, so no English dialect can be claimed to be linguistically superior or inferior to any other . . . There is no linguistic evidence whatsoever for suggesting that one dialect is more ‘expressive’ or ‘logical’ than any other, or for postulating that there are any ‘primitive’, ‘inadequate’ or ‘debased’ English dialects. (Trudgill, 1975: 26)
A very good demonstration of this was provided by William Labov (Labov, 1976). He studied Black English (in the United States), which makes an excellent test case for dialect validity since it had for so long been rejected by the white middle class, and since its speakers were victims of a prejudice that went well beyond language alone. If it could be shown that Black English was not some debased variety, this would go some way towards establishing linguistic integrity for all dialect varieties. There were three strands to Labov’s work. First, he justly criticized earlier studies which had elicited Black English from youngsters through interview techniques which were both unfamiliar and intimidating; these were hardly likely, he noted, to produce normal, conversational samples. Second, Labov reminded us of what casual observers had known for a very long time – the Black community is verbally rich and, like other ‘oral’ cultures worldwide, supports and rewards those who are particularly linguistically gifted. Third, and most important of all, Labov demonstrated the regular, rule-governed nature of Black English. Rules are of course an essential feature of language, and if it were possible to demonstrate formal grammatical regulation within Black English – not necessarily identical, of course, to regulation in other dialects – then charges of inaccuracy and sloppiness would become groundless, and it could not be dismissed as some ‘approximation’ to ‘proper’ English. As an example, here is one of the rules Labov described for Black English, a practice called ‘copula deletion.’ In a sentence such as she the first one started us off, the is is not present. Does this mean that the Black speaker who uttered it is unaware of this verb form? Well, consider another sentence taken from a Black corpus: I was small then – here, the past tense of the verb ‘to be’ appears. Why should it figure in this sentence but not in the former one? Labov’s work revealed the regularity governing this linguistic behavior: in contexts in which the standard variety permits verbal contraction (e.g., they are going can become they’re going), Black English allows deletion (e.g., they are going can become they going). We have, therefore, a rule – slightly different from the one obtaining in the standard, but no less logical. The regularity is further evidenced by the fact that, in
contexts in which the standard does not allow contraction, there is no Black English deletion: he’s as nice as he say he’s is patently incorrect according to the rules of the standard variety, which outlaws contraction in the final position. In like fashion, it is incorrect to say he’s as nice as he says he in Black English. The import of this sort of work is clear: there are no substandard language varieties. There are standard dialects in many languages, and so it logically follows that all others must be nonstandard – but this latter term is not pejorative in any technical linguistic sense. A standard dialect is, roughly, that spoken by educated people, and it is the form usually found in writing. Its position derives from history and from the social standing of its speakers. If York instead of London had become the center of English power, for instance, then the traditional BBC newsreader would sound quite different, and schoolteachers would be promoting another form of ‘correct’ English in the classroom. Aesthetic Difference
Another possibility might be that language varieties – although not to be seen (grammatically or ‘logically’) in terms of ‘better’ or ‘worse’ – do actually vary in their aesthetic qualities. Perhaps, then, more favorable attitudes might attach to those varieties that sound better, or more mellifluous, or more musical. Many years ago, for instance, standard English was defended as ‘one of the most subtle and most beautiful of all expressions of the human spirit’ (Chapman, 1932: 562) and, a little later, Henry Wyld, a linguist at the University of Liverpool, wrote: If it were possible to compare systematically every vowel sound in RS [Received Standard English – i.e., what we now more usually call RP, Received Pronunciation] with the corresponding sound in a number of provincial and other dialects, assuming that the comparison could be made, as is only fair, between speakers who possessed equal qualities of voice, and the knowledge how to use it, I believe no unbiased listener would hesitate in preferring RS as the most pleasing and sonorous form, and the best suited to be the medium of poetry and oratory. (Wyld, 1934: 610)
I need hardly say that such sentiments were (and are still, of course) not restricted to those speaking in and for English. Can we put to the test, however, the belief that dialect A is more aesthetically pleasing than dialect B? Recent studies have compared an ‘inherent value’ hypothesis here with an ‘imposed norm’ one. The former term suggests, as Wyld did, that aesthetic qualities are intrinsic, while the latter holds that
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they are attached or imposed by the listener, who, in hearing a standard (for instance), considers it mellifluous because of the status of its speakers. In one investigation, Welsh adults listened to European French, educated Canadian French and working-class Canadian French voices. Asked to rate the pleasantness and prestige of the voices, the judges – who were virtually ignorant of French – did not single out any of the three varieties. Earlier studies had shown, however, a clear aesthetic preference among French speakers for European French. In another experiment, British undergraduates who knew no Greek evaluated the aesthetic quality of two Greek dialects, the Athenian and the Cretan: the former is the prestige standard form, while the latter is a nonstandard variant of generally low status. As in the French study, no significant differences between the two dialects were found. If anything, there was a slight tendency for these British students to rate the Cretan variety as more pleasant and prestigious than the Athenian (Giles et al., 1974, 1979). The important element in these demonstrations is that the judges were unaware of the social connotations possessed by the different varieties in their own speech communities. The implication is that, if one removes (experimentally) the social stereotypes usually associated with given varieties, aesthetic judgments will not be made which favor the highstatus standards. Anyone who watches a film or a play in which (for example) a woman dressed as a duchess speaks with a Cockney accent can appreciate the point here: someone in the audience who had an understanding of English, but not of more subtle intralinguistic variation and convention, would miss a great deal of the comedic effect. The norms here are imposed by those in the know, and the stereotypes which link beauty, or harshness, or comedy to a particular set of sounds are unavailable to others. (None of this, I hasten to add, rules out purely individual preferences: I may think Italian is the most beautiful language, you may believe that Gaelic is unrivalled – but we can agree to differ on a matter of subjectivity.) Social Perception
We now turn to a third possibility, which – because we have eliminated the first two – becomes the most likely: the variant evaluations found in the social laboratory and on the street reflect perceptions of the speakers of given varieties; any qualities – ‘logical’ or aesthetic – of the varieties themselves are, at best, of very secondary importance. Thus, listening to a given variety acts as a trigger or a stimulus that evokes attitudes (or prejudices, or stereotypes) about
the community to which the speaker is thought to belong. A general moral here seems to be this: when social stratification is associated with linguistic variation, the variety used by those with social clout will commonly be perceived as (grammatically, lexically, or phonologically) superior to nonstandard forms. There are two exceptions to this rule, and they occur at opposite ends of the status continuum. First, extremely high-status varieties may seem affected and generally over the top. Second, there is a ‘covert prestige’ possessed by working-class speech, with its positive associations of masculinity. Research has found that both working-class and middle-class males claimed to use nonstandard forms even when they did not customarily do so (Edwards, 1989; Trudgill, 1983). The actual use of such forms, by generally standard-speaking individuals, is most likely when the speaker wants to appear forceful, direct, and unambiguous. An example: a friend of mine, a middle-aged, upper-middle-class American university professor (male), was being pressed by colleagues (also male) on a departmental matter. Finally, he ended a rambling and inconclusive discussion – one that had unfolded according to the norms of standard, educated American English – by smiling broadly and saying, ‘‘Listen, boys, you know the’ ain’t no way I can do it.’’ All-male social gatherings, as at least half the readers will know, often produce such examples.
