Attitudes to English varieties and English as a lingua franca

For use with Chapter 8 of:

Galloway, N. and Rose, H. (2015). Introducing Global Englishes. Routledge.

© Dr. Heath Rose and Dr. Nicola Galloway

Review of Lecture 7 • English in expanding global contexts:

– Europe – dominant role, irrespective of the multilingual policy of the EU.

– East Asia and ASEAN – great emphasis put on English education. • More than a foreign language.• ELF – rapidly growing field of study. • Shift in ELF research from the identification of surface-level

features to an exploration of the processes giving rise to such features, further emphasizing the flexibility and hybridity inherent in ELF talk.

• Many criticisms suggesting that Seidlhofer’s ‘conceptual gap’ may still be present.

• Overall, ELF research is showing how being a NNES does not make them ‘incompetent’, but in fact, when it comes to ELF communication, being a NNES can actually be a useful asset.

Overview

The importance of language attitudes and factors influencing attitudes

Research studies: attitudes towards native andnon-native English

Attitude studies related to the pedagogical contextof ELT

Attitudes towards English as a lingua franca

Introductory activities

Look at the quote from McArthur (1998, p. 3) in the introduction to Chapter 8 (p. 173), then discuss the questions below.

1. While we may not always be consciously aware of them, ‘language attitudes permeate our daily lives’ (Garrett, 2010, p. 2). To what extent is this true? Are you familiar with any negative language attitudes expressed through the media?

2. The attitudes expressed in the quote from McArthur may make some speakers feel that their English is inferior.– How do you think Scottish or Jamaican speakers would react to these

comments?– Have you heard similar remarks in your own context?

Attitudes towards the use of English as an official working language

Look at this commercial that jokes about the possible attitudes of a typical worker in a Japanese company.1. Why are attitudes worth researching? 2. Are there any factors that influence attitudes?3. How could you research the attitudes of such employees?4. Would your results have any implications for teaching

English?

The importance of language attitudes and factors influencing attitudes

Part 1

Defining attitudes • One of the most distinctive

and indispensable concepts in social psychology.

• No single definition.• Sarnoff (1970, p. 279)

describes an attitude as‘a disposition to react favourably or unfavourably to a class of objects’.

• They are also mental constructs acquired through a variety of factors, including experience.

Cognitive Involve beliefs about the world: ‘English is useful for my future

career.’

AffectiveInvolves an emotional

response: ‘I’m very afraid of speaking English in public.’

BehaviouralDeterminants of behaviour: ‘We

have employed five new NESTs this

year.’

Attitudes toward language in society (1)• People make inferences about each other based on accents:

– I wonder where she comes from.– I think … is the appropriate …– I love/hate …

• Because they can bias social interaction, ‘language attitudes represent important communicative phenomena worth understanding’ (Cargile et al., 2006, p. 443).

1. Life opportunities• A Pakistani immigrant who moved to Seattle: ‘Most folks just

couldn’t understand the way my learned British accent commingled with my native Pashtun accent. “Oh, okay! You mean blah blah,” some folks would respond. Others would say, “This guy is not from here.” It embarrassed me’ (Ismail, 2012). He advocates that immigrants to the USA try to imitate American English.

Attitudes toward language in society (2)• Accent reduction classes.• Today, more cases of discrimination over English-speaking ability or

foreign accents (The Insurance Journal, 2012), e.g. an Indian-born UK customer adviser working in New Delhi was dismissed for his Indian accent, which wasn’t ‘English enough’ (O’Mara, 2007, cited in Garrett, 2010).

2. Political level• Prestige varieties receive institutional support, e.g. standard

American English.

Accent reduction classes• Learn how to ‘lose your accent and speak like an

American’: TestDEN Accent Reduction Course YouTube video

• But even Americans have negative attitudes towards some American varieties: The Boston Globe – ‘Class helps locals lose their Boston accent’

Factors influencing attitudes

Stereotypes

Contact and use

Familiarity – Dörnyei et al.’s (2006) contact

hypothesis – no contact

opportunitiesPerson specific –

voice, race. Rubin’s (1992)

and Amin’s (1999) studies

Proficiency

Motivation, use and experience –

Dörnyei’s (2009) ideal L2 self and linguistic

self-confidence (Dörnyei et al., 2006)

Attitude change• Subject to change – shaped:

– By their own use (Brumfit, 2001).– As contact opportunities increase.

