Fasold

Language in Society

GENERAL EDITOIIl'ctcr Trurlgill, Chair of Errglish Linguistics, University of Fribourg

ADVISORY EDI lORSJ.K. Clhanrbcrs, Itrotessor of l-inguistics, University of'lbrontoRalph F.rsolcl. Prolessor of l-irrguistics, Georgetown UniversityWilliarn l,abov, Prol'essor of Linguistics, University of PennsylvaniaLcsley Milroy, Professor o[ Linguistics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

l. Language and Social Psychology, edited by ltowatd Giles and Robert N. St Clair2. Languagc and Social Nctworks (second edition), Lesley Milroy3. Thc Ethnograplry oI Cornnrunication (second edition), Muriel Saville-Tioike4. Discoursc Analysis, Miclnel Stttbbs5. Tlrc Srtcitrlinguistics of Socicty: Introductiorl to Sociolingrristics, Volunre 1, Ralph Fax>ld6. 'l ' lre Sociofinguislics of Language: Irrlroduction to Sociolinguistics, Volume ll, Ralph FasoLd7. I 'hc Larrgrragc ol 'Chi ldren and Adolescents: T 'he Acquis i t ion of Conrmunicat ive Competence,

Strz.ttntrc Ilonutirtc8. Lrrrrguagc, the Scxcs anrl Socicly, Philip M. Smitlt9. 'l 'f rc Languagc o[ Advert.ising, Tiolrcn \testergaanl atrl Kinr Sclutfierf 0- Dialccts in Conlact , Petcr Tiudgi l lI l. Pidgcn and Creole [-inguistics, Peter Miililhtiusler12. Observing and Atralysing Natural Language: A Critical Account of Sociolinguistic Method, Izsley MilrcyI 3. Bil ingual isnt (seconrl etlition), S uzanne Ronnine14. Sociolinguistics and Second Language Acquisition, Dentis R. Przstr:rtI5. Pronouns:rnd People: The Linguistic Construction ofSocial and Personal Identity,

I'etcr Miihlhdusler and Ront ltarrtl(r. Politically Speaking, Jolm Wil.sottf 7. Thc Language of thc News Me

146 Quonti tat iveAnalysis

Stcp 2. Calculate the probabil i t ies o[communication based on each languagecombination by mult iplying the proport ion at the end of each row by theproport ion at the head oIeach column, provided that there is at least one languagein comnron. The result would be table B.

Table B Tablefor tha calculation of the index of communicalionfor the example in obiective l6

Group IGroup 2

6

A(7/ r0) AB(r/r0) A C(2/ I0)

Language Attitudes

LANGT]AGE ATTITUDES: WHY AND WHAT?

Much of the earlier part o[ this book has bee n focused on society as a whole.Societ ies, however, are composed of ind iv iduals; whatever people do wi thlanguage in a society happens when somebody ta lks to somebody e lse. In th ischapter and the next , we are going to concetr t rate on indiv ic luals and what thcydo wi th language. Our at tent ion wi l l be drawn to the methods and theor ies of asocial science we have not encounterecl yet, social psychology. Onc of t lresubjects social psychologists have found useful to study is language attitudes.

The study of attitudes in general begins with a decision between twocompeting theories about the nature of attitudes. Most language-attitudework is based on a menla l is t v iew of at t i tude as a state oI readiness; anintervening var iable between a st imulus af fect ing a person and that person'sresponse (Agheyis i and Fishman 1970:138, Cooper and Fishman 1974:7) . Aperson's at t i tude, in th is v iew, prepares her to react to a g iven st imulus in oneway rather than in another . A typ ical menta l is t def in i t ion of at t i tu t le is g ivcrrby Will iams (197421): 'Attitucle is considered as an interrral state aroused byst imulat ion of some type and which may mediate the organism's subsequentresponse.' This view poses problems for experimental method, because if anat t i tude is an in ternal s tate of readiness, rather than an observablc response,we must depend on the person's reports of what their attitudes are, or inferattitudes indirectly from behavior patterns. As we know, self-reported dataare olten of questionable validity, and inlerences from behavior take theresearcher one step away from what he has actually observed. A great deal ofeffort in language-attitude research has gone into devising ingenious experi-ments designed to reveal at t i tudes wi thout making subjects over ly consciousof the process.

The other view of attitudes is the behavioru, view. On this theory, attituclesare to be found simply in the responses people make to social situations. TIrisviewpoint makes research easier to undertake, since it requires no self-reports

B(5/ tolAI](2/ to\BC(3/ t0)

t4/ t00

5/100

2/ too

3/ 100

4/ t00

6/tQO

Step 3. Acld t l re proport ions in the table. The resul t is 34/100.Step 4. Sclcct the correct answer f rom the choices given.

l l l l e ab l c t o r ccogn i ze a co r rec t s t a t cn ren t o f wha t Kuo ' s i ndex o f commun i ca t i v i t ynlcasurcs -

IU Dc ablc to rccogrr iz ,e what L icbersorr and I lansen's correlat ional study showedabou t t hc r e l a t i onsh ip be tween d i vc r s i t y , as measu red by Fo r rnu la A , anddcvcloprr tcrr t .I le ablc to re cognizc thc general pat terns of communicat iv i ty indices in Singaporean t l Wcs t Ma lays i a , anc l t l r e i r s i gn i f i cance f o r t hc s t a tus o f t he na t i ona l I anguageirr each coulr t ry.Bc ab le t o r ccogn i ze t hc conc lus i on t ha t an ana l ys i s o f t he i nd i ces o f commun i -ca t i v i t y f o r I l i nd i -U r< lu anc l Eng l i sh i n I nd ia l eads t o .Bc ab le t o s t a te wha t Faso ld ' s C va lue measu res .Bc ablc to rccognizc the s igni f icance of the fact that C-values are higher at the statea r r< l r l i s t l i c t l e vc l s i n I nc l i a t han t hey a re a t t he na t i ona l l eve l .

I Q

70

7 l22

148 Language Attitudes

or indircct inferelccs. It is only necessary to observe, tabulate, and analyzeovert bel rav ior . At t i tudcs of th is sor t , however. would not be qui te asinteresting as they would be if they were define d mentalistically, because theycannot be used to predict other behavior (Agheyis i and Fishman 1970:138).Nevcrtheless, the more straightforward behaviorist approach, in whichat t i tudcs arc just one k ind of response to a st imulus, cer ta in ly can not be ru ledout .

Another issue that ar ises in the considerat ion of at t i tudes is whether or notattitudes have idcntif iable subcomponents. Generally speaking, social psycho-logis ts whg accept the behavior is t def in i t ion v iew at t i tudes as s ingle uni ts .Mcntaf is ts usual ly consider at t i tudes to have subparts , such as cogni l ive(knowledge ) , a.ffective (feeling), an

150 Languoge Attitudes

attitude research, in either original or modihed form, is the matched-guisetechnique developed by Wallace Lambert and his associates (Lambert et al.1960; Lambcrt 1967). The pure matched-guise technique aims at total controlof a l l var iables except language. To achieve th is , a number of b i l ingualspeakers fluent in the languages under investigation are recruited. Thesespcakers arc tape-recorded reading exactly the same passage, once in onelanguage ancl once in the other. The recorded passages are arranged on atape-recording in such a way that it appears that each passage has beenrecorded by a different speaker. Ifspeakers have been recorded once in Frenchand once in English, for example, the recording might begin with onespeaker's French performance. The next voice heard might be anotherspcaker's English guise. The third voice might be a third speaker speaking inEnglish. Perhaps the fourth voice wil l be the first speaker in her English guise.By this time, l isteners wil l presumably have forgotten the voice quality of thefirst speaker and wil l take it that the fourth speaker is someone they haven'theard before. The two guises ofthe several speakers who have been recordedare all interspersed in this way, so that it sounds to the l istener that eachpassage they hear is f lrom a totally new speaker. In the end, then, they assumethat thcy have heard twice as many people as they actually have heard.