Variation in Social Attitudes If we reject linguistic and aesthetic arguments as the real underpinnings of variations in language (and speaker) evaluation, we have only cleared away some annoying underbrush. It is very useful to know that the basis for language evaluation rests upon social convention, but we must make more detailed inquiries about the assessment of language varieties. We come then, to language attitudes per se. While many regional or class dialects are perceived unfavorably, there is more than a simple dichotomy between good (standard) and bad (nonstandard). Urban speech patterns (such as, in Britain, those of Birmingham, Glasgow, and Liverpool) are generally seen as more unpleasant than are rural varieties (Devon English, for instance). Again, the basic explanation rests upon social connotation: for many, rural areas have a charm that is absent in heavily urbanized, industrialized centers. So rural dialects, although not as prestigious as the standard, may be viewed more favorably than urban varieties (which are often tied more closely to class differences, as well) (Wilkinson, 1965; Trudgill, 1975).
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Wyld (above) hinted at an important problem in the comparison of language varieties. If I wish to find out which of two dialects is the more pleasant (for example), and if I therefore record a speaker of each and have the voices judged by listeners, to what can I reasonably attribute any differential ratings that may be found? Are they due to features of the dialects themselves? Might they not also be reactions to purely individual qualities of voice – tone, pitch, rhythm, pace, and so on? A way around this difficulty was devised in the 1960s by Wallace Lambert. In his ‘matched guise’ method, judges evaluate a taperecorded speaker’s personality after hearing him or her read the same passage in each of two or more languages, dialects, or accents. The fact that the speaker is, for all ‘guises,’ the same person is not revealed to the judges (who typically do not guess this). Any variations in the judges’ ratings can then be considered as reflections of their stereotyped reactions to the different language varieties, since potentially confounding individual variables are of course constant across guises (see Lambert et al., 1960; Edwards, 1989). A large number of studies have shown that evaluations of different varieties vary in nonrandom ways. Thus, standard accents and dialects usually connote high status and competence; regional, ‘ethnic,’ and lower-class varieties are typically associated with greater speaker integrity and attractiveness. Ellen Bouchard Ryan and her colleagues (Ryan et al., 1982, 1984) have attempted to summarize the many language attitude studies by providing an ‘‘organizational framework.’’ They suggest that there are two determinants of language perceptions: standardization and vitality. The important point about the standard here is that it is a variety whose norms have been codified and have become associated with social dominance. Vitality refers to the number and importance of functions served, and is clearly bolstered by the status which standards possess; it can also be a feature, however, of nonstandard varieties, given sufficient numbers of speakers and community support. Furthermore, two particularly salient evaluational categories account for most of the variance: social status (which is more or less equivalent to competence) and solidarity (roughly combining integrity and attractiveness) (see Edwards, 1992). These findings are interesting for several reasons, but the single most important factor is their stereotypical nature: people are evaluated in terms of characteristics that, in a broad-brush sort of way, reflect perceptions of the group to which they are seen to belong. The implication is obvious: individuals – with all their personal strengths and
weaknesses – are viewed in stereotypical group terms. Studies have suggested that at school, in the workplace, in counselor–client relations, and so on, negative stereotypes can create problems. (It is also worth remembering here that stereotyping can operate in the opposite direction, too – those with the socially ‘right’ attributes may have their progress unfairly expedited.)
Difference, Deficit . . . and Solidarity In the Classroom
More than three decades ago, John Gumperz and Eduardo Herna´ ndez-Chavez made the following observation: ‘‘Regardless of overtly expressed attitudes . . . teachers are quite likely to be influenced by what they perceive as deviant speech . . . thus potentially inhibiting the students’ desire to learn’’ (Gumperz and Herna´ ndez-Chavez, 1972: 105). Obviously, like other members of society, teachers have language attitudes, and it is not surprising to find that, on the whole, they have downgraded nonstandard varieties and, by extension, the capabilities of their speakers. Trudgill (1975: 63) noted, for example, that teachers were not averse to telling (some of) their pupils that their speech was ‘‘wrong . . . bad . . . careless . . . sloppy . . . slovenly . . . vulgar . . . gibberish.’’ A study conducted in Nova Scotia (Edwards and McKinnon, 1987: 335) found similar teacher attitudes: one said that poor children were unable to ‘‘articulate their thoughts’’; another observed that ‘‘Blacks have a slang language all their own – they will not use proper English when the opportunity arises.’’ Teachers’ points of view are, in one sense, merely a particular illustration of a much broader relationship between linguistic variation and social attitudes. But in another sense, their beliefs are special – for the obvious reason that negative evaluations of children’s speech styles may lead to real problems, in the classroom and beyond it. It is a cruel irony that socially disadvantaged children, who clearly struggle under all sorts of very real burdens, should be weighed down still more by evaluations of the inadequacies of their language – when these evaluations are typically based upon inaccurate assumptions. The negative reactions to their speech patterns do, however, reveal how hollow a purely academic sense of ‘inaccurate assumptions’ can be, in a world where attitudes can transform difference into deficit. ‘At Home’
Given the strength and pervasiveness of language attitudes, there are strong tendencies for speakers of nonstandard varieties to accept, themselves, the
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evaluations of others (the so-called minority group reaction is an example here; see Lambert et al., 1960). While the sense that one’s own speech is not very ‘good’ may be a common phenomenon, it is nonetheless a disturbing one – as the description above of the educational arena makes clear. Thus, Halliday (1968: 165) noted that a speaker who is made ashamed of his own language habits suffers a basic injury as a human being; to make anyone . . . feel so ashamed is as indefensible as to make him feel ashamed of the colour of his skin.
Beyond the obvious recommendations for greater linguistic awareness and sensitivity, one might also ask just why low-status speech varieties continue to exist. If they are generally considered inferior, why wouldn’t speakers try to eradicate them? Why wouldn’t language or dialect shift be a more popular option? Nonstandard speakers are hardly without adequate models for language alteration, after all. Nowadays, more than ever before, the ubiquity of the broadcast media means that virtually all have at least a passive awareness of standard forms (and research has shown how easy it can be for this to be translated into a more active quantity) (Edwards, 1989). Indeed, many years ago it was predicted that a leveling of variant speech styles would be the inevitable consequence of the wired world. But it seems not to have happened. We have to bear in mind here that the solidarity function of any common language is powerful; even a low-prestige variety can act as a bonding agent, reinforcing group identity (see the focused discussion in Ryan, 1979). Group identity and its (linguistic and other) markers are known quantities and, in that sense, ‘safe’; on the other hand, attempts to alter speech styles may be risky. Failure may lead to marginalization – a sense of not being a full member of any social group. Even success may prove too costly. A Mexican American who abandoned Spanish was labeled a vendido (Carranza and Ryan, 1975), a ‘sellout,’ a defector to the other side. A French Canadian in analogous circumstances was a vendu. Cockney grandparents once told their grandchildren that, if they tried to speak in a ‘la-di-da’ accent, their mates would call them ‘queer’ (Bragg and Ellis, 1976). Whatever the current status of these well-known if somewhat dated cases, it is clear that the principle remains powerful. Finally here, nonstandard speakers may also refrain from attempting to alter their language patterns if the exercise is considered to be pointless – as it may be seen to be for those who are members of visible minority groups, for instance. If reactions to Black English are reflections of social evaluations of Black speakers, then learning and
using some more standard form may be a waste of time. The social difficulties faced by Blacks occur largely because they are black, not because they do not use standard English (consider, for example, that there are many nonstandard-speaking Whites in comfortable circumstances).