• Example – RP:– Changeable (Lectures 2 and 3).– More popular with 1.5 billion speakers outside England than within the country

(Morrish, 1999, cited in Garrett, 2010, p.14).– The sacking of Zenab Ahmed, a BBC news presenter, who wrote the following to

the Daily Telegraph (30 October 2003, cited in Garrett, 2010, p. 14): ‘The BBC has sacked me for sounding too posh. At the moment, the World Service is on a mission to sound classless – hence the proliferation of Scottish, Welsh, Irish and Australasian voices.’

– BBC News website (8 October, 1999) – Boris Johnson claimed he was sacked as a presenter on BBC Radio 4 because his accent was ‘too posh’.

– ‘Cheryl Cole’s accent is not worth the risk for X Factor, Fox decides’ – Guardian headline, 26 May, 2011).

– Beal (2010, p. 1) – public interest in regional dialects, discussing the BBC Voices project.

• Do you know of any similar reports in your own context?

Research methods used to investigate attitudes

• Language attitude studies date back to the 1930s (Pear, 1931).

1. Societal treatment.2. Direct measures.3. Indirect measures.

• What methods do you think these approaches use?

1. Societal treatment• Gain insights into the relative status of language varieties.• Analyses the ‘treatment’ given to them and to their speakers.• Tools:

– Content analysis.– Observation.– Ethnography.– Government policies, job advertisements, and media output.– Bookshop analysis (e.g. Lecture 4)?

• Linguistic landscape studies – ‘The language of public road signs, advertising billboards, street names, place names, commercial shop signs, and public signs on government buildings combines to form the linguistic landscape of a given territory, region, or urban agglomeration’ (Landry and Bourhis, 1997, p. 25).– Highlights attitudes as well as power relations between linguistics groups.– Books and websites:

– Sign Language: Travels in Unfortunate English from the Readers of The Telegraph (Aurum Press, 2011).

– The Lonely Planet’s Signspotting: Funny signs from around the world.

2. Direct measures• Direct questions:

– Questionnaires.– Interviews.– Focus groups.– Diaries.

• Perceptual dialectology: – A branch of folk linguistics, designed to fill in the missing parts of the

‘language-attitude puzzle’ (Kuiper, 2005, p. 29) – rating languages without exposure to them.

– Examines ‘people’s (more conscious) beliefs about language use’ (Jenkins, 2007, p. 75).

– Drawing speech zones on a blank (or minimally detailed) map, ranking accents (correct/incorrect; pleasant/unpleasant), and interviewing respondents about the tasks.

– Useful in explaining attitudes – particularly useful in the context of GE, where it is necessary to investigate attitudes towards often unfamiliar varieties of English.

3. Indirect measures • Matched guise technique (MGT)

– Evaluate audio-taped speakers – Told that they are listening to a number of different speakers, although

it is one speaker in different ‘guises’– Attitude-rating scale – friendliness, sociability, intelligence, etc.– Lambert et al. (1960).– Criticisms:

– Deceptive.– Ability to keep vocal characteristics constant. – Inability to measure other important variables.– ‘Acontextual.’

• Verbal guise technique (VGT)– Speech samples provided by authentic speakers of each variety.– Participants still think they are rating people rather than language. – However, when this method is not contextualised or supported with

other more qualitative methods, it is difficult to see how rating language varieties based on adjectives such as ‘intelligent’ can really tell us what people think.

Research studies: attitudes towards native and non-native English

Part 2

Attitudes of NESs towards NEStudy Country N size Method Attitudes

towards:Results

Huygens and Vaughan (1983)

New Zealand

120 Pakeha NZ uni. students

VGT English, Dutch, Maori, and Pakeha speakers (3 status groups)

• Maori speakers were the least successfully identified by ethnic group.

• English, Dutch, and then Maori were seen as prestigious.

• English and Pakeha speakers seen as equally prestigious – related to occupational class.

• Speech styles approximating RP were rated the highest.