A sample of bil ingual l isteners from the same speech community is thenaskcd to l isten to the recordings and rate the speakers on various characteri-s t ics, such as in te l l igence, socia l c lass, and l ikabi l i ty . I f the same person israted diffcrcntly in dilferent'guises', it has to be the difference in language thataccounts for it. Since the same person has provided both samples, it cannot bevoice quality differences that the l isteners are reacting to. Content iselirninated as a variable by having translated versions of the same passage readin each language.

It turns out, o[ course, that there are several degrees of directness andindircctness in language-attitude research, with various aspects of thecxperimcnt being concealed lrom the subjects. The matched-guise technique isclirect in the sense that the l isteners are explicit ly asked to give their opinions oftlte speaker' 's characteristics. It is indirect in the sense that l isteners are askedto react to speakers, not languages, and they are not aware that they arehcar ing the same person in each guise.

S eman t ic diffe ren t ia I s ca I e s

l-he format for l istener responses that is very often used with the matched-guise technique involves semantic differential scales (Osgood, Suci, andTannenbaum 1957). These scales designate opposi te extremes of a t ra i t a teither end and leave a number of blank spaces between them. A typicalsemant ic d i l ferent ia l scale i tem appears in f igure 6. l . I f the speaker on tapesounds extremely unfr iendly, the l is tener would p lace a mark on the l ineclosest to the word'unfriendly'. If he sounds extremely friendly, the mark goes

Language Attitudes l5l

at the other end ofthe scale. Ifthe speaker seemsjust average in friendliness,the middle space should be used, and so on. Similar scales are constructed forother characteristics. In this way, each listener has the opportunity to indicatejust where on a scale of a particular trait a speaker falls.

f r iendly - unfr iendly

Figure 6. I Typical seven-poinl semoilic diff erential scale

The following procedure is used in scoring sernantic-differential scales.After the responses have been collected, numbers are assigned to each of thespaces in the scale. In a seven-point scale such as the one in figure 6. l, a 7 mightbe assigned to the space nearest to the word 'fr iendly', a 6 to the next space,and so on. As the responses are tabulated, a tick mark is made on the blank ateach space on the scale for each listener who placed his evaluation of t l,atspeaker at that space. For example, suppose a speaker in a particular guise isjudged 7 for ' intell igence' by five l isteners, 6 by thirteen, 5 by twenty, 4 byeleven, 3 by two, and 2 by one. The init ial tabulation would look l ike figure 6.2.

ill -rllf lll| Il+ti ,r\1+11\f ltttlltt {tflllf \\ r

i n te l l igen l - un in te l l igen t7 6 5 4 3 2 ' l

o't!":,i,!;l,,f,i;:::,':f :::;:t/,Il:li;'::,{"'Next the number of marks at each space is multiplied by the value for thatspace. The results are then totalled. In our example, the calculation would be:

( 7 x 5 ) t ( 1 3 x 6 ) + ( 2 0 x 5 ) + ( l l x 4 ) + ( 2 x 3 ) + ( l x 2 ): 35 + 78 + 100 + 44 + 6 * 2= 265 .

This value is d iv ided by the tota l number of l is teners ( the same as the tota lnumber of t ick marks in figure 6.2); in this case, 52. The result is 5.10, the valuethat would be reported and subjected to statistical analysis. This nurnber is themean evaluation for this speaker on the intell igence scale. It is to beinterpreted as indicating that, on the average, this speaker in this guise isjudged to be in te l l igent to the degree of a b i t more than 5 on a scven-pointscale.2

Other methodsAlthough matched-guise-cum-semantic-differential research is sornething ofa standard in language-attitude research, other direct methods are possible.Agheyisi and Fishrnan (1970:147-50) mention three other techniques: ques-tionnaires, interviews, and observation.

152 I-anguage Attilude.s

Ques t ionnaires. l'ftcse can Iave one of two types of ques lions open or closed.Open quest ions g ivc the respondent maximum l reedom to present her v iews'but also allow her to stray from the subject and are very diff icult to score. Irr anopen-qucst ion qucst ionnaire, respondents may be asked: 'Descr ibe yourreact ions to th is spcaker 'af ter they have heard a taped sample. In a c losed-qucst ion, the respondent is g iven a par t icu lar format to use in recordingresponses. Apart from the semantic differential, other closed-question[ormats involve yes-no answers, multiple choice, or ranking schemes. Closedqucst ions are lnuch easier for respondents to deal wi th and are easy to score,but they lorce respondents to answer in the researcher's terms instead of theirown. Perhaps the ideal compromise is to conduct p i lo t research wi th openquestir>ns ancl usc tlrese results to construct a closed-question questionnaire.We will sec late r how such a proceclure was masterfully executed by FrederickWi l l iams.

Intervieu,s. Intcrvicws are l ike open-question questionnaires without thequestionnaire. A fieldworker personally asks attitude questions and recordsthe rcsponscs in written (or tape-recorded) form as the subject respondsorally. Tlre burde n of recording open questions is removed from the subject,making i t easier to c l ic i t opcn responses. and the in terv iewer can guide theconvcrsati


test va l id i ty (F ishman 1968d; Cooper and Fishman 1974:15) . In h is 1968research, Fishnran not only asked questions involving the attitudes of PuertoRicans in the New York City area about their ethnicity, but also invited themto an evening of Puerto Rican dances and other cultural activity. It was thenpossible to compare the responses to the questionnaires with whether or not arespondent answered the invitation, said she would attend, and actually did. lfa person answered the questionnaire in a way that indicated pride in beingPuerto Rican and then attended the evening's activit ies, her attendance wouldbe an indication tlrat her answers to the questionnaire were valid.

A simplcr dcsign is reported by Giles and Bourhis (1976). In theircxperiment, two psychologists were introduced to a class of high-schoolstudents. One o[ them to ld the students that there was concern abouterroneous ideas people had about psychology. Using one of two accent guises,hc asked them to wr i te down what they thought psychology was about so thatstcps could be taken to correct any misconceptions that might be discovered.After they had begun writ ing, this psychologist left and did not return. Theother member oI the team to ld the students that there was a p lan beingconsidered to have someone address students in high schools about psycho-logy as a way oI combating nrisconceptions. Furthermore, she told them, hercolleague who lrad just left was being considered for the job. When they hadlinished the open question, they were given a rating-scale questionnaireconsisting of closed questions. The same procedure was repeated with anothernratched group of students, but this time the first psychologist used anotheraccent guise. Of course, the primary interest was in language attitudes to thetwo guises, not in the students' concepts about psychology. A simplebelravioral index was built into the experiment: the amount the students wrotein answer to the open quest ions about the f ie ld of psychology and about theexpcrimenter's qualif ications to lecture students could be compared in each ofthc two guises. It turned out that the students wrote more when they wereaddrcssed in one guise than when they were addressed in the other, and thisresult rcirrforced what had been found in earlier, more traditional matched-guise research. Furtherrnore, the amount written in response to the two guiseswas consistent with the attitudes reported on the closed-question rating scales.Gi les and Bourhis 's exper iment tends to indicate that conat ive at t i tudesrcvcaletl by the rnatched-guise technique can be valid. Nevertheless, Agheyisiand Fishman (1970:150) refer to ' the fami l iar problem of the low degree ofconsistency between attitude measures and overt behavior', an issue that hasbeen acldressed by social psychologists for some time (for example, Linn 1965;Fis l rbein 1965). I t remains to be determined just what sor t of at t i tudenreasuring instrunrents are l ikely to be valid.