Language Attitudes and Language Acquisition One important aspect of attitude study has been its connection with the learning of second (and subsequent) languages. Positive attitudes, it is generally thought, are likely to facilitate second language acquisition, although it is realized that variations in the context and the perceived functions of the new medium are also important. Indeed, this has very much been the received wisdom, and there is a large literature on attitude and motivation in language learning. John Macnamara, however, appeared to take an opposing view, asserting that attitudes were of little importance in language learning (Macnamara, 1973). His argument is worthy of some attention here, since it leads to some finer-grained attention to language attitudes generally (see also Edwards, 1995). Macnamara noted that necessity may overpower attitude – and this is clearly true. The adoption of English by the Irish, for instance, was a shift not generally accompanied by favorable attitudes; indeed, most historical changes in language use owe much more to socioeconomic and political pressures than they do to attitudes per se. But perhaps attitudes of a sort – instrumental attitudes – do play a part in language shift. A mid-19th-century Irishman may have hated English and what it represented, while still acknowledging the necessity and long-term usefulness of the language. A pragmatic or ‘instrumental’ motivation need not imply the deeper, ‘integrative’ motives so dear to the hearts of teachers keen on introducing their charges to new languages and new cultures. Similarly, there may be a useful distinction here between positive and favorable attitude; to remain with the Irish example, we might say that the attitudes towards the learning of English were positive and instrumental, but not necessarily favorable or integrative. (It must be acknowledged, of course, that instrumental–integrative and positive–favorable distinctions may change or disappear as language shift develops.) Macnamara went on to contend that pupils’ language-learning attitudes at school were also relatively unimportant. Language in the classroom, he said, was typically an unreal and artificial business, with communication subordinated to narrow academic
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concerns that fail to engage children’s interest. It is this situation, and not pupils’ attitudes, that underlies the traditionally poor results of school language programs. Now, it is undoubtedly true that a great failing in language classrooms has been the absence of realistic usage, but I do not think that this implies that attitudes are of small importance. The argument that the classroom is artificial is essentially a condemnation of approaches and practices, and does not of itself indicate that attitudes are trivial. In fact, attitudes may be of considerable importance precisely because of ‘artificiality’ – i.e., where a context is not perceived as pertinent to real life, or is not seen to be necessary, attitudes may make a real difference. The importance of favorable attitudes, then, may vary inversely with real linguistic necessity (Edwards, 2001).
Details and Directions Within social psychology, ‘attitude’ is a disposition to react favorably or unfavorably, a disposition with three components: feelings (the affective element), thoughts (the cognitive element), and a resultant tendency to action (the behavioral element). One knows or believes something, has some emotional reaction to it, and then does something about it. Two points, however, should be made. There is often considerable inconsistency between attitudes and actions. In a classic study, a Chinese couple (accompanied by the experimenter) toured the United States in the early 1930s. Visiting about 250 hotels and restaurants, they were refused service only once; however, when the investigator later wrote to the places visited, he found that more than 90% said they would not serve Chinese people (LaPiere, 1934). There are, of course, many possible reasons for this finding: immediate self-interest, a desire to avoid embarrassment, a difference between reactions to an ethnic group abstraction and assessments in concrete instances, and so on. But the inconsistency remains. The other point is that there is often confusion between attitude and belief – a confusion particularly noticeable within the language attitude literature. For example, the answer to a questionnaire item such as ‘Is a knowledge of French important for your children, yes or no?’ reflects a belief. To gauge attitude would require further probing into respondents’ feelings about the expressed belief. It would clearly be incorrect to assume that the answer ‘yes’ implied a favorable attitude: the informant could grudgingly accept that French was important for career success, while loathing both the language and its culture.
More attention to these distinctions – apart from simply improving accuracy – might be salutary in terms of understanding why evaluations take the forms they do. Given that unfavorable reactions to nonstandard varieties have typically been discussed in terms of status or prestige differentials, for instance, it could be useful to confirm this, from the respondents’ point of view, by asking them the bases for their evaluations. Such an exercise might be of special interest since – as has been mentioned above – nonstandard varieties elicit positive ratings along some dimensions. It is surely reasonable, after all, to gather as much information as we can from the actual participants in language studies, as well as imposing more purely theoretical interpretations upon their responses (Edwards, 1995). Language attitude study should perhaps be prepared to expand its scope. Various methodologies have produced a sizable body of evidence bearing on social perceptions, stereotypes, and language attitudes. We can now predict with some confidence what sorts of reactions are likely when people hear varieties of (for instance) Black English, Newfoundland English, Cockney, Received Pronunciation, Boston English, and many others; we can also make predictions about those ‘ethnic’ varieties produced by nonnative speakers of English that show the influence of the first language. We understand, at a general level, how these reactions come about, via the linguistic ‘triggering’ already noted, and how they reflect a set of attitudes (or beliefs) – often of stereotypical nature – that listeners have of speakers. Investigators have not, however, gone very much beyond fairly gross explanations; that is, they have typically not related speech evaluations to particular speech attributes. Thus, although hundreds of experiments have revealed negative reactions towards Black English, we have virtually no information relating specific linguistic attributes of that variety to such reactions – attributes that might include pronunciation patterns, particular grammatical constructions, or the use of dialect-specific lexical items (or, of course, any combination of these) (Edwards, 1999). Some moves have already been made in this direction. For example, in 1982, Howard Giles and Ellen Bouchard Ryan issued a call for ‘‘more detailed linguistic and acoustic descriptions of the stimulus voices as well as examining the relative evaluative salience of these particulars for different types of listeners’’ (Giles and Ryan, 1982: 210). A related, although not so pointed, observation was made by Edwards, in calling for fuller probing of the reasons behind the evaluative decisions made by informants (Edwards, 1982; see also above). In general, though, social psychologists have done little in the way of
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isolating linguistic and acoustic variables and relating them to evaluative judgments. Such work has simply not been their me´ tier. It is in linguistic research that we find descriptions of features that characterize and differentiate language varieties. In recent years, a considerable amount of work has been done here; for example, linguists (including Laver and Trudgill, 1979 – in a book on social markers that remains a valuable reference) have pointed out such phenomena as: 1. the nasality habitually associated with some (RP, for example) but not all varieties of English; 2. the wide dialectal variations in consonant pronunciation: thus, RP speakers pronounce lock and loch more or less identically, with a final /k/, but (some) Scottish pronunciations involve final /x/. Another example: in British English, pronouncing the postvocalic /r/ in words like cart and mar is inversely related to social-class status, whereas in some varieties of American English (e.g., New York English) a positive correlation exists between /r/ pronunciation and status; 3. grammatical variation: copula deletion in American Black English, for example (as we have seen, above); 4. lexical differences: some English speakers brew their tea, some mash it, some let it steep, some let it set, and so on. If, however, linguists have been the ones to describe such variation, they have either been relatively uninterested in its relation to variations in social evaluations, or have simply assumed that the more obvious and salient linguistic markers are the triggers for differentiated ratings. Like social psychologists, linguists too have generally stuck to their lasts – although a recent and most welcome collection (Milroy and Preston, 1999) deals explicitly with linkages between linguistic features and attitudes.