Stewart, Ryan and Giles (1985)

America 60 uni. students

VGT Standard British and standard American English

• British speakers rated more highly than American English on status, but the opposite for solidarity.

• RP rated higher than the students’ own accent for social status, but less intelligible.

Bayard et al. (2001)

New Zealand, Australia, and America

400 students

VGT New Zealand, Australian, American, and ‘RP-type’ English

• American English was most highly evaluated.• Australian students ranked own accents in

third or fourth place on most traits.• New Zealand students ranked own accent

below American, Australian, and RP.• New Zealanders (and Australians) did not give

their own accents top ratings in solidarity.

Conclusions• High vitality of both standard American and RP – within and

outside of the IC. • Lecture 2 and 3 hinted at moves away from standard language

ideology in the IC, yet attitude studies show that these two ‘varieties’ are still held in high regard.

• Huygens and Vaughan’s (1983) and Bayard’s (2001) studies indicate that international ‘standard’ Englishes are regarded more highly than their own locally spoken Englishes?

• Bayard’s (2001) study suggests a movement away from British English toward American English.

• Attitudes are subject to change, even within the IC.

Attitudes of NNESs towards NETopic Study Country Research design method

Attitudes of non-native

English speakers to

native English

Ladegaard and Sachdev (2006) Denmark Verbal guise study with 96 EFL learners

Kirkpatrick and Xu (2002) China Questionnaire with 171 students

McKenzie (2008a and 2008b) Japanese learners in Scotland

Verbal guise study and perceptual dialectology

Cargile et al. (2006) Japan Verbal guise study with 113 university students

Adolphs (2005) UK Interviews with 24 international students at a British university

Attitudes of NNESs towards NE(IC and acknowledgment of variation)

Study Country N Size Method Results

McKenzie (2008a and 2008b)

Scotland Japanese uni. students

VGT; PD • More positive towards Scottish Standard English speech than Glasgow Vernacular speech.

Cargile et al. (2006)

Japanese students

• African-American Vernacular English rated less positively in terms of status, but more favourably in terms of social attractiveness than Mid-West US English.

• Didn’t group IC English as one single variety – often ignored. • Highlight the tendency to judge language varieties hierarchically.• But VGT and MGT tell us little about attitudes, or what factors serve to explain these

attitudes.• Adolph’s (2005) longitudinal study:

– 24 pre-sessional international (one year study at UK-based uni.); interviews at two-monthly intervals.

– Results: simplistic notion of the NES, and familiarity led to more negative attitudes; became increasingly aware of the need to understand English in international communication.

– Does the fact that when students encountered Englishes that didn’t fit their preconceived notion of ‘standard’ English have implications for GE?

Attitudes of NNESs towards NE and NNETopic Study Country Research design

method Results

Attitudes of non-

native English speaker

s to non-

native and

native English

es

Chiba et al. (1995)

Japan Verbal guise with 169 university students

• More positive towards NESs – familiarity.

• Familiarity didn’t lead to positive attitudes towards Japanese.

• Suggested implications for ELT, but not investigated.

Starks and Paltridge (1994)

New Zealand Questionnaire with 172 Japanese university students

• American and British English rated more favourably than NZ English.

• 2nd highest preference (after American English) was for learning English with a Japanese accent.

Matsuura et al. (2004)

Japan Closed questionnaire with 50 university teachers and 660 university students

Conclusions• Preference for NE. • Rejection of NNE (including own ‘variety’).• Implications for GE?• Related to the use of the NES model in ELT and the high

vitality of NE?

Attitude studies related to the pedagogical context of ELT

Part 3

ELT related studies

• Why is it important to investigate learners’ attitudes?• Awareness of learners’ beliefs:– Make both learners and teachers aware of their needs –

increased autonomy and self-awareness. – Help them evaluate their own stereotypes.– More effective lesson planning and satisfaction.– Language planning and the elaboration of pedagogical

objectives.