A final clift iculty with the ordinary matched-guise technique is connectedwi th i ts ar t i f ic ia l i ty (Gi les and Boir rh is 1976; Bourhis ancl Gi les 1976). Askinglisteners to judge people by their voices only, though it does provide ma,..imumcontrol over other variables. is a bit far removed from real-l i fe contexts. Since

Language Attitudes 155

the pure matched-guise procedure requires that every taped sample has thesame content, it could easily be the case that l isteners, after becorning boredwith the repetit ion, might begin to pay more than normal attention to vocalvariations. Finally, judges in a matched-guise experiment are provided withan evaluative set. They are given a rating sheet and told to make judgementsabout the people they are going to hear . As a resul t , they are set up to makeevaluat ive judgements in a way that doesn' t happen in ord inary in teract ivesettings. The experiment about the two psychologists and the high-schoolstudents was designed to overcome these objections to sonle extent. Thespeaker was present at the time of the experiment, rather than being adisembodied voice on a tape-recording. 1'here was no repeated content and anevaluative set did not intrude unti l after the subjects had had the chance towrite what they wanted to say about psychology.

Bourhis and Giles (1976) devised an evelr more ingenious and naturalisticmatched-guise experiment, in which the subjects l.rad no idea that they hadpart ic ipated in Ianguage at t i tude research. The guises involved in th isexper iment were four language var iet ies re levant to the socio l inguist ics i tuat ion in wales. These were: ( l ) the h ighest-s tatus pronunciat ion pat ternfor Br i t ish Engl ish, ca l led RP ( ' received pronunciat ion ' ) ; (Z) Engl ish wi th arn i ld South welsh accent ; (3) Engl is l r wi th a broad South welsh accent ; ancl(4) s tandard Welsh. The'subjects 'were theatergoers, and the exper iment tookthe form ol-a public-address announcement made during the intermission at aperformance. As you have probably guessed, there were four forms of themessage, one for each guise. T'he content was a request for patrons to obtain aquestionnaire form in the foyer to fi l l out in order to lrelp the theater planfuture programs. Two kinds of audience 'participated' in the experimcnt. AnAnglo-welsh audience consisted of those people who at tencled the theaterdur ing f ive evenir rgs on which two f i lms in Engl is t r were presented. I t wasassumed that most of these audiences were Welsh people who spoke onlyEngl ish. The b i l ingual welsh audience were those who at tended dur ing fourevenings when a p lay in welsh was presented. The Anglo-welsh audiencesheard the announcement in the three k inds of Engl ish, wi th one var ietypresentecl on a given evening (the RP and broacl-accent English versions werepresented on two evenings each) . The b i l ingual welsh audicnces heard a l l fourguises, one per evening. l 'he behavior that was measured was the number ofquestionnaires submitted by menrbers of each of the two kintls o[ aucjienceswhen the request was made in the various language guises.

Since the data are nominal (quest ionnaires e i the r subrni t tec l or notsubmit ted) , the chi square test was used in the analys is . Tables 6. I and 6.2 anclfigure 6.3 show the results. The chi square test f lor the cJata in table 6. I allowsthe re ject ion o[ the nul l hypothesis that quest ionnaire conrpleters and non-completers are randomly d is t r ibuted among the au


that is not due to chance, but i t is easy to see what that 'something ' is . TheAnglo-Welsh populat ion is equal ly responsive to the message in RP andmilclly Welsh-accentecl English, but far /ess responsive whert the nressage is rnbroadly Welsh-accetrted E,nglish. The results for the bil ingual Welsh audiencesare quite diffe rcnt.

Table 6. I Behavioral results to matched-guise experimentfor Anglo-Wel sh audiences

GuiseQue.stionnaireconpleted bEW mEl l 'RP

Languoge Attitudes 157

difference between responses to mildly Welsh-accented English and Welsh ispresented in table 6.2. The nul l hypothesis , that table 6.2 represents randomlydist r ibuted data, can be re jected- I t is c lear that s igni f icant ly more nrembers ofa b i l ingual Welsh audience wi l l complete the quest ionnaire when asked to doso in Welsh tlran when asked in English, even if i t is Welsh-accented.

Apart f rom the resul ts , the Bourhis and Gi les exper iment shows how theusual objections to matched-guise research based on artif iciality can beovercome. Although no speaker was physically present, the context was atotally normal one; undoubtedly the subjects had no idea that their languageattitudes had been investigated. No one audience had to l isten to the samecontent more than once, and no evaluat ive set was int roduced. The measurewas oIunmoni tored behavior , and not of scaled evaluat ions of speakers. Onthe other hand, some control is lost by not having the same subjects respond toall the guises theater audiences heard the request in different guises). The samewas true of the experiment with the high-school students. It is assumed thateach set of subjects is the equivalent of every other set of its type, for thepurposes o[ the attitudes being measured. That is, each evening's Anglo-Welsh audience, for example, is taken to have the same predilection torespond to the various language guises as any other evening's Anglo-Welshaudience. There seems to be no reason to doubt that this is a safe assurnption,in the experiments I have described. But if artif iciality is dinrinished at the cost

RP bEW mEW WGuises

Figure 6.3 Bar graph of behavioral results to motched-guiseexperimen! for bilingual llelsh audiences.

Source: adapted from Bourhis and Giles (1976:15, figure 2)

Ycs

No

i l822.5Vo

40677.5To

538.25Vo

5999l.8Vo

6625.07o

19875.0Vo

12-60.9; ;r(0,00 IRP=receivcd pronunciat ionbEW:broadl y Welsh-accentcd Engl ishm EW=mild ly Wels l r -accented Engl ishSorrrce: data f rom Bourhis anr l Gi les 1976: l4

I-able 6.2 Behavioral results to matched-guise experimentfor bilingual Welsh audiences

GuiseQuestionnairetornpleted mEllt

Ycs

No9.2Vo

r0926.5V048

c0oEEoo

o, :aCc

-

o)o

oooaEo

oC

W

x'?= 8.201 2


of using more than one sample of a population, the experimenter should becareful that all the samples are equivalent and representative' Otherwise,uncontrolled variablcs can unintentionally be introduced'

APPLICATIONS

Social slruclure

The study of language at t i tudes is inst ruct ive in i ts own r ight , but i t is evenmore valuable as a tool in i l luminat ing the socia l importance of language- Inthis section, we are going to examine language attitudes as one way o[understanding how language is used as a symbol of group membership. Wewill also see lrow attitudes serve as a clue for identifying diglossic relation-ships.

