The Study of Language Attitudes
The Study of Language Attitudes
The Study of Language Attitudes
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EIGHTEEN ISSUES
affective than those of HEIGHT and are evaluations of both more affective
than those of INTELLIGENCE?), there is the problem of determining what
are the feelings which underlie such responses.
(2) To what extent can language attitudes be componentialized ? Two
types of factorization may be possible: in terms of the structure of
attitude (e.g., means-end or cognitive-affective-conative components)
and in terms of the object of the attitude. With respect to the latter, the
attitudes of a speech Community towards a language may be favorable
for use in some societal domains but not in others. For example, some
ultraorthodox Jews feel that Hebrew should be reserved for prayer and
for the study of religious texts. The use of Hebrew for secular purposes
is anathema to them. Thus, it would be misleading to assess attitude
towards a language globally or in an uncontextualized fashion or for
one domain alone. Similarly, attitudes of a diglossic speech Community
towards its functionally differentiated language varieties differ globally
but they also differ s a function of social context, with one variety being
favorably viewed for use in one set of contexts and the other variety
being favorably viewed for use in another (Ferguson, 1959a).
(3) Do the features attributed to languages have a characteristic
structure? Ferguson (1959b) has pointed out that most mother-tongue
groups positively value their first language but that the positive features
which they attribute to it may vary from group to group. Thus for example one mother-tongue group may consider its language particularly
well-suited for rhetoric whereas another may consider its mother tongue
particularly well-suited for singing. If languages were rated in terms of
many different characteristics, would the ratings form different factors
and would the same factors be found from language to language?
(4) Ferguson (1959a) also notes that occasionally a speech Community
negatively evaluates its language. This observation raises two related
questions:
(a) For languages which are negatively evaluated by their Speakers,
are the attributes the same (e.g., sloppy, careless, undignified, incorrect,
deviant, unfit for logical thought or serious intellectual expression)?
(b) If a language is negatively evaluated both by its Speakers and by
others, do both groups attribute the same characteristics to it?
(5) What features of a group give its language high prestige? Gumperz
(1958) points out that in India the language varieties spoken by the
ritually highest groups do not necessarily have the highest prestige,
and Nader (1970: 279) suggests that "the prestige factor which may
encourage admiration, borrowing, or emulation in language need not
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Among the students involved in this research are Bryna Bogoch, Elizabeth Nadel,
Phyllis Rosenbaum, Yehudit Rosenbaum, Barbara Schaier, and Jean Vermel.
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to go on a trip with some friends during bis vacation, and the father,
after raising several objections, finally agreed. The other set of conversations was between a teacher and Student (both male) at school. The
Student complained to the teacher about having failed an examination
in which bis answers (but not bis procedures) were correct. The teacher,
after giving bim a lecture on the importance of method, finally agreed
to allow the Student to take a substitute examination. The scripts for
the dialogues were based on role-playing protocols obtained from
Israeli high-school students. Respondents listened to sixteen voices
reciting dates and to eight versions of each of the two dialogues. They
listened to these over a three- day period, with one set of Stimuli (dialogue
or dates) per day. On the fourth day, they listened again to the same set
of Stimuli to which they had reacted on the first day. Inasmuch s the
order of administration was counterbalanced for contextualized and
non-contextualized Stimuli, test-retest reliabilities can be compared for
the two types of measure. The respondents listened to the indirect
attitude Stimuli in individual language laboratory booths, permitting
us to counterbalance the order of presentation of individual voices (for
the dates) and pairs of voices (for the dialogues).
It should be noted that the procedure described makes it possible
to derive separate scores for attitude toward group and attitude toward
language. Thus, for example, attitude towards Americans can be inferred from responses to American-accented guises (in both English and
Hebrew), and attitudes toward English can be inferred from responses
to the English guises (both Americans and Sabras). Similarly, attitude
scores can be derived for Sabras and for Hebrew. Both the context-free
and contextualized measures will yield scores for attitudes toward
English, Hebrew, Americans, and Sabras. Thus, context-free and contextualized scores can be compared for the same referents. In addition,
the contextualized measures will yield scores for attitudes toward fathers,
sons, teachers, and students.