Research studies on attitudes towards English in relation to ELT

Study Country Research design method

Prodromou (1992) Greece Questionnaire with 300 students

Dalton-Puffer et al. (1997)

Austria Modified match guise with 132 students

Rubin and Smith (1990) USA Matched guise study

Rubin (1992) USA Verbal guise study with 62 university students

Kelch and Santana-Williamson (2002)

USA Verbal guise study with 56 ESL students (mostly Spanish speakers)

Butler (2007) Korea Matched guise study with 312 grade 6 students

Mckenzie (2008a, 2008b)

Japan Verbal guise study with 558 university students

He and Li (2009) China Questionnaire, matched guise, and interview with 795 students and 189 teachers

ELT-related studies

Greece• Prodromou’s (1992) survey-based study investigated 300 English students’

attitudes on the content of language teaching, including attitudes towards bilingual, bicultural teachers, NES models, and the cultural content of lessons.

• Just over half thought that NESTs should know the learners’ mother tongue and the local culture.

• The popularity of British English compared to American English is related to the ‘“bad-press” the Americans have had in post-war Greece (the presence of US bases on Greek soil, a history of interference in internal affairs, etc.) as well as the widespread feeling amongst Greeks that British English is a “purer”, more “refined” form of English’ (pp. 44–45).

• Only 62% of students overall said they would like to speak English like a native speaker, and a strong interest in British life and institutions (60%) was found.

• The author also discusses the predominance of British-based Cambridge examinations in Greece, which is a valuable discussion. However, this rather descriptive study only utilized questionnaires, and the attitudes of these Greek students are not explored in any depth.

Austria• Dalton-Puffer et al. (1997) conducted an Austrian-based modified MGT

study involving 132 students (two thirds planned to become English teachers) of EFL, in a provided context (listeners thought the purpose of the study was to choose voices for an upcoming audio-book).

• The Austrian accent received the most negative response and the majority favoured RP as a model of pronunciation and familiarity was listed as a reason.

• In this study, personal experience was found to be much more important in choosing General American English over RP.

• Almost half of the respondents had not experienced English in a NES country and, of those who chose RP as a model, even more students (55%), had not spent more than one month in a NES country. However, of those who preferred an American model, only 34 per cent had not been on an extended stay abroad.

America

• In Rubin and Smith’s (1990) matched guise study, two native speakers of Cantonese recorded highly accented and moderately accented versions of simulated classroom lectures.

• Similarly, McKay’s (1995) study (cited in Bamgbose, 1998) of 15 international students taking ESL courses at the University of Illinois involved listening to recordings of two groups of teaching assistants.

• Kelch and Santana-Williamson’s study (2002) asked 56 ESL students to listen to and rate three NESs and three NNESs of different varieties who read the same script.

Korea and Japan• Butler’s matched guise (2007) study on the effects of Korean

elementary teachers’ oral proficiencies and pronunciation on 312 grade 6 students’ listening comprehension examined students’ attitudes towards teachers with American-accented English and Korean-accented English.

• The results failed to find any difference in comprehension, although students who thought the American English guise had better pronunciation were more confident in using English, focused more on fluency than on accuracy, and used less Korean in the English class.

• A further verbal guise study that related the findings to the pedagogical context of ELT is McKenzie’s (2008a and 2008b) study of 558 Japanese university students towards six varieties of English. Once more, the results suggest a favourable attitude towards standard and non-standard varieties of UK and US English in terms of status.

Conclusions (1)• Positive attitudes towards NE are also present in the ELT context.• English learners have a strong attachment to NES norms.• Many researchers advocate curriculum and educational change in order to

shift attitudes of students in the EC – but can their results support calls for change?– ‘It seems unreasonable to impose a single, or, indeed, a restricted range of

pedagogical models for English language classrooms’ (McKenzie, 2008a, p. 79).• MGT and VGT studies reveal just a little about attitudes or in-depth

information about students’ orientations. • Many factors influence these attitudes:

– Predominance of the NES episteme in ELT.– Familiarity.– Stereotypes.– Proficiency.– Gender.

Conclusions (2)• Students continue to favour NESs, but more research is required.• But:

– Only a few studies.– Are they students making decisions based on the availability of sound

information (e.g. dominance of NE)?• Studies conducted in relation to the pedagogical context of ELT

highlight a strong attachment to NES norms. However, there is also a suggestion that many factors influence these attitudes, including the predominance of the NES episteme in ELT.