Group identity. In chapter l, we saw that language served unifying andseparatist functions for sociocultural groups. You might think that attitudestudies woulcl show that any language serving these two functions would behighly evaluated by i ts speakers. I t turns out that th is is a l i t t le too s imple.Where a society has l inguistic varieties in diglossic relationship, the usualattitude is that the High language is a purer and better language than the Lowlanguage. Of course, the unifying and separatist functions are most l ikely to befulfi l led by the Lou, language. If High language varieties are generally morehighly valued than Low varieties, you might be led to exactly the oppositeconclusion; a l inguistic symbol o[contrastive self-identif ication is l ikely to bepoorly evaluated by its speakers.

Perhaps there are some k inds of quest ions that would e l ic i t h ighercvaluat ions for Low var iet ies. I f so, then they could be bui l t in to a matched-guise experiment. If the associated semantic differentiat scales included bothaffective ancl status items, it might be predicted that speakers using the Highguise would be rated higher on the status scales, but the same speaker wouldbe rated higher on the affective scales in the Low guise. A speaker using ahigher-status guise might be rated higher in intell igence, say, or occupationalstatus, but would get higher ratings for friendliness and trustworthiness in hisin h is lower-status l inguist ic guise. Researchers who have tested th is hypothe-s is , however, have obta ined unexpected resul ts . For example, d 'Angle jan andTucker, conducting attitude research involving European French and twovarieties of Canadian French in Quebec, found that the European Frenchspeaker was rated not only more intell igent and better educated, but morel ikcable than Canadian French speakers; the l ikeabi l i ty resul t was unexpected(d 'Angle jan and Tucker 1973:22) . Simi lar ly , the resul ts of at t i tude researchwi th Mexican Amer icans conducted by Carranza and Ryan (1975:99) werethat both Anglo and Mexican Americans ratcd English higher than Spanishon status scales, as expected, but also on solidarity scales, an unexpected


outcome for the Mexican Americans. Attitudes of black Americans towardsstandard English and Vernacular Black English must be closely analyzed inorder to discover indications of positive attitudes toward the vernacular(Hoover 1978). El-Dash and Tucker (1975:46) cite tlrree studies, includingtheir own, in which superposed language varieties were preferred over mothertongues, according to the results of attitude research.

On the other hand, attitude research proved a valuable tool in the analysisof Albanian as a possible language of group identity among a socioculturalgroup in Greece called the Arvanites (ar-van-ee-tess). Using a closed-questionquestionnaire rather than the matched-guise technique, Trudgil l and Tzavaras(197'7) were able to trace the declining status of Arvanitika (the Albaniandialect) as a language ofgroup identity. The responses they obtained revealeda clear pattern according to age, as table 6.3 shows.

Table 6.3 Percentage responses to these questions, by age-group:'Do you like to speak Arvanitilca?','Do you think speaking

Arvanitika is a good thing to do?', ' ls it anadvontage to speak Arvanitika?'

Indifferent NoYes

AgeLike to Good Advan-speak? thing? toge?

L i k e t ospeak?

Advan-toge?

Goodthing!

Like to Good Advan-speak? thing? tage?

5-9t0 - l 4t5-2425-34J5-4950-5960+

t l r16 t'l 12l 7 1 8 3 4l0 J2 4046 64 5667 95 6719 86 97

t 0t'l4 l6753J Ia lL I

l0 t'l'13 3848 5066 4935 364 3 3

1 4 3

89 89 8267 l0 5042 35 16

3 3 l l2 t 8l t 00 0 0

Source: data from Trudgill and Tzavaras ( 1977)

Table 6.4 Percentage ansu,ering'Yes' and'No' to the question:'Is it necessary to speak Arvonitika to be an Arvonitis?', by age-group

Age Yes No

l0-14t5-2425-3435-4950-5960+

J J

5816726183

61422428J J

t 7

Source: d,ala from Trudgill and Tzavaras (1977)

The answers to the question 'Is necessary to speak Arvanitika to be anArvanitis?'seem at f irst glance to be inconsistent with the general pattern of


table 6.3. The answers to th is quest ion are tabulated in table 6.4. A major i ty inevcry age group thinks that it is no' necessary to speak Arvanitik-a to be anAruani t is , cXcept the youngesr . As Trudgi l l and Tzavaras (1977:180_l8 l )cxplain this rcsult, most members of the older age-groups realize thatAivanitika is dying out, but hope that their ethnic identity can be preservednone the less.a As a resul t , they are obl igecl to make room for Arvani tes whotlon't speak Arvanitika. The youngest speakers, far from being more hopefulabout ihe future of Arvani t ika, seern to foresee the demise of both the

language and the ethnic d is t inct iveness. Their at t i tude seems to be that i t tsn" . " r r " .y to speak Arvani t ika to be an Arvani t is , there are fewer Arvani t ika,p.ake^ thari therc otrce were and therefore fewer Arvauites, but this is nopart icu lar cause for concern. As Trudgi l t and Tzavaras (1977: l8 l ) put i t :They are prepared to concedc that it is necessary to speak Arvanitika to be an Arvanitisbecause, although they are aware that Arvanitika is dying out, they do not regard theloss of t lre languige or of the ethnic identity as undesirable. lt seems' that is, that withyoungcr peopie cJnfl icts ofthis type are being resolved in favour ofa Greek identityand the Greek language

Trudgi l l and Tzavaras 's c l i rect open-quest ion at t i tude quest ionnaireappcars to give a more accurate picture of the function of a language as atliniicator of gro,,p identity ttran more sophisticated matched-guise researclt

162 Languoge Attitudes

havc becn i l ' the l is teners were only guessing (p

l(t4 Language AttitudesOf those who heard and recognized a shift to informal Canadian French,67

per ccnt said thcy would nol make such a shift themselves. The majorityopin ion that ernerged under d i rect quest ioning seems to be that one ought toenrphasize one's Quebecois ident i ty by res is t ing any inc l inat ion to shi f t toEuropean Frerrch to accommodate a European speaker, but not to overdo i tby d iverg ing in to in formal s ty le. More indi rect ev idence of th is , in the form ofh igher rat ings on a l fect ive scales for someone who actual ly behaved that way,d ic l not show up. I f i t is t rue t l ra t matched-guise research (and th is exper i rnentis a sort oI matched-guise procedure) taps more covert attitudes than directquestioning does, it could be that there is a lag between overt and covertattitucles. l-hat is, on a more surface level, the growing independencemovement in Que bec has led to an emphasis on language as a symbol of groupident i ty , but the o ld ideas about European French as a 'bet ter ' d ia lect , pers is tat deeper levels-

The sarne researc l . r team conducted a s imi lar exper iment in Wales, wi th RPl l r i t ish Engl ish replac ing European French, mi ld ly Welsh-accented Engl ishcorresponding to formal Canadian French, and broadly Welsh-accentedEnglish in the place of informal Canadian French. The subjects were pupils ata secondary school in South Wales. The same format , involv ing a supposedath lete and two spor ts commentators, one speaking RP and one speakingE,nglish with a mild Welsh accent, was used. As in Quebec, the speaker wasrated signil icantly more intell igent when he shifted to RP during the interviewwith the RP-speaking interviewer. Unlike the results in the Quebec srudy,thcrc were signil icant main effects on two of the affective scales. The speakerwas judgetl more trustworthy and more kind-hearted when he maintained anr i lc l Welsh accent when ta lk ing to the RP-speaking commentator than whenhc shiltecl to IlP, and even higher on both scales when he shifted to a broadWelsh accent . I t appears that Welsh-accented Engl ish is bet ter-developed as asyrnbol of group ident i ty in Wales than Canadian French is in Quebec, s incethc expected rcact ions in a matched-guise exper iment show up to somedcgrec.ro