Three types of responses were elicited to the aural Stimuli. Respondents
were asked to rate each voice with respect to each of six attributes,
previously obtained from Israeli high-school students s distinguishing
American immigrants from Sabras, e.g., high Standard of living, religiously observant, etc. Respondents were asked to indicate the extent to which
each voice aroused each of six feelings, e.g., liking, distrust. Finally,
respondents were asked to rate each voice with respect to the probability
that they would act in a given way should they meet the Speaker in each
of six situations previously described. One Situation, for example, is s
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follows: "This person stops you on the street and asks you to help him
find bis way to a place which is nearby but not in the direction you are
going. It is hard to explain how to go there without taking him there
yourself. You are on your way to school and are exactly on time. You
know that if you take him to where he wants to go you may be late.
What is the probability that you will take him to where he wants to go?"
These three types of item were intended to elicit cognitive, affective,
and conative responses respectively. The 'affective' items are notable
for their direct probes of emotional content. Whether these a priori
clusters will emerge by factor analysis is of course one of the issues we
are investigating.
In addition to attempting to obtain cognitive, affective, and conative
measures, we have also obtained means-end attitude scores. However,
the latter have been obtained only with respect to English and Hebrew.
Respondents were asked to rate the personal importance of each of a
number of values or goals. They were then asked to rate the degree to
which each of the following personally facilitate or hinder attainment
of each goal: fluency in spoken Hebrew, fluency in spoken English,
being able to read and write Hebrew fluently, and being able to read
and write English fluently.3
Parallel to the cognitive, affective, and conative scores obtained by
indirect methods are cognitive, affective, and conative scores obtained
by means of conventional direct questionnaires. Respondents were asked
to rate, on the same scales that were employed for the matched-guise
procedure, Sabras and each of the following Immigrant groups: Americans, Frenchmen, Iraqis, and Russians. Respondents were asked to
rate each of these groups separately for males of the same age s the
respondent and for males of the same age s the respondent's parents.
In addition to the attitude scales described thus far, respondents were
given questionnaires designed to elicit directly attitudes towards education, the family, the typical high-school teacher, the respondent's
current English teacher, Sabras, American immigrants (these last two
scales were given in addition to the direct scales on Americans and Sabras
mentioned above with the latter, respondents were asked to rate the
degree of their agreement with sentences describing each group), and
each of six languages: Arabic, English, French, Hebrew, Russian, and
Yiddish. The six-language questionnaire included questions testing
knowledge about each language (e.g., number of Speakers, size of
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Islamic argument might bemore persuasive than a scientific one. Respondents were individually approached. Fach heard one passage in one
language and the other passage in the other. It was made clear to each
respondent that the Speaker of each passage was a Muslim from Jerusalem and that he had recorded both passages. Thus, any difference in the
average response to passages in each language can be attributed to
language and not to the ethnic identity of the Speaker.
Respondents were asked two types of question in order to assess the
two languages' relative effectiveness: direct questions such s whether
or not the respondents agreed with the message and to what extent they
thought the message logical and well-presented, and one indirect question.
The indirect question asked whether or not the respondents thought
that an increased tax should be placed on the commodity in order to
discourage consumption. No differences were found in response to the
direct questions: there was almost unanimous agreement with the
messages' content no matter which language was used. However, the
indirect question elicited a dramatic difference. Twice s many respondents endorsed an increased tax on tobacco when the message was heard
in Hebrew s when it was heard in Arabic, and twice s many respondents
endorsed an increased tax on alcohol when the message was heard in
Arabic s when it was heard in Hebrew. In other words, Hebrew was
more effective than Arabic for an argument based on scientific considerations and Arabic was more effective than Hebrew for an argument
based on traditional considerations, when effectiveness was assessed
indirectly. Work is now in progress to determine the generalizability
of these findings.
SUMMARY
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