Ground for this study

Since the start of language attitude studies in the 1960s, many new techniques, language groups, and factors have been explored. Edwards (1999) claimed that much evidence has been secured regarding the reactions of native speakers of English to various dialects and varieties of English. However there have been only a few studies made on the perception of non-native speakers of different varieties in English (Dalton-Puffer, et al., 1997). It is apparent that even fewer of these studies have been done comparing non-native English varieties with only non-native speakers as listeners and judges. This study aims to fill that gap.

Earlier language attitude studies have shown that there is often a difference in response to speakers of different varieties based on a listener’s stereotypes of the speakers and the social situation of the speakers and the listeners. The perceived Power of a speaker is normally associated with language varieties that have a lot of social power; the perceived Competence of a speaker is linked with that people’s work ethic and assumed education; the perceived Solidarity is connected with those geographically and culturally closest to one’s self. Similarly this leads to the first hypothesis:

Hypothesis 1:There is a difference in attitude to the English accents of speakers of different languages in regard to Power, Competence, and Solidarity.

Hypothesis 2:A listener’s time abroad affects their attitudes towards the English accents of speakers of different languages in regard to Power, Competence, and Solidarity.

Hypothesis 3:A listener’s time abroad affects their ability to identify a speaker as coming from a particular country.

Note: Time abroad. is defined as one month or more spent in a foreign country in contrast with less than one month spent in a foreign country.

Method

These hypotheses have been tested quantitatively on a group of Swedish female high school students using recordings of non-native female speakers together with Likert-based attitude scales and an identification task. The “matched-guise” technique was not used in this study due to lack of feasibility and authenticity. The dependent variable (DV) for the study was the students’ responses on the attitude scales. Attitude scales are indisputably the most popular way to measure attitudes and these particular scales used in this study have been widely used in accent attitude studies before and have therefore been proven both reliable and valid. The independent variables (IV) were the students’ time abroad also called “contact” (contact/no contact) and the speakers of the recordings (9 different nonnative English accents). The experiment was a 2 (contact/no contact) x 9 (speaker ethnicity: nine different European accents) factorial design where both factors were fixed.

There were linguistic variables both phonetic and phonemic, as well as extralinguistic variables, that were uncontrolled and may have affected the results. Such linguistic variables resided primarily within the speakers used and included, for example, the number of mistakes and hesitations. Extralinguistic variables may have included those regarding the speakers or the participants (social, regional, political, religion), group (size, immediacy, influence), and situation (time of day, location). Two additional external factors that may have influenced the results was my own native English speaking before the recordings and during the experiment as well as the speakers’ earlier models, i.e. what variety of English they have been most exposed to during their education. Further factors that were not taken into account are the speakers’ and listeners’ knowledge and familiarity of English as well as their time spent in English-speaking countries.

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