At t i tuc lc research sheds l ight on the status of language var iet ies asinclicators of group identity, but not always in the nrost straightforward way.In par t icu lar , the c lass ic matched-guise exper iment , in which l is teners areasked tojuclge speakers one by one on the basis oftape-recorded monologues,of ten does not lead to predicted resul ts . On the other hand, the Trudgi l l andTzavaras results and tlre direct-question part of the Bourhis, Giles andLarnbert research in Quebec appear to g ive resul ts that are easier to in terpret ,but may tap only sur face react ions. More sophist icated appl icat ions of thematched-guise technique, such as the one used by Bourhis and his associates inQuebec and wales, show promise of probing covert attitudes more accuratelythan the s impler appl icat ions do.r I

Diglossia. In Ferguson's original description of diglossia, community


at t i tudes toward the High and Low var iet ies were an important component .High varieties have greater prestige and Low varieties are often disparagecl.At t i tude-study resul ts ought to fa l l in to predictable pat terns in communir ieswhere d ig loss ia ex is ts . I t turns out that they do to a very considerable extent .As examples of this, we wil l look at two attitude studies conducted in societieswi th d ig loss ia. One was carr ied out in Egypt (El -Dash and Tucker 1975) anclinvolves Classical and Colloquial Arabic (one of the four example cases usedby Ferguson). Although diglossia is not the focus of El-Dash and Tucker'swork, their results reflect diglossia quite clearly. The second study involvesSpanish and English in a Mexican American community (Carranza and Ryan1975). Here we have an example of broad d ig loss ia, s ince two d is t inctlanguages are involved. Unlike El-Dash and Tucker, Carranza and Ryanexplicit ly set out to find attitude patterns typical of diglossia.

El-Dash and Tucker employed a classic matched-guise model, with thecontent controlled by having speakers discuss the same topic (the Gizapyramids, an emot ional ly neutra l subject) rather than having them read astandard passage. Two Egyptian speakers were selected who could speak bothClassical ancl Col loquia l Arabic, and Engl ish. Qui te natura l ly , they had anEgyptian accent when they spoke English.t2 It was not easy to find speakerswho could assume both Classical and Colloquial Arabic guises. The reasonsthat El -Dash and Tucker g ive for th is won' t surpr ise anyone who is fami l iarwi th d ig loss ia:

The dist inct ion between Classical and Col loquial Arabic is not completely c lear,however, as var ious gradat ions exist between the Arabic of the Koran and thc speecl . rused by the man in the street to d iscuss dai ly af fa i rs. Morcovcr, Classical Arabic . . . isnot a spoken language, but rather a wr i t ten form used throughout the Arabic-speakingwor ld. This form may be read oral ly , but is seldom spoken extemporaneously. I t isreported that very few indiv iduals can actual ly speak Classical Arabic f luent ly . (El-Dash and Tucke r 1975 :35 )The speakers they used were self-conscious about attempting to speakClassical Arabic spontaneously. The very task of tape-recording their spcechhad an effect on their Colloquial Arabic performance as well; they seemed touse a slightly 'elevated' style of the colloquial dialect (El-Dash and Tucker1975:53). In spite of these problems, the research results give a clear picture ofa sor t of t r ig loss ia s i tuat ion, wi th Egypt ian Engl ish occupying a posi t ionbetween the Classical and Colloquial forms of Arabic. Listeners were asked toevaluate the speakers in all the language guises on four semantic-differentialscales, for intell igence, leadership, religiousness, and likabil ity^rr The resultswere subjected to analysis oI variance. A significant main effect for languagevariety was found for all four traits.

Unfortunately, the discovery of a language main effect is not very helpful.To see why this is so, consider table 6.6, a slightly simplif ied reproduction ofone line of El-Dash and Tucker's (1975:42) table 2. The significant ,F-ratiosimply tells us that somewhere among the six language guises, speakers of


some guises are judged significantly more intell igent than speakers in otherguises. It does not tell us in which guises the differences are significant.Fortunately, there is another statistical test, called the Newman-Keulsmultiple-comparison test, which is designed to identify the source of variationin cases such as this. El-Dash and Tucker applied this test and the results aresummarized in table 6.7.

An examination of table 6.7 shows that speakers of Classical Arabic andEgyptian English are rated as more intell igent and as having greaterleadership abil ity than speakers of Colloquial Arabic. This is consistent withthe diglossia pattern; the average person in the society would think thatHigh-dialect speakers have these traits to a greater degree than Low-dialectspeakers. Although Classical Arabic received higher ratings on both traitsthan Egyptian English did, the difference was not significant in either case.For religiousness, since religious use is generally a High-variety function,speakers of Classical Arabic are rated significantly higher than speakers ofeach o[ the other two guises. However, the fact that English is not indigenousto Arab culture is important here. Although English in general shows up as aHigher language, this is not relevant where religion is concerned. ColloquialArabic speakers are judged slightly higher for religiousness than EgyptianEnglish speakers are, but not significantly so.'a The one affective scale,' l ikeabil ity', fails to show an advantage for the Low language, ColloquialArabic. On the contrary, the judges found speakers of Classical Arabics igni l icant ly rnorc l ikeable than speakers of e i ther of the other two var iet ies.The expectation that the 'homier' language might rate higher on an affectivescale is again not fult i l led.

7-able 6.6 Mean ratings for intelligence, according to guise

Language Att i twles l6jTable 6.7 Comparison of the mean evaluations of four rraits

for speakers in three guises

TroitClassicalArabic

EgyptianEnglish

ColloquialArabic

Intel l igence

Leadership

Religiousness

Likeabil i ty

t0 .2510.25

8.748.74

9.389 .38

9.489.48

9.59

8.56

7 . 1 I

8 . 7 1

8.498^49

1.207.20

7.751.15

8 . 5 18 .5 t

* indicates that the differences between the scores is significant at p(0.01.f indicates that the difference berween the scores is significant at p(0.05.Where t l rere is no symbol midway between the guises ( for example, for inte l l igence, betwcenClassical Arabic and Egypt ian Engl ish) , the di f fercnce between the scores is not s igni f icant .Source: data from El-Dash anil Tucker fl975)

Table 6.8 Contparison of the mean evaluations of threeguises for suitobility in Jbur situotions

SituationClassicolArabic

EgyptianEnglish

ColloquialArabic

T'ruitSrgni-Jicance

6.366.36

9 . l l9 . 1 I

9 .799.79

9 . l 39 . 1 3

6.69

8 . l 6

8 .84

6.60

8.708.70

8. r9B. l 9

7 .187. tB

Clossical Colloquiol Egyptian AmericanArobic Arabic English English

BritislrEnglish F-ratio

At home

At school

On radio andtelevis ion

Irormal speeches

Intel l igence 1O.25 8.49 9.59 9 . r 3 8.45 20.3) p(0.01Sozrcc. t lata f rom El-Dash and Tucker (1975:42, table 2)El-Dash and Tucker a lso asked a number of quest ions about the sui tabi l i ty

of the differcnt language varieties for use in several situations. The answerswere given in a semantic-differential scale lormat, ranging from high to lowsuitabil ity. The possible scores ranged, as in the matched-guise part of theexperiment, from 2 to 12. The subjects were asked to judge the suitabil ity o[cach guise, as they heard it, for use: ( l) at home; (2) at school; (3) at work; (4)on radio and television; and (5) for formal and re l igious speeches. There wereno significant differences among the three guises for the 'at work' situation,but the other four situations gave exactly the results you would predict from aknowledge of diglossia. The results for these four situations are given in table6.8, using the same format as in table 6.7.

