A quantitative study of the attitudes of Japanese learners towards varieties of English speech : aspects of the sociolinguistics of English in Japan
Language attitude studies focussing specifically on native speaker perceptions of varieties of English speech have demonstrated consistently that standard varieties tend to be evaluated positively in terms of competence/ status whilst non-standard varieties are generally rated higher in terms of social attractiveness/ solidarity. However, the great majority of studies which have investigated non-native attitudes have tended to measure evaluations of âthe English languageâ, conceptualised as a single entity, thus ignoring the substantial regional and social variation within the language. This is somewhat surprising considering the importance of attitudes towards language variation in the study of second language acquisition and in sociolinguistics. More specifically, there is a dearth of in-depth quantitative attitude research in Japan concentrating specifically on social evaluations of varieties of English, as the limited number of previous studies conducted amongst Japanese learners have either been qualitative in design or too small in scale. Moreover, the findings of these studies have been somewhat inconclusive. The present quantitative study, employing a range of innovative direct and indirect techniques
McKenzie, Robert M.
language attitudes ; sociolinguistics ; English in Japan ; language ideology ; language and identity ; social psychology of language ; World Englishes
A quantitative study of the attitudes of Japanese learners towards varieties of English speech : aspects of the sociolinguistics of English in Japan. Language attitude studies focussing specifically on native speaker perceptions of varieties of English speech have demonstrated consistently that standard varieties tend to be evaluated positively in terms of competence/ status whilst non-standard varieties are generally rated higher in terms of social attractiveness/ solidarity. However, the great majority of studies which have investigated non-native attitudes have tended to measure evaluations of âthe English languageâ, conceptualised as a single entity, thus ignoring the substantial regional and social variation within the language. This is somewhat surprising considering the importance of attitudes towards language variation in the study of second language acquisition and in sociolinguistics. More specifically, there is a dearth of in-depth quantitative attitude research in Japan concentrating specifically on social evaluations of varieties of English, as the limited number of previous studies conducted amongst Japanese learners have either been qualitative in design or too small in scale. Moreover, the findings of these studies have been somewhat inconclusive. The present quantitative study, employing a range of innovative direct and indirect techniques
quantitative_study attitude japanese_learner towards variety_english speech aspect sociolinguistics english japan language_attitude study_focus specifically native_speaker perception variety_english speech demonstrate consistently standard_variety tend evaluate positively term competence status whilst non_standard variety generally rat high term social solidarity org however great majority study_investigate non_native attitude tend measure evaluation english_language conceptualise single entity thus ignore substantial regional social variation_within language somewhat surprising consider importance attitude_towards language variation study second_language_acquisition sociolinguistics specifically dearth depth quantitative attitude japan concentrate specifically social evaluation variety_english limited_number previous_study conduct amongst japanese_learner either qualitative design small_scale moreover finding_study somewhat inconclusive present quantitative_study employ_range innovative direct_indirect technique