Conclusions There are many important aspects of language attitudes and their ramifications that it has not been possible to attend to in this brief overview. One has to do with the relationship between language and gender. The ‘covert prestige’ briefly noted above, for instance, is essentially a male phenomenon – the positive connotations of nonstandard speech are not typically found among women; indeed, where middleclass male informants may report more nonstandard usage than is actually the case, female respondents overreport standard dialect usage. A large literature suggests, generally, that women are often more linguistically conservative than are men, that they
produce ‘politer’ and more ‘correct’ speech, that there are significant gender differences in lexicon and function, and so on. All of these features are influenced by, and reflected in, language attitudes (see Coates, 1993 for a good overview). Another important area with a burgeoning literature has to do with the accommodations made by speakers in different contexts and with different interlocutors. Linguistic accommodation can take many forms but, whether it operates at or below the level of conscious awareness, its fundamental feature is the modification of speech patterns to converge with, or diverge from, those of others. Accommodation can reflect individual concerns – wanting to sound more like the boss, or intentionally departing from the usage of someone you dislike – or group ones: you may wish to emphasize your ‘in-group’ membership, or to solidify an ethnic or class boundary. Once again, attitudes clearly underpin practices (for an overview here, see Giles and Coupland, 1991; Robinson and Giles, 2001). What I have tried to deal with in this article is some of the central themes in the area, some of the scaffoldings on which other aspects rest. They include the following: 1. some basic definitional and terminological matters: it is always important to be clear about terms and meanings, and especially so when – in areas such as this – the terms have broad popular connotations as well as more narrowly academic ones; 2. the bases upon which linguistic judgments are made: most people still believe that intrinsic qualities of language varieties can reasonably underpin rankings of ‘better’ and ‘worse.’ The persistence of this belief is disappointing, to say the least, especially in educational circles; 3. the manner in which linguistic difference is typically translated into linguistic deficit: it is evident that, linguistic enlightenment notwithstanding, society continues to deal rather bluntly with variation – and, if most consider a difference to be a deficit, then it becomes one; 4. the ways in which linguistically stigmatized individuals and groups come to accept the judgments made of them by ‘outsiders’: this is an extension of the previous point, insofar as it is a potent reflection of the power of social pressure; 5. the reasons behind the persistence of low-prestige varieties: given the potency of social pressure and prejudice, it is interesting that group solidarity, on the one hand, and fear of personal marginalization, on the other, are sufficient to maintain stigmatized varieties;
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6. the evaluative dimensions and categories that seem to be employed when ranking different language varieties: the regularity with which a few basic categories (such as ‘competence,’ ‘integrity,’ and ‘reliability’) appear across a very wide range of studies is one of the most robust features in language study; 7. language attitudes in contexts of learning and shift: questions of how, and to what extent, attitudes and motivations are important in situations of change – or potential change – throw light upon both the attitudes and the contexts; 8. the need for greater interdisciplinarity in what are sometimes called, hopefully, the ‘language sciences’: a common criticism of modern social psychology involves its allegedly disembodied character – further and deeper attention to language, and language attitudes, would at once redress academic oversight and inevitably abet interdisciplinary linkages that would, in turn, reduce decontextualization. See also: Communities of Practice; English, African Amer-
ican Vernacular; Ethnicity; Ethnolinguistic Vitality; Interactional Sociolinguistics; Minorities and Language; Multiculturalism and Language; Social Class and Status.
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Giles H & Coupland N (1991). Language: contexts and consequences. Milton Keynes: Open University Press. Giles H & Ryan E B (1982). ‘Prolegomena for developing a social psychological theory of language attitudes.’ In Ryan & Giles (eds.) 208–223. Giles H, Bourhis R, Trudgill P & Lewis A (1974). ‘The imposed norm hypothesis: a validation.’ Quarterly Journal of Speech 60, 405–410. Giles H, Bourhis R & Davies A (1979). ‘Prestige speech styles: the imposed norm and inherent value hypotheses.’ In McCormack W & Wurm S (eds.) Language and society: anthropological issues. The Hague: Mouton. 589–596. Gumperz J & Herna´ ndez-Chavez E (1972). ‘Bilingualism, bidialectalism and classroom interaction.’ In Cazden C, John V & Hymes D (eds.) Functions of language in the classroom. New York: Teachers College Press. 98–111. Halliday M (1968). ‘The users and uses of language.’ In Fishman J (ed.) Readings in the sociology of language. The Hague: Mouton. 160–172. Labov W (1976). Language in the inner city. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press [includes his famous 1969 article, ‘The logic of nonstandard English’]. Lambert W, Hodgson R, Gardner R & Fillenbaum S (1960). ‘Evaluational reactions to spoken languages.’ Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 60, 44–51. LaPiere R (1934). ‘Attitudes versus actions.’ Social Forces 13, 230–237. Laver J & Trudgill P (1979). ‘Phonetic and linguistic markers in speech.’ In Scherer K & Giles H (eds.) Social markers in speech. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1–32. Macnamara J (1973). ‘Attitudes and learning a second language.’ In Shuy R & Fasold R (eds.) Language attitudes: current trends and prospects. Washington: Georgetown University Press. 36–40. Milroy L & Preston D (eds.) (1999). Attitudes, perception and linguistic features: special issue of Journal of Language and Social Psychology 18. Robinson P & Giles H (eds.) (2001). The new handbook of language and social psychology. London: John Wiley. Ryan E (1979). ‘Why do low-prestige varieties persist?’ In Giles H & St. Clair R (eds.) Language and social psychology. Oxford: Blackwell. 145–157. Ryan E B & Giles H (eds.) (1982). Attitudes towards language variation. London: Edward Arnold. Ryan E B, Giles H & Sebastian R (1982). ‘An integrative perspective for the study of attitudes toward language variation.’ In Ryan E & Giles H (eds.) 1–19. Ryan E B, Hewstone M & Giles H (1984). ‘Language and intergroup attitudes.’ In Eiser J (ed.) Attitudinal judgment. New York: Springer. Trudgill P (1975). Accent, dialect and the school. London: Edward Arnold. Trudgill P (1983). On dialect. Oxford: Blackwell. Wilkinson A (1965). ‘Spoken English.’ Educational Review 17, supplement. Wyld H (1934). ‘The best English: a claim for the superiority of received standard English.’ (Tracts of the) Society for Pure English 39, 603–621.