* indicates that the di f ference between the scores is s igni f icant at p(0.001.t indicates thar the difference between the scores is significant at p(0.05.where there is no symbol midway between the guises ( for example, at school , between Egypt ianEngl ish and Col loquial Arabic) , the di f ference between the scores is not s ieni f icant .Source: d,ala from El-Dash and Tucker ( 1975)

colloquial Arabic is by far the most suitable variety for use at home, andclassical Arabic is least suitable, ranking significantly lower (at p(0.05) thanEgyptian English. At school, on the other hand, classical Arabic is the most

5.39* 5 .39

l(rlJ I.anguagc Attitudassui tablc var iety , wi th no d i l lerence between Egypt ian Engl ish and Col loquia lArabic. I ror use on radio and te lev is ion and in formal speeches, there is athrec-way d is t inct ion. Classical Arabic is s igni f icant ly more sui table thanei t l rer of the other two, and Egypt ian Engl ish is s igni f icant ly more sui tablethan Col loquia l Arabic.

The two parts of El-Dash and Tucker's research design combine to paint arather clear picture of diglossia being reflected in community languageat t i tuc les. Speakers of Classical Arabic and Egypt ian Engl ish are seen ashaving greater leadership abil ity and higher intell igence than speakers ofCol loquia l Arabic, and thei r way of speaking is perceived as most su i table loruse on radio and television and in formal and religious speeches. ClassicalArabic is s igni f icant ly more sui table for use in the same two s i tuat ions thanEgyptian English is, but there is no significant difference between the two forin te l l igence and leadership abi l i ty . Classical Arabic speakers are judged morereligious than speakers of either of the other two language varieties and it isconsic lered more sui table for use at school . For use at home, Col loquia lArabic is by lar the most suitable, and Classical Arabic is judged the leastsui tablc .

The only result that doesn't seem to come out the way we might expect is thejudgements on l ikeabi l i ty . Speakers ot the I { igh d ia lect , Classical Arabic, werejudgccl rnost l ikeable, whereas we might have expected speakers oICol loquia lArabic to gct th is cvaluat ion. But E, l -Dash and Tucker 's s tudy is not unusualin this rcspcct; t lte superiority o[ prestige languages on affectivc scales is a[a i r ly common resul t in at t i tude studies.

1-he study of attitudes about Spanish and English in a Mexican Americancornruuni ty in Chicago (Carranza and Ryan 1975) was designed expl ic i t ly wi thdiglossia in tnind. Two specially developed sets oIsemantic-differential scaleswere used: a stdlus-stress[rg set and a solidarity-stressing set. The designinc luded the mir ror- image feature in the st imulus tapes. (Recal l that a mir ror-image design nrcans that each l inguist ic guise in the exper iment wi l l appear incach of two or rnore situations.) Carranza and Ryan's application involvedlour paragraphs: ( l ) a narrat ive about a mother prepar ing breakfast in thekitclren in Spanish; (2) a paragraph on the same topic matched for style inIlnglislr; (3) a paragraph about a teacher giving a history lesson in school inI rngl ish; arrd (4) a matched paragraph in Spanish. This gave four passages:Engl ish-FIonre, Spanish-Home, Engl ish-School and Spanish-School . Thestatus-stressing scales were scales for education, intell igence, successfulness,ancl wealth. TIre four solidarity-stressing scales were for friendliness, good-ness, kindness, and trustworthiness. The stimulus tape contained [ourreadings of each o[ thc four passages by a different freshman student at theUniversity of Notre Dame. Each reader was a native speaker of the languageshe was reading. As a resul t , the tape conta ined s ix teen readings by s ix teendi f ferent speakers. r5

'lhe subjects were anglo and Mexican American high-school students at a


cathol ic h igh school in chicago. The Mexican Amer ican students were nat ivespeakers of Spanish and studied and used English in school. 1'he anglostudents were native speakers of English, but had studied Spanish in highschool.r6 The Mexican American students, of course, were the only ones whowere members of the diglossic English-Spanish conrmunity; the anglosubjects were a sort ofcontrol group. Carranza and Ryan began the researchwith the following four hypotheses (Carranza and Ryan 1975:89).I Mexican American ratings wil l be higher for Spanish in the home domain,

but higher for English in the school domain.2 Anglo ratings wil l be more favorable for English than Spanislr in botlr

domains.3 Mexican American ratings wil l be higher for Spanish on the solidarity

scales but higher for English on status scales.4 Anglo ratings wil l not dif lfer for the two scale types.

The results were analyzed by a four-factor analysis of variance: group(anglo or Mexican American) x scale type (status scales or solidarity scales) xcontext (home or school) x language (English or Spanish). There wcre nogroup effects at all, either as main effects or interactions, which simply meansthat the anglos were marking their scales no differently, as a group, t lran theMexican Americans were. This is a surprising result, but might possibly beexplained iIwe assume that the anglo speakers were takingthe point of vicw ofSpanish speakers. This is plausible, if several facts are considered.

First, the resea.rch was carried out in mixed classes, with anglo and MexicanAmerican students l istening to the tapes and marking the scales at the sametime. Second, the anglo students were all students of Spanish and werelearning something about the language and culture of Spanish speakers.Perhaps most important, most of the anglos no doubt realized that thecomparison of Spanish and English in context was not relevant to them. Therecould be no question of Spanish being appropriate in /lreir homes. The onlyway to make sense of the procedure would be to adopt t l.re perspective oI theirMexican American classmates, which they seem to have done very success-fully.

On the other hand, lhere were other significant effects. There was asignificant main effect for language (F= 9. 10, p(0.01), with English having amean rating on all scales of 4.77 and Spanish of 4.62 (on seven-point scales,with favorable adjectives assigned the value 7). Overall, then, both theMexican Americans and the anglos, possibly taking the Mexican Americanperspective, evaluated English more highly than Spanish, a typical result [orHigh languages in diglossia. Much more interesting were two of the significantinteraction effects, for context by language (F= 14.46, p{0.001) and scale typeby language (lF : 6.80, p(0.05). This means, for the context by languageinteraction, that English and Spanish were rated significantly differently,depending on whether they were heard in the home context or in the school


context. Sirnilarly, the ratings for the two languages were significantlydiffcrent, depencling on whether a solidarity or a status Scale was beingnrarkctl.

