LANGUAGE ATTITUDE

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LANGUAGE ATTITUDEResearch on Attitude towards
Accent
Deny A. Kwary www.kwary.net
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Attitude towards Accent ? Intelligence

• Giles Powesland (1975). Speech Style and Social
  Evaluation.
• Matched-guised technique an investigator who
  could speak either Birmingham accent and RP spoke
  to two groups of 17-year-olds about psychology,
  using one accent with one group and the other
  accent with the other group.
• Result The investigator was rated higher in his
  RP in terms of competence, intelligence, and
  industrious.

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Attitude towards Accent ? Politics

• Giles and Ryan (1982) concluded that a certain
  accent can change public opinion and show the
  speakers social class.
• Matched-guised technique Four groups of people
  were asked to listen to a recording about capital
  punishment.
• The first group listened to the argument in RP
• The second group listened to it in South Wales
  accent
• The third in Somerset accent
• The fourth in Birmingham accent.
• Result The RP speaker is considered to have
  higher competency the local accent speaker.
• However, the respondents tend to agree with
  arguments of the local accent speaker.

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Attitude towards Accent ? English Course Business

• Birnei (1998)
• Location Bavaria
• Respondents Business people
• Result Most of the respondents prefer studying
  in an English course which uses British English
  and that of American English.
• Gibb (1999)
• Location Korea
• Respondents Business People and Students
• Result Most of the respondents prefer studying
  in an English course which uses American English
  and that of British English.

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Attitude towards Accent ? Achievement in
Learning a Foreign Language

• Lambert (1968)
• The group of students that have positive attitude
  towards the Foreign Language get better
  achievements.

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Attitudes towards Accent ? Childrens preference

• Rosenthal (1974) Attitudes of children towards
  SE and AAVE.
• Location Florida
• Respondents 136 school children between the ages
  three to six.
• The children saw two identical boxes, with a
  tape-recorder and a present hidden.
• 73 of the children expected a present from the
  voice with SE.

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Language Attitude Research in Indonesia

• Gunarwan (1983) The language attitude of the
  students at the University of Indonesia towards
  Standard and Non-standard Indonesian language.
• Suhardi (1991) The language attitude of the
  students and scholars at the University of
  Indonesia towards Indonesian language, local
  language and foreign language

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• Moeliono (1988) listed six negative attitudes
  which prevent the standardization of Indonesian
  language
• Underestimating the needs of quality standards.
• Neglecting the additions of new vocabulary.
• Appreciating a foreign language.
• Disobeying the grammar rules.
• Not giving any attention towards language
  research and development.
• Using the sentence pattern of a foreign language.