Language Attitudes J Edwards, St Francis Xavier University, Antigonish, NS, Canada ß 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
One grievous failing of Elizabeth’s was her occasional pretty and picturesque use of dialect words – those terrible marks of the beast to the truly genteel. Thomas Hardy (The mayor of Casterbridge, 1886) It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman hate or despise him. George Bernard Shaw (Pygmalion, 1912) The operative class, whose massacre of their mother tongue, however inhuman, could excite no astonishment. Thomas Hamilton (Men and manners in America, 1833)
Introduction The most basic theme in modern social psychology is the importance of perception. We do not react to the world on the basis of sensory input but, rather, in terms of what we perceive that input to mean. This is the foundation of all our social constructions, of all our individual and group relationships, and it is a foundation that reflects – in ongoing fashion – our accumulated social knowledge. Perception is the filter through which sensory data are strained, and the establishment and maintenance of this filter is culturally specific and – within social groupings – individualized to a greater or lesser extent. For example, because every individual has accumulated a unique set of experiences, each set of perceptual spectacles is itself special to some extent. At the same time, there are many social perceptions that group members hold in common: at one level, we can think of these as stereotypes, at another as culture itself. At a group level, the most important feature has to do with the acceptance of shared understanding. In a great many instances, this is the only sort of understanding to which we have access, and we sometimes fall prey to the idea that our understanding is, in fact, the only sort possible. Nonetheless, we are aware (occasionally, at least) of the relative nature of social knowledge when we realize that others do not sort out their world in quite the same way as we do. Perceptions operate in societies, most of which are stratified in various ways and in which – to put things bluntly – power and status are often able to translate social difference into social deficiency. Because language is one of the traditionally important social markers, it is not surprising that the study of attitudes has a central position in the social psychology
of language. Nor is it surprising that the results of this study shed some light on the generalities just mentioned. It is easy, for example, to demonstrate that great variation exists in terms of people’s reactions to (or evaluations of) different accents and dialects. The question, of course, is what to make of this variation.
The Basis of Judgment Social preferences and prejudices concerning language varieties are long-standing and of continuing potency. This is because views of language correspond to views of the social status of language users; in this sense, language (or dialect or accent) provides simple labels which evoke social stereotypes that go far beyond language itself. We can begin here by observing that even dictionary definitions of dialect and accent help to sustain the view that nonstandard language is less correct language. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED), for example, notes that dialect may be considered as ‘‘one of the subordinate forms or varieties of a language arising from local peculiarities of vocabulary, pronunciation, and idiom.’’ This definition is implicitly held by those for whom the term ‘dialect’ conjures up an image of some rustic, regional speech pattern; for such people, the ‘standard’ variety (see below) is not really a dialect at all; rather, they consider it as the ‘correct’ form from which all others diverge. On accent, the OED is not much better; it is, we find, a mode of utterance which ‘consists mainly in a prevailing quality of tone, or in a peculiar alteration of pitch, but may include mispronunciation of vowels or consonants, misplacing of stress, and misinflection of a sentence.’ But what is the basis for language attitudes and judgments? Three broad possibilities suggest themselves. Intrinsic Difference
One possibility is that language attitudes reflect intrinsic differences across and within language varieties themselves. That is, the reason for variety A being evaluated so much more favorably than variety B is simply that A is a linguistically superior form. Although this is a view that has had considerable historical support, and while it remains common at a popular level in virtually all linguistically stratified societies, linguists have convincingly demonstrated that to see languages or dialects in terms of innate superiority or inferiority is to profoundly misunderstand the nature of human language itself:
Language Attitudes 325 just as there is no linguistic reason for arguing that Gaelic is superior to Chinese, so no English dialect can be claimed to be linguistically superior or inferior to any other . . . There is no linguistic evidence whatsoever for suggesting that one dialect is more ‘expressive’ or ‘logical’ than any other, or for postulating that there are any ‘primitive’, ‘inadequate’ or ‘debased’ English dialects. (Trudgill, 1975: 26)
A very good demonstration of this was provided by William Labov (Labov, 1976). He studied Black English (in the United States), which makes an excellent test case for dialect validity since it had for so long been rejected by the white middle class, and since its speakers were victims of a prejudice that went well beyond language alone. If it could be shown that Black English was not some debased variety, this would go some way towards establishing linguistic integrity for all dialect varieties. There were three strands to Labov’s work. First, he justly criticized earlier studies which had elicited Black English from youngsters through interview techniques which were both unfamiliar and intimidating; these were hardly likely, he noted, to produce normal, conversational samples. Second, Labov reminded us of what casual observers had known for a very long time – the Black community is verbally rich and, like other ‘oral’ cultures worldwide, supports and rewards those who are particularly linguistically gifted. Third, and most important of all, Labov demonstrated the regular, rule-governed nature of Black English. Rules are of course an essential feature of language, and if it were possible to demonstrate formal grammatical regulation within Black English – not necessarily identical, of course, to regulation in other dialects – then charges of inaccuracy and sloppiness would become groundless, and it could not be dismissed as some ‘approximation’ to ‘proper’ English. As an example, here is one of the rules Labov described for Black English, a practice called ‘copula deletion.’ In a sentence such as she the first one started us off, the is is not present. Does this mean that the Black speaker who uttered it is unaware of this verb form? Well, consider another sentence taken from a Black corpus: I was small then – here, the past tense of the verb ‘to be’ appears. Why should it figure in this sentence but not in the former one? Labov’s work revealed the regularity governing this linguistic behavior: in contexts in which the standard variety permits verbal contraction (e.g., they are going can become they’re going), Black English allows deletion (e.g., they are going can become they going). We have, therefore, a rule – slightly different from the one obtaining in the standard, but no less logical. The regularity is further evidenced by the fact that, in
contexts in which the standard does not allow contraction, there is no Black English deletion: he’s as nice as he say he’s is patently incorrect according to the rules of the standard variety, which outlaws contraction in the final position. In like fashion, it is incorrect to say he’s as nice as he says he in Black English. The import of this sort of work is clear: there are no substandard language varieties. There are standard dialects in many languages, and so it logically follows that all others must be nonstandard – but this latter term is not pejorative in any technical linguistic sense. A standard dialect is, roughly, that spoken by educated people, and it is the form usually found in writing. Its position derives from history and from the social standing of its speakers. If York instead of London had become the center of English power, for instance, then the traditional BBC newsreader would sound quite different, and schoolteachers would be promoting another form of ‘correct’ English in the classroom. Aesthetic Difference
Another possibility might be that language varieties – although not to be seen (grammatically or ‘logically’) in terms of ‘better’ or ‘worse’ – do actually vary in their aesthetic qualities. Perhaps, then, more favorable attitudes might attach to those varieties that sound better, or more mellifluous, or more musical. Many years ago, for instance, standard English was defended as ‘one of the most subtle and most beautiful of all expressions of the human spirit’ (Chapman, 1932: 562) and, a little later, Henry Wyld, a linguist at the University of Liverpool, wrote: If it were possible to compare systematically every vowel sound in RS [Received Standard English – i.e., what we now more usually call RP, Received Pronunciation] with the corresponding sound in a number of provincial and other dialects, assuming that the comparison could be made, as is only fair, between speakers who possessed equal qualities of voice, and the knowledge how to use it, I believe no unbiased listener would hesitate in preferring RS as the most pleasing and sonorous form, and the best suited to be the medium of poetry and oratory. (Wyld, 1934: 610)