' I 'hc nrean ratings showing these interactions are displayed in table 6.9. By

context, wc can see that Spanish is rated higher than English, on the average'in the honre context, and English is higher in the school context. This isprecisely the sort of result one would expect in a diglossic community. AsCarranza ancl l{yan ( 1975:99) point out: 'The results confirm the significanceof the rnanipulat ion of the context . I f context were to be ignored, the resul tswould have inclicatecl only an overall preference for English.' The results forscale type are not qui te so c lear , in the sense that Engl ish is rated h igher onboth scalcs. l 'he clifference on the solidarity scales, however, is very small; i t isrnore substant ia l on the status scales. The fact that there is a s igni f icanti r r tcract ion nreans that th is pat tern is meaningfu l . In othe r words, on balance,tlre subjects seem to recognize the distinction between the two languages withrcspect to the conccpts o[ s tatus and sol idar i ty . The d is t inct ion is in thedirection that would be predicted from an understanding of diglossia.

Table 6.9 Mean ratings for Spanish ond Englishb), context and by sclla lyps

Context Sc'ale type

IIome School Solidarity Status

Language Attitudes l7l

discussed. Here, we wil l examine how the attitudes of teachers are measuredand what sort of results emerge.

Of all the social psychologists, educators, and psycholinguists who havedone research on language attitudes in education, none has done better workthan Frederick wil l iams. I7 Based on a number of research projects conductedin the mid- 1970s (Will iams, Whitehead, and Miller t97 l, 1972 Will iams 1973;Shuy and Will iams 1973; Will iams 1974; Will iams and associates 1976),Will iams's painstaking research design and statistical procedures lrave beenrewarded with particularly clear and replicable results. It is worth our while toreview his methods and results in some detail.

Williams's research design. Williams's fundamental method is to havesubjects evaluate recorded speech samples (audiotaped and videotaped)according to the familiar semantic-differential scale format. His stimulusrecordings do not use the matched-guise technique, except in the very loosestsense. There is no attempt to have the same speaker speak in more than oneguise, but there are samples of different children of the same age, who arematched for ethnicity and social status - the two independent variablesWill iams is most interested in. The recordings involve relatively freeconversation, and there is no attempt to control content. Although someresearchers would find the lack of control distressing, the kind of recordingsWill iams uses avoid the repetit ion and lack of spontaneity that sometimesplague more tightly controlled research.

In Will iams's research, very special care went into the developmcnt of thesemantic differential scales themselves. Whereas rnany attitude researchdesigns simply use scafe-defining adjectives that seem reasonable to theresearcher, Will iams (197 :T) went through a four-step procedure lcading upto the main research effort. First, a pilot study was conducted in which a smallgroup of teachers l istened to speech samples and evaluated speakers iu anopen question format in which they were asked to describe the speakers intheir own terms. Second, a variety of adjectives was taken from these open-question responses and put into a set of prototype scales. This proceclure gavesome assurance that the scale-defining adjectives were appropriate toteachers, since teachers had spontaneously used them irr describing howchildren talk. Third, these prototype scales were used by another group ofrespondents to evaluate language samples. Fourtb, a statistical techniquecalledfactor onalysis was used to find out whether the various scales revealedmore basic response dimensions.

The Iast step requires some explanation of factor analysis. Factor analysis isa complex procedure, so I won't try to explain exactly how it works. Instead,we wil l just look at the kind of results it gives. The basic idea is this: somerimestwo scales measure much the same thing. Imagine a semantic-differentialquestionnaire with the following two scales:

Er tg l i sh

Span i sh

Dif l 'ercrrce

4.604.'73

- 0 . t 3

4.944 .5 t0.43

4.824.T1

0.05

4.724.410.25

A ncgat ive d i f fe rence ind ica tes tha t the d i f fe rence is in favor o f Span ish ..So i l rcer da ia f rom Car ranza and Ryan (1975)

l 'he resul ts in Egypt and in a Mexican Amer ican communi ty in the Uni tedStatcs indicate that d ig loss ia is t ransparent to conf i rmat ion by matched-guiselanguage-at t i tuc lc research.

Education

Perhaps thc nrost usefu l appl icat ion for language-at t i tude research beyond theunclerstanding of socia l s t ructure is in educat ion. At t i tude studies conductedin cducation have been oftwo types: ( I ) language attitudes of teachers; and (2)languagc attitudes of second-lang,uage learners. The second type of study isusually set up to find out if learners' attitudes toward the language they arelearn ing af fect thei r progress. We wi l l not take up th is k ind o[ research here,but sorne references are g iven in the b ib l iographical notes to th is chapter . Involumc I I , the i rnpor tance of teacl rer at t i tudes in general educat ion is

172 l-anguage Attitudes

1'he speaker is:I in te l l igent - uninte l l igent2 br ight - dul l

Probably t l re same speakers who rank h igh on the ' in te l l igence' scale wouldalso rank h igh on the 'br ightness ' scale, and v ice versa. That is , you wouldexpcct that a speaker who seemed to be a 6 on the in te l l igence scale would a lsobe a 6 on the brightness scale, or in any case a 7 or a 5. Iractor analysis is aproccdure that te l ls the researcher to what extent an expectat ion l ike th is iscorrect . I fa quest ionnaire were used that conta ined the two scales above, andour guess is correct, the two items would receive a high ' loading' in factorarralysis. (For our purposes, ' loading' simply refers to a relatively largenumber. )

The example we used is del iberate ly ar t i f ic ia l to make the point c lear .Probably no one would use too such closely-related adjectives, unless theresearcher wanted to use each to check the validity of the other.rt Further-more, lactor analysis can reveal relatedness amonB a set of several items, notjust two. For example, in Wi l l iams's research, the fo l lowing set of scalesformed a 'cluster', according to the results o[ factor analysis: unsure-confiderrt, active-passive, hesitant-eager, l ike-dislike talking. ln other words,teachers had pret ty much the same qual i ty in mind when they marked a i ry oneoI these scales.

The c lustcr of scales I have just l is ted was one o[ only two t l ]a t Wi l l iamsdiscovcrcd. l-abelled confidence-eagerness, these scales measured teachers'global attitucles basecl on a child's f luency and enthusiasm. The second clusterwas called ethnicity-nonstondardness. l-hese scales seemed to tap the teachers'attitucles toward speech features associated with lower versus higher socialstatus and wlrite versus non-white ethnicit ies. Scales associated with thesetlinrerrsions were then established as the appropriate ones to use.

Two dimensions may seem to be very few for captur ing the ent i re array o[teacl rer at t i t t rdes; how conf ident can we be that they are adequate? Wi l l iams(1974:24) points out a number of indications that the two dimensions are bothvalid and reliable. Validity is indicated in two ways. First, features found inthe actual speech samples could be used to 'predict' the results on the twokinds of scales, in a s tat is t ica l sense. Using a procedure known as l inearregression analysis, Will iams discovered that the frequency of variousnonstandard grammatical and phonological features - such as a d sound forvoiced ,lr or clause fragments - could predict ratings on the ethnicity-nonstandardness scales to a large degree. In other words, a chi ld who used alot oI pronunciations like dem and dose and a lot of clause fragments would belikely to get high scores for being'ethnic'(in the context of Will iams's researchthis meant black or Mexican American) and 'nonstandard'. Similarly, thefrequency of 'hesitation phenomena' l ike uh and uhm was successful inpredicting the results on the confidence-eagerness scale. The second reason

Language Attitudes li3for accepting the validity of the two-dimensional model is best explained bywi l l iams h i rnsel f (1974:24) : 'The two factor model was found in a lmostexactly the same interpretable dimensions in separate Chicago and rexasstudies, where scale development in both began with selection of acljcctivesfrom teachers ' d iscussions. ' In other words, two p i lo t s tudies in separatecommuni t ies, involv ing teachers who d id not know each other , gave the sametwo-factor result. Reliabil ity was established in a technical statistical sense bythe calculation of 'reliabil i ty coefficients'(wil l iams 1974:24).In aclclir iol, oneindication of reliabil i ty emerged from those experiments that involveclrepeated evaluations oIthe same speech samples by the same teachers. Evenwhen the ratings were done almost three weeks apart, the results wereessentially identical.