• Learners need more choice and ‘the choice needs to be made in full knowledge of the sociolinguistic facts and without pressure from the dominant NS community’ (Jenkins, 2006, p. 155).

Attitudes towards English as a lingua franca

Part 4

Research studies related to Englishas a lingua franca

Details of the findings of each of these studies are discussed at length in the book

Topic Study Country Research design MethodTeachers’ attitudes

towards ELF

Jenkins (2007) Mixed (12 countries)

Questionnaire and perceptual dialectology with 326 English teachers (300 NNES)

Sifakis and Sougari (2005) Greece Questionnaire with 421 teachers

Decke-Cornhill (2003) Germany Focus groups with teachers in two types of school

Murray (2003) Switzerland Questionnaires with 253 Swiss teachers from private and state schools

Sasaki (2004, cited in Yoshikawa, 2005)

Japan Questionnaire with 97 Japanese high school English teachers

Seidlhofer and Widdowson (2003)

Austria Opinion essays with 48 3rd and 4th year university students taking a teacher education option

Jenkins (2007) Mixed Interviews with 17 NNESTs

Topic Study Country Research design MethodStudents’ attitudes

towards the role of Global

Englishes

Timmis (2002) Mixed Questionnaires (180 teachers from 45 countries and 400 students in 14 countries)

Kuo (2006) UK Interviews with 3 university studentsGrau (2005) Germany Questionnaire and post-discussion with 231 1st

year university students

Matsuda (2003) Japan Questionnaires with 33 high school students, interviews with 4 teachers and 10 student observations

Galloway (2011) Japan Questionnaires (116 students), interviews (20 students) and focus groups (24 students)

Galloway (2013) Japan Questionnaires (52 students) and interviews(4 students)

Research studies related to Englishas a lingua franca

Details of the findings of each of these studies are discussed at length in the book

Studies in Global Englishes

• There have been only a few studies conducted in the field that have investigated students’ attitudes towards Global Englishes.

• The main conclusions to be drawn are that, while students continue to favour NESs, more research is required to support proposals for Global Englishes.

• However, Galloway’s (2011) study presented a thorough examination of attitude formation, particularly the influence of NES norms in ELT. It also investigated the possible influence of new approaches to ELT on attitudes towards English.

• With limited experience with and exposure to NNES, as well as a lack of awareness of the role of English today and the changing representations of speakers of the language, students are not making decisions based on the availability of sound information.

Summary of Lecture 8 (1)• Attitudes are complex.• Attitudes are influenced by many factors: culture, familiarity,

vitality and prestige, pedagogical context, race, proficiency, and motivation.

• Language attitudes are subject to change.• There is a need for both short- and long-term studies. • Research into the attitudes of learners can provide teachers

with an awareness of their learners’ beliefs, help inform curriculum development, increase self-awareness among the learners, foster autonomous learning, and encourage them to think critically about the language.

Summary of Lecture 8 (2)• Studies reveal that NE is highly valued and many in the

education context prefer to follow a NES model.• However, many have limitations regarding methodology and

very few investigate the possible reasons for attitudes. • Can they be used to justify the dominance of the NE model? • Do learners need more choice?• More studies are needed.• Lecture 6 looked at influence of GE instruction on attitudes

and attitudes towards English teachers.

Key termsStereotypesHigh vitalityPrestigeFamiliarityContact hypothesis Intelligibility/unintelligibilityIntegrative motivationIdeal L2 selfLinguistic self-confidenceThe language–culture discrepancy HypothesisMatched guise

Verbal guise Perceptual dialectologyQuestionnairesInterviewsMotivationNE episteme Global Englishes instructionSocietal treatment approachDirect approachIndirect approach

Further reading

Language and attitudes:• Garrett, P. (2010). Attitudes to Language: Key Topics in

Sociolinguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.• Giles, H. and Billings, A. C. (2004). ‘Assessing language attitudes:

Speaker evaluation studies.’ In A. Davies and C. Elder (eds),The Handbook of Applied Linguistics. Oxford: Blackwell.

Attitudes towards ELF:• Jenkins, J. (2007). English as a Lingua Franca: Attitude and Identity.

Oxford: Oxford University Press.