I need hardly say that such sentiments were (and are still, of course) not restricted to those speaking in and for English. Can we put to the test, however, the belief that dialect A is more aesthetically pleasing than dialect B? Recent studies have compared an ‘inherent value’ hypothesis here with an ‘imposed norm’ one. The former term suggests, as Wyld did, that aesthetic qualities are intrinsic, while the latter holds that
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they are attached or imposed by the listener, who, in hearing a standard (for instance), considers it mellifluous because of the status of its speakers. In one investigation, Welsh adults listened to European French, educated Canadian French and working-class Canadian French voices. Asked to rate the pleasantness and prestige of the voices, the judges – who were virtually ignorant of French – did not single out any of the three varieties. Earlier studies had shown, however, a clear aesthetic preference among French speakers for European French. In another experiment, British undergraduates who knew no Greek evaluated the aesthetic quality of two Greek dialects, the Athenian and the Cretan: the former is the prestige standard form, while the latter is a nonstandard variant of generally low status. As in the French study, no significant differences between the two dialects were found. If anything, there was a slight tendency for these British students to rate the Cretan variety as more pleasant and prestigious than the Athenian (Giles et al., 1974, 1979). The important element in these demonstrations is that the judges were unaware of the social connotations possessed by the different varieties in their own speech communities. The implication is that, if one removes (experimentally) the social stereotypes usually associated with given varieties, aesthetic judgments will not be made which favor the highstatus standards. Anyone who watches a film or a play in which (for example) a woman dressed as a duchess speaks with a Cockney accent can appreciate the point here: someone in the audience who had an understanding of English, but not of more subtle intralinguistic variation and convention, would miss a great deal of the comedic effect. The norms here are imposed by those in the know, and the stereotypes which link beauty, or harshness, or comedy to a particular set of sounds are unavailable to others. (None of this, I hasten to add, rules out purely individual preferences: I may think Italian is the most beautiful language, you may believe that Gaelic is unrivalled – but we can agree to differ on a matter of subjectivity.) Social Perception
We now turn to a third possibility, which – because we have eliminated the first two – becomes the most likely: the variant evaluations found in the social laboratory and on the street reflect perceptions of the speakers of given varieties; any qualities – ‘logical’ or aesthetic – of the varieties themselves are, at best, of very secondary importance. Thus, listening to a given variety acts as a trigger or a stimulus that evokes attitudes (or prejudices, or stereotypes) about
the community to which the speaker is thought to belong. A general moral here seems to be this: when social stratification is associated with linguistic variation, the variety used by those with social clout will commonly be perceived as (grammatically, lexically, or phonologically) superior to nonstandard forms. There are two exceptions to this rule, and they occur at opposite ends of the status continuum. First, extremely high-status varieties may seem affected and generally over the top. Second, there is a ‘covert prestige’ possessed by working-class speech, with its positive associations of masculinity. Research has found that both working-class and middle-class males claimed to use nonstandard forms even when they did not customarily do so (Edwards, 1989; Trudgill, 1983). The actual use of such forms, by generally standard-speaking individuals, is most likely when the speaker wants to appear forceful, direct, and unambiguous. An example: a friend of mine, a middle-aged, upper-middle-class American university professor (male), was being pressed by colleagues (also male) on a departmental matter. Finally, he ended a rambling and inconclusive discussion – one that had unfolded according to the norms of standard, educated American English – by smiling broadly and saying, ‘‘Listen, boys, you know the’ ain’t no way I can do it.’’ All-male social gatherings, as at least half the readers will know, often produce such examples.
Variation in Social Attitudes If we reject linguistic and aesthetic arguments as the real underpinnings of variations in language (and speaker) evaluation, we have only cleared away some annoying underbrush. It is very useful to know that the basis for language evaluation rests upon social convention, but we must make more detailed inquiries about the assessment of language varieties. We come then, to language attitudes per se. While many regional or class dialects are perceived unfavorably, there is more than a simple dichotomy between good (standard) and bad (nonstandard). Urban speech patterns (such as, in Britain, those of Birmingham, Glasgow, and Liverpool) are generally seen as more unpleasant than are rural varieties (Devon English, for instance). Again, the basic explanation rests upon social connotation: for many, rural areas have a charm that is absent in heavily urbanized, industrialized centers. So rural dialects, although not as prestigious as the standard, may be viewed more favorably than urban varieties (which are often tied more closely to class differences, as well) (Wilkinson, 1965; Trudgill, 1975).
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Wyld (above) hinted at an important problem in the comparison of language varieties. If I wish to find out which of two dialects is the more pleasant (for example), and if I therefore record a speaker of each and have the voices judged by listeners, to what can I reasonably attribute any differential ratings that may be found? Are they due to features of the dialects themselves? Might they not also be reactions to purely individual qualities of voice – tone, pitch, rhythm, pace, and so on? A way around this difficulty was devised in the 1960s by Wallace Lambert. In his ‘matched guise’ method, judges evaluate a taperecorded speaker’s personality after hearing him or her read the same passage in each of two or more languages, dialects, or accents. The fact that the speaker is, for all ‘guises,’ the same person is not revealed to the judges (who typically do not guess this). Any variations in the judges’ ratings can then be considered as reflections of their stereotyped reactions to the different language varieties, since potentially confounding individual variables are of course constant across guises (see Lambert et al., 1960; Edwards, 1989). A large number of studies have shown that evaluations of different varieties vary in nonrandom ways. Thus, standard accents and dialects usually connote high status and competence; regional, ‘ethnic,’ and lower-class varieties are typically associated with greater speaker integrity and attractiveness. Ellen Bouchard Ryan and her colleagues (Ryan et al., 1982, 1984) have attempted to summarize the many language attitude studies by providing an ‘‘organizational framework.’’ They suggest that there are two determinants of language perceptions: standardization and vitality. The important point about the standard here is that it is a variety whose norms have been codified and have become associated with social dominance. Vitality refers to the number and importance of functions served, and is clearly bolstered by the status which standards possess; it can also be a feature, however, of nonstandard varieties, given sufficient numbers of speakers and community support. Furthermore, two particularly salient evaluational categories account for most of the variance: social status (which is more or less equivalent to competence) and solidarity (roughly combining integrity and attractiveness) (see Edwards, 1992). These findings are interesting for several reasons, but the single most important factor is their stereotypical nature: people are evaluated in terms of characteristics that, in a broad-brush sort of way, reflect perceptions of the group to which they are seen to belong. The implication is obvious: individuals – with all their personal strengths and
weaknesses – are viewed in stereotypical group terms. Studies have suggested that at school, in the workplace, in counselor–client relations, and so on, negative stereotypes can create problems. (It is also worth remembering here that stereotyping can operate in the opposite direction, too – those with the socially ‘right’ attributes may have their progress unfairly expedited.)