In a less technical sense, the two dimensions have considerable plausibil i tywhen we try to discover what they mean in real l i fe. It appears that the teachersare respondingtotheform in which the children express themselves (ethnicity-nonstandardness), and the manner in which they deliver their talk (confidence-eagerness). Furthermore, the youngsters received high and low ratings on thescales in an easily interpretable pattern, as figure 6.4 shows. Notice thath igher-status chi ldren, for example, tend to be rated non-ethnic and standard(and also confident and eager), whereas lower-status chilclren received theopposite ratings. As far as ethnicity goes, there is relatively l i tt le differencc oneither scale between black and white middle-sratus children, although thewhite youngsters are rated a l itt le less confident and eager and a l itt le morenon-ethnic and standard than the black youngsters. The lower-status blackchildren are rated very much more ethnic and nonstandard than white lower-status children, and also somewhat less confident and eager.

wil l iams's resulrs. Perhaps the major result of the research carriecl out bywill iams and his colleagues is the discovery of the two-factor model thatre l iab ly and val id ly captures at least two major d imensions of teacherattitudes. Beyond this, there were other fascinating results. For example,when the ratings of white versus black children by white teachers and blackteachers were compared, it was discovered that black teachers rated blackchildren substantially more non-ethnic and standord than white teachers did(wil l iams 1973:122-3).ln the ratings of white children, borh black and whireteachers evaluated high-status white children about the same for ethnicity-nonstandardness, but black teachers found low-status white children moreethnic and zozstandard than white teachers did. In other words, where therewere differences between the two groups, teachers tended to rate children oftheir own ethnicit ies more non-ethnic and standard than teachers of the otherethnicity did. The ratings on the confidence-eagerness dimension betweenblack and white teachers were very similar.

Another key result found by wil l iams was the role of stereotypes in theevaluation of speech (wil l iams 1973:l17-23). wil l iams found it easy to elicit

Non-ethnic-standa rd


a : Low s ta tusO : M idd le s t a tusW: Wh i t eB : B l ack

Nonconl idenl Conf ident-eaget

Ethnic- nonstandardFigure 6.4 Graphic display of rhe two-factor model

Source: adapted from Williams (1974:25,ligure l)evaluations o[ speech, using the same semantic-differential scales, when ,taspeech sarnples were presented, but subjects were simply presented with ethniclabels. For example, a teacher would be told to rate the speech qualit ies of an'anglo', 'black' or 'Mexican American' child, based on her experiences - realor anticipated - with such children. Stereotypes elicited in this way weredifferentiated by the ethnicity of the child. The stereotype for anglo children isthat they are far more confident and eager and non-ethnic and standard thanchildren from either of the other two groups. Black and Mexican Americanchildrcn were rated close to each other toward the ethnic-nonstandard end ofthe ethnic i ty-nonstandardness scale. They were d is t inguished on theconfidence-eagerness scale, however, with black children stereotypicallyrated substantially more confident and eager than Mexican Americanchildrcn (but sti l l not as confident and eager as anglo children). Not only was itpossible to elicit stereotypes, but there was evidence that the results werehighly re l iab le (Wi l l iams 1973: I l8-20) .

An interesting question occurred to the researchers: what role didstereotypical attitudes play in teachers' evaluations of real speech samples?Would a child be evaluated largely on the basis of the stereotype, regardless ofwhat she sounded like? Or did stereotypes come into play only when no speechsamples were presented? Would teachers respond only to the characteristics ofthe speech sarnple, regardless of the ethnicity of the child who was talking? Orwas there perl.raps some sort of interplay between stereotype and speech-sample characteristics? Will iams and his associates developed an ingeniousmethod for answer ing th is quest ion (Wi l l iams, Whi tehead, and Mi l ler l97 l ;Will iams 1973). Specizri l videotapes were carefully prepared, involving thevisual image of chitdre{ of all three ethnicit ies talking. In each instance, thechildren were fi lmed from a side view so that their l ips could not be read. This

Language Atli ludes 175

was important, because the same audio track was dubbed onto all of thevideotapes. Furthermore, this audio track containecl a standard Englishpassage. The result was that the subjects (this time white student teachers)viewed black, anglo, and Mexican American children, all seeming to speakstandard English.re Figure 6.5 displays the results.

o :

o -

VideotapeStereotypeWhite chi ldB lack ch i l dMexican American chi ld

Noncon f i den t Conf ident-eager

M C F _

Figure 6.5 Ratings of the same standard English audio santples with onglo,black, and Mexican Anterican video images

Source: from Williams (1973:126, figure 7)Notice first that the stereotype and videotape ratings for the anglo child are

very close. The evaluations of the black and Mexican American children are inmarkedly different positions, in spite of the fact that the actual speech is thesame as was heard with the anglo child's videotape. If speech characteristicswere the only thing the subjects were responding to, all three circles should bein the same place, that is, where the circle for the anglo child is. on the otherhand, if the stereotypes alone were relevant, then the circles for the black andMexican American children ought to be as close to their stereotypc ratings asthe anglo child's videotape rating is to his stereotype rating. what appears tobe happening is that the stereotypes are a sor t of 'anchor point ' , usecl by theevaluators when evaluating a speech sample. This anchor point keeps theactual speech sample, no rnatter how standard it in fact is, from beingevaluatdd too far from the stereotype. Nevertheless, the speech clraracteri-s t i cs a re t aken i n to accoun t , w i t h t he eva lua t i ons o f t he b lack andMexican Amer ican chi ldren 's s tandard Engl ish movi .g away f rom thestereotype 'anchors' toward the non-ethnic-standard end of the ethnicity-nonstandardness scale. Since the anglo child spoke tlre way the subjectsexpected, the videotape and stereotype ratings are almost identical. Althoughwi l l iams ( 1973:126) caut ions that these resul ts are nor necessar i ly def in i t ive,because the experiment involved a relatively small group of subjects and a

IIII t

Non-ethnic - s t a nda rd

Ethnic-non sta ndard


lirnitecl number of stimuli, i f they prove Lo be representative, the significancecoulcl be important. It appears that expectations might lead teachers to hear anon-whi te chi16 as sounding somewhat ethnic and nonstandard, regardless oIhow standard her speech actually is.20

Wi l l iams and h is col leagues have not taken the next s tep yet and at temptedto show that the attitudes which their research reveals actually influence howteachers act toward students. Other researchers, however, have madeat tempts to invest igate th is problem, Sel igman, Tucker , and Lambert (1972)ftrund that 'voice' was just as significant as composition-writ ing and picture-


first for another group. when this order proved to make no dif ference, the resultswere combined to give only three condit ions'

l0 Apparently, direct questioning was -not used in the Welsh experiment'

I t is

pJssibte that Canadian Frenchias advanced as a marker of group identi ty sincethe mi

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