Difference, Deficit . . . and Solidarity In the Classroom
More than three decades ago, John Gumperz and Eduardo Herna´ ndez-Chavez made the following observation: ‘‘Regardless of overtly expressed attitudes . . . teachers are quite likely to be influenced by what they perceive as deviant speech . . . thus potentially inhibiting the students’ desire to learn’’ (Gumperz and Herna´ ndez-Chavez, 1972: 105). Obviously, like other members of society, teachers have language attitudes, and it is not surprising to find that, on the whole, they have downgraded nonstandard varieties and, by extension, the capabilities of their speakers. Trudgill (1975: 63) noted, for example, that teachers were not averse to telling (some of) their pupils that their speech was ‘‘wrong . . . bad . . . careless . . . sloppy . . . slovenly . . . vulgar . . . gibberish.’’ A study conducted in Nova Scotia (Edwards and McKinnon, 1987: 335) found similar teacher attitudes: one said that poor children were unable to ‘‘articulate their thoughts’’; another observed that ‘‘Blacks have a slang language all their own – they will not use proper English when the opportunity arises.’’ Teachers’ points of view are, in one sense, merely a particular illustration of a much broader relationship between linguistic variation and social attitudes. But in another sense, their beliefs are special – for the obvious reason that negative evaluations of children’s speech styles may lead to real problems, in the classroom and beyond it. It is a cruel irony that socially disadvantaged children, who clearly struggle under all sorts of very real burdens, should be weighed down still more by evaluations of the inadequacies of their language – when these evaluations are typically based upon inaccurate assumptions. The negative reactions to their speech patterns do, however, reveal how hollow a purely academic sense of ‘inaccurate assumptions’ can be, in a world where attitudes can transform difference into deficit. ‘At Home’
Given the strength and pervasiveness of language attitudes, there are strong tendencies for speakers of nonstandard varieties to accept, themselves, the
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evaluations of others (the so-called minority group reaction is an example here; see Lambert et al., 1960). While the sense that one’s own speech is not very ‘good’ may be a common phenomenon, it is nonetheless a disturbing one – as the description above of the educational arena makes clear. Thus, Halliday (1968: 165) noted that a speaker who is made ashamed of his own language habits suffers a basic injury as a human being; to make anyone . . . feel so ashamed is as indefensible as to make him feel ashamed of the colour of his skin.
Beyond the obvious recommendations for greater linguistic awareness and sensitivity, one might also ask just why low-status speech varieties continue to exist. If they are generally considered inferior, why wouldn’t speakers try to eradicate them? Why wouldn’t language or dialect shift be a more popular option? Nonstandard speakers are hardly without adequate models for language alteration, after all. Nowadays, more than ever before, the ubiquity of the broadcast media means that virtually all have at least a passive awareness of standard forms (and research has shown how easy it can be for this to be translated into a more active quantity) (Edwards, 1989). Indeed, many years ago it was predicted that a leveling of variant speech styles would be the inevitable consequence of the wired world. But it seems not to have happened. We have to bear in mind here that the solidarity function of any common language is powerful; even a low-prestige variety can act as a bonding agent, reinforcing group identity (see the focused discussion in Ryan, 1979). Group identity and its (linguistic and other) markers are known quantities and, in that sense, ‘safe’; on the other hand, attempts to alter speech styles may be risky. Failure may lead to marginalization – a sense of not being a full member of any social group. Even success may prove too costly. A Mexican American who abandoned Spanish was labeled a vendido (Carranza and Ryan, 1975), a ‘sellout,’ a defector to the other side. A French Canadian in analogous circumstances was a vendu. Cockney grandparents once told their grandchildren that, if they tried to speak in a ‘la-di-da’ accent, their mates would call them ‘queer’ (Bragg and Ellis, 1976). Whatever the current status of these well-known if somewhat dated cases, it is clear that the principle remains powerful. Finally here, nonstandard speakers may also refrain from attempting to alter their language patterns if the exercise is considered to be pointless – as it may be seen to be for those who are members of visible minority groups, for instance. If reactions to Black English are reflections of social evaluations of Black speakers, then learning and
using some more standard form may be a waste of time. The social difficulties faced by Blacks occur largely because they are black, not because they do not use standard English (consider, for example, that there are many nonstandard-speaking Whites in comfortable circumstances).
Language Attitudes and Language Acquisition One important aspect of attitude study has been its connection with the learning of second (and subsequent) languages. Positive attitudes, it is generally thought, are likely to facilitate second language acquisition, although it is realized that variations in the context and the perceived functions of the new medium are also important. Indeed, this has very much been the received wisdom, and there is a large literature on attitude and motivation in language learning. John Macnamara, however, appeared to take an opposing view, asserting that attitudes were of little importance in language learning (Macnamara, 1973). His argument is worthy of some attention here, since it leads to some finer-grained attention to language attitudes generally (see also Edwards, 1995). Macnamara noted that necessity may overpower attitude – and this is clearly true. The adoption of English by the Irish, for instance, was a shift not generally accompanied by favorable attitudes; indeed, most historical changes in language use owe much more to socioeconomic and political pressures than they do to attitudes per se. But perhaps attitudes of a sort – instrumental attitudes – do play a part in language shift. A mid-19th-century Irishman may have hated English and what it represented, while still acknowledging the necessity and long-term usefulness of the language. A pragmatic or ‘instrumental’ motivation need not imply the deeper, ‘integrative’ motives so dear to the hearts of teachers keen on introducing their charges to new languages and new cultures. Similarly, there may be a useful distinction here between positive and favorable attitude; to remain with the Irish example, we might say that the attitudes towards the learning of English were positive and instrumental, but not necessarily favorable or integrative. (It must be acknowledged, of course, that instrumental–integrative and positive–favorable distinctions may change or disappear as language shift develops.) Macnamara went on to contend that pupils’ language-learning attitudes at school were also relatively unimportant. Language in the classroom, he said, was typically an unreal and artificial business, with communication subordinated to narrow academic
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concerns that fail to engage children’s interest. It is this situation, and not pupils’ attitudes, that underlies the traditionally poor results of school language programs. Now, it is undoubtedly true that a great failing in language classrooms has been the absence of realistic usage, but I do not think that this implies that attitudes are of small importance. The argument that the classroom is artificial is essentially a condemnation of approaches and practices, and does not of itself indicate that attitudes are trivial. In fact, attitudes may be of considerable importance precisely because of ‘artificiality’ – i.e., where a context is not perceived as pertinent to real life, or is not seen to be necessary, attitudes may make a real difference. The importance of favorable attitudes, then, may vary inversely with real linguistic necessity (Edwards, 2001).
Details and Directions Within social psychology, ‘attitude’ is a disposition to react favorably or unfavorably, a disposition with three components: feelings (the affective element), thoughts (the cognitive element), and a resultant tendency to action (the behavioral element). One knows or believes something, has some emotional reaction to it, and then does something about it. Two points, however, should be made. There is often considerable inconsistency between attitudes and actions. In a classic study, a Chinese couple (accompanied by the experimenter) toured the United States in the early 1930s. Visiting about 250 hotels and restaurants, they were refused service only once; however, when the investigator later wrote to the places visited, he found that more than 90% said they would not serve Chinese people (LaPiere, 1934). There are, of course, many possible reasons for this finding: immediate self-interest, a desire to avoid embarrassment, a difference between reactions to an ethnic group abstraction and assessments in concrete instances, and so on. But the inconsistency remains. The other point is that there is often confusion between attitude and belief – a confusion particularly noticeable within the language attitude literature. For example, the answer to a questionnaire item such as ‘Is a knowledge of French important for your children, yes or no?’ reflects a belief. To gauge attitude would require further probing into respondents’ feelings about the expressed belief. It would clearly be incorrect to assume that the answer ‘yes’ implied a favorable attitude: the informant could grudgingly accept that French was important for career success, while loathing both the language and its culture.
More attention to these distinctions – apart from simply improving accuracy – might be salutary in terms of understanding why evaluations take the forms they do. Given that unfavorable reactions to nonstandard varieties have typically been discussed in terms of status or prestige differentials, for instance, it could be useful to confirm this, from the respondents’ point of view, by asking them the bases for their evaluations. Such an exercise might be of special interest since – as has been mentioned above – nonstandard varieties elicit positive ratings along some dimensions. It is surely reasonable, after all, to gather as much information as we can from the actual participants in language studies, as well as imposing more purely theoretical interpretations upon their responses (Edwards, 1995). Language attitude study should perhaps be prepared to expand its scope. Various methodologies have produced a sizable body of evidence bearing on social perceptions, stereotypes, and language attitudes. We can now predict with some confidence what sorts of reactions are likely when people hear varieties of (for instance) Black English, Newfoundland English, Cockney, Received Pronunciation, Boston English, and many others; we can also make predictions about those ‘ethnic’ varieties produced by nonnative speakers of English that show the influence of the first language. We understand, at a general level, how these reactions come about, via the linguistic ‘triggering’ already noted, and how they reflect a set of attitudes (or beliefs) – often of stereotypical nature – that listeners have of speakers. Investigators have not, however, gone very much beyond fairly gross explanations; that is, they have typically not related speech evaluations to particular speech attributes. Thus, although hundreds of experiments have revealed negative reactions towards Black English, we have virtually no information relating specific linguistic attributes of that variety to such reactions – attributes that might include pronunciation patterns, particular grammatical constructions, or the use of dialect-specific lexical items (or, of course, any combination of these) (Edwards, 1999). Some moves have already been made in this direction. For example, in 1982, Howard Giles and Ellen Bouchard Ryan issued a call for ‘‘more detailed linguistic and acoustic descriptions of the stimulus voices as well as examining the relative evaluative salience of these particulars for different types of listeners’’ (Giles and Ryan, 1982: 210). A related, although not so pointed, observation was made by Edwards, in calling for fuller probing of the reasons behind the evaluative decisions made by informants (Edwards, 1982; see also above). In general, though, social psychologists have done little in the way of
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isolating linguistic and acoustic variables and relating them to evaluative judgments. Such work has simply not been their me´ tier. It is in linguistic research that we find descriptions of features that characterize and differentiate language varieties. In recent years, a considerable amount of work has been done here; for example, linguists (including Laver and Trudgill, 1979 – in a book on social markers that remains a valuable reference) have pointed out such phenomena as: 1. the nasality habitually associated with some (RP, for example) but not all varieties of English; 2. the wide dialectal variations in consonant pronunciation: thus, RP speakers pronounce lock and loch more or less identically, with a final /k/, but (some) Scottish pronunciations involve final /x/. Another example: in British English, pronouncing the postvocalic /r/ in words like cart and mar is inversely related to social-class status, whereas in some varieties of American English (e.g., New York English) a positive correlation exists between /r/ pronunciation and status; 3. grammatical variation: copula deletion in American Black English, for example (as we have seen, above); 4. lexical differences: some English speakers brew their tea, some mash it, some let it steep, some let it set, and so on. If, however, linguists have been the ones to describe such variation, they have either been relatively uninterested in its relation to variations in social evaluations, or have simply assumed that the more obvious and salient linguistic markers are the triggers for differentiated ratings. Like social psychologists, linguists too have generally stuck to their lasts – although a recent and most welcome collection (Milroy and Preston, 1999) deals explicitly with linkages between linguistic features and attitudes.
Conclusions There are many important aspects of language attitudes and their ramifications that it has not been possible to attend to in this brief overview. One has to do with the relationship between language and gender. The ‘covert prestige’ briefly noted above, for instance, is essentially a male phenomenon – the positive connotations of nonstandard speech are not typically found among women; indeed, where middleclass male informants may report more nonstandard usage than is actually the case, female respondents overreport standard dialect usage. A large literature suggests, generally, that women are often more linguistically conservative than are men, that they
produce ‘politer’ and more ‘correct’ speech, that there are significant gender differences in lexicon and function, and so on. All of these features are influenced by, and reflected in, language attitudes (see Coates, 1993 for a good overview). Another important area with a burgeoning literature has to do with the accommodations made by speakers in different contexts and with different interlocutors. Linguistic accommodation can take many forms but, whether it operates at or below the level of conscious awareness, its fundamental feature is the modification of speech patterns to converge with, or diverge from, those of others. Accommodation can reflect individual concerns – wanting to sound more like the boss, or intentionally departing from the usage of someone you dislike – or group ones: you may wish to emphasize your ‘in-group’ membership, or to solidify an ethnic or class boundary. Once again, attitudes clearly underpin practices (for an overview here, see Giles and Coupland, 1991; Robinson and Giles, 2001). What I have tried to deal with in this article is some of the central themes in the area, some of the scaffoldings on which other aspects rest. They include the following: 1. some basic definitional and terminological matters: it is always important to be clear about terms and meanings, and especially so when – in areas such as this – the terms have broad popular connotations as well as more narrowly academic ones; 2. the bases upon which linguistic judgments are made: most people still believe that intrinsic qualities of language varieties can reasonably underpin rankings of ‘better’ and ‘worse.’ The persistence of this belief is disappointing, to say the least, especially in educational circles; 3. the manner in which linguistic difference is typically translated into linguistic deficit: it is evident that, linguistic enlightenment notwithstanding, society continues to deal rather bluntly with variation – and, if most consider a difference to be a deficit, then it becomes one; 4. the ways in which linguistically stigmatized individuals and groups come to accept the judgments made of them by ‘outsiders’: this is an extension of the previous point, insofar as it is a potent reflection of the power of social pressure; 5. the reasons behind the persistence of low-prestige varieties: given the potency of social pressure and prejudice, it is interesting that group solidarity, on the one hand, and fear of personal marginalization, on the other, are sufficient to maintain stigmatized varieties;
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6. the evaluative dimensions and categories that seem to be employed when ranking different language varieties: the regularity with which a few basic categories (such as ‘competence,’ ‘integrity,’ and ‘reliability’) appear across a very wide range of studies is one of the most robust features in language study; 7. language attitudes in contexts of learning and shift: questions of how, and to what extent, attitudes and motivations are important in situations of change – or potential change – throw light upon both the attitudes and the contexts; 8. the need for greater interdisciplinarity in what are sometimes called, hopefully, the ‘language sciences’: a common criticism of modern social psychology involves its allegedly disembodied character – further and deeper attention to language, and language attitudes, would at once redress academic oversight and inevitably abet interdisciplinary linkages that would, in turn, reduce decontextualization. See also: Communities of Practice; English, African Amer-
ican Vernacular; Ethnicity; Ethnolinguistic Vitality; Interactional Sociolinguistics; Minorities and Language; Multiculturalism and Language; Social Class and Status.
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